State v. Hallett
Utah Supreme Court
619 P.2d 335 (1980)
After becoming intoxicated, Kelly Hallett (defendant) bent one highway stop sign flat and removed another at an intersection. The next morning, Betty Jean Carley, who did not see the missing stop sign, collided with another car and later died of her injuries. Hallett was charged with manslaughter but convicted of the lesser offense of negligent homicide, and he appealed, arguing insufficient evidence that his actions proximately caused Carley's death.
Whether, in Utah, a defendant may be found guilty of criminal negligence if his act is the proximate cause which, through a natural and foreseeable consequence unbroken by an intervening cause, produces a death that would not otherwise have occurred but for the defendant's conduct.