Frank and Joe are robbing a store. Frank, for some reason, just blows away the clerk. They try to escape but get arrested. Joe had no idea Frank would kill the clerk. Why should Joe get charged with any kind of murder? Or do I have this wrong?
If you participate in a violent felony where a homicide occurs, you can be charged with what’s commonly called felony murder. The getaway driver of a bungled bank robbery is the typical example.
Society has decided that if you decide to commit a felony with someone, you’re responsible for any shit that goes down. Some exceptions apply. In some circumstances that might bring about an unfair result (depending on your perspective). Lots of things in the criminal justice system can be unfair.
Apologies, I shouldn’t have included “fairness” when looking for the answer to a factual question. Thank you for your replies.
It’s a legal concept called Joint Enterprise or Common Purpose. All participants in a crime are responsible. It legally doesn’t matter if Joe didn’t shoot the guy, or didn’t know that Frank was armed.
Someone dying due to violence when committing a crime is not an unforeseeable possibility. Any time you introduce violence, or even just the threat of it, you have to accept that death is one potential outcome, even if you personally didn’t want to go that far. As such, you’re responsible. Don’t like it? Don’t go planning robberies. It’s not that hard.
Interestingly, the accomplice(s) can be charged with the death of a fellow criminal.
A man charged with first-degree murder will not be going to prison. Dustin Stewart was arrested after breaking into a Blanchard home. His accomplice was shot dead by the homeowner, who claimed she was protecting her infant son.
This case grabbed national headlines back in 2012. Stewart was charged since his accomplice died while they were committing the crime. Now two years later, months before Stewart was scheduled to stand trial for murder, he entered into a plea deal allowing him to stay out of prison.
This thread in a nutshell. If you don’t think it’s fair, lobby your congressman or don’t commit crimes. There are lots of laws that lots of folks don’t think are fair (just ask the IRS) but it’s the “society decided” that’s the important part.
How far does this extend? If Frank and Joe only were doing a misdemeanor, not a felony, but while doing so, Frank decides to go on a shooting spree and kill 20 people, is Joe guilty as well for all 20 deaths? Robbery is a felony - so does “misdemeanor death” also apply?
[delete - replied before post was edited]
Just to clarify, American society has reached that conclusion. Other countries have eliminated this type of criminal liability from their criminal laws.
In Canada, felony murder as discussed in this thread is unconstitutional, as a breach of the principles of fundamental justice under s. 7 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
Minnesota recently changed its felony murder law to make it more humane, i.e., not punishing people who truly did not know what they were getting into:
Mainly it’s so those charged can’t engage in finger pointing trying to put the blame on each other, and it’s not incumbent on the state to sort out who did what. If “Law & Order” can be believed, the state can even pursue incompatible theories if defendants are tried separately. At times the law acts like an aggrieved mother who angrily declares that she doesn’t care who started it.
Defendants have been charged and convicted for manslaughter because a bystander died of a heart attack during a robbery.
It doesn’t even have to be murder. If you are, say, committing an armed robbery, and the terrified clerk has a heart attack and dies, then you are responsible for that death because it was the result of the crime you were committing.
In the U.S. you’re dealing with 51 different jurisdictions with 51 different laws. But, for example, Illinoins law specifically states it must be a felony:
(3) he or she, acting alone or with one or more
participants, commits or attempts to commit a forcible felony other than second degree murder, and in the course of or in furtherance of such crime or flight therefrom, he or she or another participant causes the death of a person.
In Illinois, this has been eliminated within the last few years, perhaps swinging too far in the other direction. In the linked article, an armed group of adults and juveniles allegedly attempted to rob a house occupied by another group of juveniles. The girl who was at the door was shot and killed (maybe by someone trying to defend the house, all the details have not been released yet.) Despite deliberately going to the house as an armed group, apparently no one can be charged with the girl’s death due to the way Illinois worded the change that eliminated liability for a death that occured during the commission of a felony. https://news.google.com/articles/CBMipwFodHRwczovL211ZGR5cml2ZXJuZXdzLmNvbS90b3Atc3Rvcmllcy9qb25lcy1mcnVzdHJhdGVkLXRoYXQtZml2ZS1wZW9wbGUtZmFjaW5nLXJvYmJlcnktY2hhcmdlcy1pbi10ZWVucy1kZWF0aC1jYW50LWJlLWNoYXJnZWQtd2l0aC1maXJzdC1kZWdyZWUtbXVyZGVyLzIwMjMxMTIwMTUxOTM5L9IBAA?hl=en-US&gl=US&ceid=US%3Aen
It typically must be a felony. And often only certain felonies and under certain circumstances. Something that I don’t think has been mentioned is that felony murder is not only applicable when someone else has actually committed the murder. It also applies if , for example, I set a building on fire and unknown to me, someone was in it and that person dies. And that’s why it doesn’t apply to certain crimes - for example, let’s say I commit assault and battery intending to cause serious injury physical injury - and the person dies. Society doesn’t want me charged and convicted of involuntary manslaughter if my actions actually constitute voluntary manslaughter or second degree murder.
Not to push this to GD, but based on my reading of the update to the felony murder rule, my assumption is that the 16 year old was NOT shot by one of the robbers (and may have been one of the robbers?). Basically, the change to the law removed the felony murder charge when the death is caused by a third party. If a group is committing a felony and one of them directly causes a death, felony murder still applies.
There are several threads on this topic. Here’s the freshest two:
This felony murder thread is occasioned by a fictional story, but the comments are factual
And a few posts starting here:
It basically says right in the article that she wasn’t shot by a participant in the robbery. She probably wasn’t one of the robbers because if she was, I don’t think the prosecutor would have been as frustrated.
“The person who causes the death has to be a participant in the felony,” Jones explained. “If somebody’s committing an armed robbery, and the victim of the armed robbery shoots back and kills someone … three years ago, a person who caused (another) person to shoot by committing the armed robbery would be responsible for the death morally and legally because their actions caused the homicide.