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Committee reviews draft to expand aggravated vehicular homicide to include eluding, handheld texting and driving on revoked licenses
Summary
Legislative staff briefed the Joint Judiciary Committee on draft 27 LSO 47 to add fleeing/eluding, handheld texting and driving with a suspended license as aggravators to aggravated homicide by vehicle and to permit prior reckless convictions to enhance to felony treatment; members flagged the need to clarify device and mental-state language.
Legislative Services Office staff presented draft 27 LSO 47, which would add three qualifying offenses to the aggravated homicide-by-vehicle statute and insert definitions for mental states used in homicide cases. "This bill draft would add additional qualifying actions that would constitute the offense of aggravated homicide by vehicle," Mister Fuller told the committee as he walked through the bill's pages and the staff comments noting potential drafting issues. The draft would add 31 5 2 25 (fleeing/eluding), 31 5 2 37 (use of handheld wireless devices for electronic messaging) and 31 7 1 34 (driving with a canceled, suspended, invalid or revoked license) as aggravators and would be effective 07/01/2027.
Committee members pressed staff on how the current distracted-driving statute reads and whether it captures modern devices and video applications. Senator Coburn and others asked whether the statute's limitation to “writing, sending, or reading a text-based communication” would cover video calls, in-dash systems, or wearables. Mister Fuller cautioned the committee that the statute, as written, is limited to text-based messaging and that the statutory term "handheld electronic wireless communication device" is not itself defined to cover every modern technology. The staff memo also flagged that adding a prior reckless-driving conviction as an automatic enhancement could, as drafted, reach cases that lack criminal negligence or recklessness unless a temporal window or additional mental-state language is added.
The committee did not take a formal vote but the chair said the most prudent next step is to advance the draft to a subsequent meeting to allow members and stakeholders to propose targeted amendments, including clarifying the device definition and considering whether to add a look-back period for prior convictions. The draft and related files were placed on the committee's follow-up agenda with instructions to refine the statutory language.
