Good Samaritan Laws

Driving across the country, two twenty-something grad students were blindsided by a drunk driver. He crossed over four lanes and collided head on with their ‘97 Buick. Multiple cars stopped, as the highway was now blocked, but no one came to their assistance until the ambulance arrived some time later. While morally questionable, should the failure of the onlookers to be Good Samaritans and attempt to aid if it was possible, or at the very least to pick up the phone and call for assistance, be declared a criminal offense? Although at first glance, requiring individuals to aid their fellow man if possible appears moral, ultimately such laws would not serve a greater purpose or effectuate change.

How They Work

Within the criminal legal system, Good Samaritan laws require that a person come to the aid of another who is exposed to imminent physical danger, even if there is no special relationship between the victim and the rescuer, if there is no danger of injury to the rescuer. While common in European countries, Good Samaritan statutes that carry criminal penalties and create an affirmative duty to act, rather than simply absolve a volunteer of liability for their attempted rescue, have only been enacted in a handful of states in America.

There are three basic models of criminal Good Samaritan laws. States may enact expansive statutes that impose a duty to aid in the face of accident, “Acts of God” and acts of criminal third parties, a more limited statute requiring a bystander only to report a felony in progress and a victim in need of assistance, or the narrowest model requiring only that a bystander report specific types of crimes that they witness or know of, predominately sexual assaults.

In Justification of Good Samaritan Laws

The criminal law system should, to a large degree, reflect the values of society. In order to have substantive effect, the system should punish what society considers anti-social behavior and encourage socially positive behavior. To not aid another, whether it is out of selfishness, fear, or hurry, would normally be considered anti-social behavior that detracts from society as a whole.

Good Samaritan laws may act as a clear community expression that cultivates an expectation of intervention, and a community ethos of responsibility for your fellow man. However, laws that are largely symbolic, that do not actually affect how people behave in society, and which may ultimately cause more harm than good, should not be enacted.

Why they are Just Not Worth It

People who are inclined to help others, true good Samaritans, will continue to do so regardless of whether there is legislation compelling them to act. “Bad” Samaritans, those who would ignore a victim without offering aid, either out of fear, insensitivity to others, or a connection to the criminal perpetrating the act, will continue to do so regardless of whether their failure to affirmatively act has been legislated to be a minor misdemeanor. Good Samaritan Laws may also discourage those passive witnesses who originally chose to stay out of the situation from coming forward later with information out of fear of implicating themselves, while simultaneously providing leverage for the police to intimidate those within the vicinity of a crime into coming forward with information.

From a purely practical standpoint, it would be difficult for prosecutors to enforce Good Samaritan laws without incurring high costs, which may explain why they are so rarely enforced. In many instances a prosecutor would have to find, and then prove, that a bystander who had already left the scene actually witnessed the victim’s plight, recognized the danger, and chose to violate their duty to assist. Further, individuals present at the scene of a crime will often be terrified and therefore have a legitimate defense that they did not think that they could act without putting themselves or loved ones in danger.

There will be times, in the case of accidents in particular, when Good Samaritan laws may cause more harm to a victim in need than good. If citizens with no training in CPR or medical rescue believe that they will be punished for not assisting a victim in imminent need if they can do so without risk of personal harm, they may blindly rush into a situation that they have no preparation for or practice in handling. The victim might very well sue in civil court for the further harm that was recklessly caused by his or her “rescuer”, but the damage will have already been inflicted.

America is a country built on the idea of individual freedom and liberty. Good Samaritan laws can therefore be perceived as “forced altruism,” or as unwarranted state intervention into what should be a personal choice. While we do not have a right to act without awareness of the consequences of our actions, do we have a duty to be alert to our fellow man at all times? Or rather, are we free to shut down our alertness and is that freedom compromised by the risk of being help criminally liable if we fail to come to the assistance of someone in need.

Conclusion

To create a duty to assist and implement criminal sanctions against those who fail to uphold this duty, appears facially to be both correct and moral. Assuming that people follow the law as written, one could conclude that it would improve social welfare and remedy the dual problems that good will does not always come from within and that people may not always act in the best interest of society as a whole. Good Samaritan laws in actuality would probably have very little effect on how people acted, if not have a negative effect. While it is true that societies are more than just a collection of individuals, the enactment of broad duties to render aid which carry criminal sentences cannot be justified simply from their ability to act as moral symbols; it must come from their power to affect behavior is some positive way.

-- SuzanneSciarra - 16 Apr 2010