Motivation why Vlad Pascu was not judged for qualified murder. “The typical case of a road accident” / in Iasi, a driver who killed four workers was sentenced to 24 years old

The Constanta Court of Appeal rejected the request to change the legal classification, from the guilty murder to a qualified murder – as the parents of the victims asked, on the grounds that Vlad Pascu did not act with the intention to kill, writes in the reasoning of the sentence, consulted by Hotnews. The judges detained the testimonies of Pascu's close friends, who “reveal the defendant's confidence in their own forces regarding the driving of the car. Today, Vlad Pascu was definitively sentenced to ten years in prison, following the accident on May 2, in which two young people died.

• Another fatal accident, resulting in four victims, produced in Iași county by a woman under the influence of alcohol, 3 years ago he was classified with a qualified murder, respectively attempted murder.
• The judges of Iasi considered that by climbing the steering wheel and under the influence of alcohol, the woman provided the result of her behavior and accepted, even if not followed. On June 19, she was definitively sentenced to 24 years in prison.

Throughout the trial, the parents of the victims of the accident from May 2, caused by Vlad Pascu, asked the judges that his facts be classified in the crime of qualified murder, where the maximum punishment is life imprisonment, respectively attempted murder.

Vlad Pascu was charged for guilty murder, where the maximum punishment is 10 years, when the deed is committed by a person under the influence of alcohol or drugs.

Both at the Mangalia District Court and at the Constanta Court of Appeal, the magistrates opposed the requests from the parents of the victims.

How the Court of Appeal motivated the decision

“The Court notes that the existence of or not of the intention to kill must be proved in concrete. Being a psycho-volitist process that takes place in the perpetrator's consciousness, the form of guilt can be proved only by examining the external manifestations of the defendant, who precede, accompany or succeed the deed, having the fact, which characterizes the fact, the fact that of execution, the way of committing, the instruments used, the circumstances of time and place where the deed was committed, etc. ”, stresses the magistrates of the Constanta Court of Appeal in motivating the sentence given on Thursday, August 21.

In the decision, the judges of the Constanta Court of Appeal explain the legal mechanism of the crime: in terms of the form of guilt, the crime of murder is characterized by intention, which can be direct when the perpetrator follows, wants to produce the death of the victim, or indirectly, when providing the possibility of producing this result, of the risk of its production and to take this risk.

“It was not shown that he would have acted with the intention to kill”

In the case of Vlad Pascu, the magistrates did not identify any intention to kill: neither direct nor indirect.

“The Court finds that, under the conditions of the evidence administered, it was not being able to prove that the defendant Pascu Matei Vlad would have acted with the intention to kill, the judge of the fund, correctly, in relation to the state of fact retained, finding that the defendant is guilty exclusively by the offenses of murder, respectively the court. We find in the typical case of a road accident ”, which resulted in the death of two persons, respectively the bodily injury of the other three, due to the exclusive fault of the driver.

“The present event/road accident had, in itself, fortuitous, unpredictable, but not will, as the appellants support the civil parties. In this sense, the defendant's action was on the car, acting the system of speeding over the legal limit, with the consequence of exit from the road, on the land, by violating the object, the objective, the Subjectively, offenses of murder, respectively bodily injury, ”the magistrates explained in the reasoning of the decision.

Pascu's confidence in driving with a “very loud” car, validated by judges

In order to emphasize the lack of indirect intention, the judges invoked the statements of the heard witnesses, the close ones of Vlad Pascu, who invoked “the confidence of the defendant in their own forces regarding the driving of the car”.

“He told us that he was a good driver and we have no worry, asked to get in the car again and trust him, that he would drive more prudently, and they accepted. The fact that the defendant, along the evening, praised and invited more people to walk with his car, but also to the car, I do not prove that the defendant accepted, at any time, the possibility of producing some of the most tragic ”, the magistrates of the Court also detained.

The criticisms regarding the punishment of 10 years, “unfounded”

The court of appeal concludes that “the version promoted by the defenders of the civil parties – the classification of the crime in murder no – would be possible only in the situation in which the car would have been or accepted to have been used as a means for the purpose of suppressing/injuring the life of the victims, which, obviously, is not an incident in question.”

The increase of the punishment, required by both the victims who survived, by the families of the deceased young people, as well as the prosecutors was not accepted by the magistrates of the Constanta Court of Appeal, who appreciated the criticisms regarding the 10 -year sentence as unfounded.

“The Court considers that it is not necessary for the defendant to be applied a different punishment from the one to which the judge of the fund stopped nor for this crime, as long as this is equivalent to the middle of the interval provided by law,” concluded the judges of the Constanta Court of Appeal.

Another case, another classification

Another road tragedy, produced in the summer of 2022 on a street in Iasi, was investigated and solved diametrically opposite to the case of May 2.

On June 17, 2022, a woman from Iași who had been drunk at the wheel, against the background of excessive speed, entered a car in a group of seven workers of the sanitation company in the city.

Four of them died, and 3 others were injured. After the accident, the 38 -year -old woman fled from the scene, as Vlad Pascu proceeded.

After resolving the investigation, the prosecutors decided to send it to the court for murder, attempted murder, leaving the accident and driving under the influence of alcohol. Both the judges of the Iași Court and those from the Iași Court of Appeal have learned their legal classification, although during the trial, the woman's lawyers demanded the assignment to the guilty murder, setting the accident from May 2.

On June 19, this year, the Iași Court of Appeal has definitely decided to sentence the woman to 24 years in prison. In the reasoning of the decision, the judges of Iasi emphasized the indirect intention, showing that the woman “foreseen the result of her behavior and accepted, even if not followed.”

The Constanta Court of Appeal was convicted on Thursday, August 21, to ten years in prison Vlad Pascu. The sentence is final and was pronounced at 2 years and 2 days after the accident on May 2, where Pascu, under the influence of drugs, hit a group of young people, and two died.