SALT LAKE CITY — Committee members gave a favorable recommendation to a bill that would require someone with personal knowledge of a crime or an emergency that led to serious bodily injury to call 911.
Members of the House Judiciary Committee considered HB104 on Wednesday afternoon, ultimately voting to send it on 8-3.
The bill could make an individual who failed to contact emergency services in the wake of a crime or other emergency subject to a class B misdemeanor. It would also amend the Good Samaritan Act to include a provision providing immunity against liability for someone who contacts emergency services.
Bill sponsor House Minority Leader Brian King, D-Salt Lake City, said the legislation is an improvement on the iteration he’s attempted to pass in the past two sessions. Under this year’s bill, King added the word “willfully” to the text, which he said is an important distinction as it requires an enforcement standard higher than reckless disregard for the safety of others.
“It calls for a prosecutor to prove something beyond indifference and utter disregard for the consequences of an action,” King said. “Willful behavior that is headless of the safety and welfare of people in obvious need of assistance based on the personal knowledge of the actor is the kind of callous disregard that this bill is trying to get at.”
This makes it a narrow bill, but there are circumstances in which it would still apply and help protect vulnerable people in an emergency from the “callous disregard” of others, King said.
As an example, he showed a video from 2018 in which a group of teenagers filmed a man drowning in Florida. The teenagers did not contact emergency services or attempt to provide aid despite their ability to do so.
King also clarified that the bill requires an individual to undertake a “reasonable effort” to contact emergency services. It wouldn’t apply to individuals who failed to act because their own or another’s well-being was at risk, nor would a person be guilty if they had “reasonable belief” that emergency services had already been notified.
“I’m trying to put in place a really high bar before a prosecutor could charge anybody for this crime,” he said, expressing his willingness to continue working with others to tighten the language if need be.
Similar legislation failed last year in a House vote 26-44 after lawmakers cited concerns that the bill took too big of a leap in criminalizing inaction.
Connor Boyack, Libertas Institute president, echoed that concern to the Deseret News Wednesday afternoon. The institute has opposed the bill each year it has been proposed.
“Our feeling is that this bill, while definitely well-intentioned, unfortunately, takes things in the wrong direction because it’s creating a new crime and punishing activities not inherently malicious or criminal,” Boyack said.
He said that while nobody wants to see someone choosing not to contact emergency services when an individual needs aid, failing to act does not rise to a criminal level — especially given the additional mitigating factors as to why that person didn’t or couldn’t provide aid.
“For us it’s still a question of whether it’s appropriate for the government to criminally punish that person. Let them be shamed in the public square or have all sorts of social pressure be brought to bear for their inaction and so forth, but is it right to then go lock that person up in jail?” Boyack said. “We just don’t feel it rises to that level.”
Utah law already includes requirements to report child abuse and elder abuse. King touched on these during his presentation to the committee, clarifying that these laws create an obligation to render aid when an individual has knowledge or reason to suspect abuse.
Amos Guiora, a University of Utah law professor who wrote an op-ed in the Deseret News regarding last year’s version of the bill, spoke in favor of the legislation during Wednesday’s meeting.
He cited several situations in which an individual or a group of individuals witnessed a crime or a serious injury of another that occurred and failed to act. Many resulted in the victim’s death.
“I am the only child of two holocaust survivors whose suffering was exacerbated by bystander inaction. My mother was in hiding in Budapest. My father survived two death marches. In both cases bystanders saw my parents suffering and turned their backs both literally and figuratively,” Guiora said. “Rep. King’s legislation, from the victim’s perspective, seeks to save the entire world of the victim.”