See if you can follow the legal reasoning on this one:
ALBANY, N.Y. (AP) -- Three people convicted of murder in deadly crashes urged New York's highest court Tuesday to throw out their convictions, arguing they were too intoxicated to know the threat they posed to others.
The murder convictions of Martin Heidgen, Taliyah Taylor and Franklin McPherson all hinge on the prosecution's contention they acted with "depraved indifference to human life" in fatal crashes that share a number of common threads: driving too fast in the wrong lane while under the influence.
Defense attorneys argued prosecutors failed to prove their clients acted with depraved indifference and, in fact, their clients were too impaired to know what they were doing.
Ah, the old "I was so damn irresponsible I can't be held accountable" defense. I saw a storyline like this once on a "Law and Order" episode and remember shouting at the TV screen over the implausibility of it. Just goes to show, huh?
The answer to that defense, of course, is that a reasonable person knows drinking will impair him and more drinking will impair him more. Even if he gets to the point where he "doesn't know what he's doing," he should have known he would get there, which is the "depraved" part.
