## Facts

- William Marshall owned an automobile.
- Marshall gave his car keys to a friend, Neal McClary, knowing McClary was intoxicated.
- McClary drove the car alone; Marshall did not accompany him.
- McClary drove the wrong way on a highway and collided head-on with another vehicle, killing both McClary and the other driver.
- At the time of the collision, Marshall was at home asleep.
- Marshall was prosecuted for involuntary manslaughter and for a statutory offense of knowingly permitting an intoxicated person to drive his vehicle.
- Marshall was convicted at trial of both offenses.

## Issues

1. Whether a vehicle owner who knowingly gives keys to an intoxicated person, who then drives alone and causes a fatal collision, may be convicted of involuntary manslaughter as an aider and abettor.
2. Whether the owner’s conduct amounts to sufficient complicity in the driving to support common-law involuntary manslaughter rather than only the specific statutory offense.

## Decision

- The court affirmed rejection of the involuntary manslaughter conviction.
- The court held the evidence did not establish the required complicity for aiding and abetting involuntary manslaughter because Marshall did not act jointly with the driver and did not participate in the actual driving.
- The court left intact Marshall’s conviction for the statutory offense of knowingly permitting an intoxicated person to drive his vehicle.

## Legal Principles

- Accomplice liability for involuntary manslaughter requires complicity in the wrongful conduct causing death; prior permission or facilitation, without joint participation in the criminal act, is insufficient.
- A defendant’s temporal and spatial separation from the fatal act may support a finding that the defendant did not aid and abet the offense.
- When the legislature has created a specific offense covering the defendant’s conduct (knowingly permitting an intoxicated person to drive), courts will not treat that conduct as involuntary manslaughter absent a legal basis establishing the homicide elements.
- Any expansion of homicide liability to reach remote facilitators is for the legislature rather than judicial enlargement of common-law manslaughter.

## Conclusion

The court held that knowingly lending a car to an intoxicated driver who later kills someone while driving alone does not, without joint participation in the driving, support involuntary manslaughter liability on an aiding-and-abetting theory; the owner’s criminal liability is limited to the applicable statutory offense.


People v. Marshall, 362 Mich. 170, 106 N.W.2d 842 (Mich. 1961)