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You aren't culpable today. You are culpable when the people die. You can't be charged for negligence causing death if those deaths haven't happened yet.

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You definitely can. If you catch me poisoning your water and the water has been poisoned I will most certainly be charged with attempt to commit manslaughter. I wouldn't even need to actually have poisoned the water.

Which is criminal- and codified via legislation. You can not, however, file a civil wrongful death case, or similar, until the person is actually injured/killed.

Common law courts of equity require the damages/injury (for which you sue to seek equity) to be real and committed, not hypothetical or likely.

Attempted crimes aren't the most theoretically coherent part of the law. But they're better than you're making them out to be; you can't be guilty of "attempt to commit manslaughter" by virtue of your negligence.

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