Still, rather than include those critical details about those two cases, he left them as an afterthought.
Did the Guardian include either fact in their story?
So, you mean rather than work from the OP and other messages posted here- plus the links provided, we have to fully research anything before commenting? I doubt that. I notice two posters here who didnt research and find out that infor before posting.
Yes, it is- IF you- as the OP - are going to use two apparently horrible examples of a travesty of justice- without informing us that in both of those two cases- justice eventually prevailed.
If you want to show that a law is bad, normally examples are given- and both your examples turned out not to show that at all.
Not to mention, many nations would convict most of those convicted in the USA of felony murder would be convicted of being an accessory to murder with the same sentence.
And wait- you mean you watched the episode, and thus knew that those two ‘travesties of justice” had been fixed by a commutation and an Appeal which overturned the sentence- yet you chose to use those two examples without mentioning those critical facts?
Note that three US states have no such law, and several- California, Delaware, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Mexico, North Dakota, and Vermont- which require a defendant to be one of the major participants in the crime and also act with reckless indifference to human life to be convicted of felony murder. So that is ten states which have either gotten rid of or modified the law.
Wrong. As previously described. That this is wrong was the whole damn point of Oliver’s report on the issue. Your insistence that other countries are just the same doesn’t change the facts. Other countries abandoned this travesty of justice decades ago, if they ever had it in the first place.
So do all felonies in the US carry a life sentence, like murder does? Or do different felonies carry different penalties, tied to the mental state of the accused.
This is starting to sound like felonies at common law in England, that all carried a death sentence, because they’re felonies.
To be convicted of a murder related offence, you have to have the mens rea that covers murder. Driving a guy in a stolen car without any idea that the guy will commit a murder at the destination is not sufficient for an accessory conviction, or for a party to the offence conviction.
Plus, accessory after the fact to murder gets a lighter sentence than murder; a maximum of life, but no minimum, and no automatic restriction on parole, unlike 1st and 2nd degree murder, where there is no eligibility for parole for 25 years (1st) or between 10 and 25 (2nd). The offence of after the fact accessory recognises that it’s not the same as murder, and the sentence is lighter accordingly.
The Wikipedia article is incorrect, at least for Canada. Castle Doctrine in Canada is cited by the SCC in cases involving searches of private property by state agents; that’s how the quotation from Pitt that I gave earlier applies.
The Supreme Court does not use the concept of Castle doctrine in its analysis of the Criminal Code provisions relating to self-defence.
Well, if you’re not just commenting specifically on the posts and links directly available here, but instead are voluntarily extrapolating from them to jump to a conclusion about the broader context of that material…
…then yup, it is indeed on you to research that broader context, so that you know what you’re talking about when you make that claim. (But only if you don’t want to risk looking silly by being wrong about the conclusion you jumped to, of course. Free country and all that.)
Nope, just the ones that result in death. Which is really something that should give you pause before you commit a felony that could result in someone being killed.
I agree that the felony murder method is inferior to charging people with accessory to murder or a similar charge. But I also think that the core idea - that if you choose to participate in a felony and this results in someone’s death then you should face more serious charges even if you weren’t directly responsible for the killing - is solid.
It would if it were true. But while other countries don’t have a felony murder rule, they most certainly DO charge people in situations like “the getaway driver who says he didn’t know the robber had a real gun” with accessory to murder, which as I said above was my preferred solution.
For example, Oliver’s home country has “Unlawful Act” or “Constructive” Manslaughter, which carries a maximum sentence of life in prison.
But as I also said above, the requirements for conviction, and the burden of proof thereof, are much higher than for the “felony murder” laws in US states which, in fact, are explicitly endorsed by self-described “crime-fighting” conservatives precisely because they make convictions so much easier.
I agree. That would be why I said that I support the core idea of charging someone more harshly if their felony resulted in death but that I preferred other models of accomplishing this.
The UK’s model is a subtype of involuntary manslaughter with a maximum penalty of life in prison. So unless you think that the UK isn’t “civilized”, you’re incorrect when you say that
International and foreign laws and practices can help to shape U.S. laws. A global perspective on the “evolving standards of decency that mark the progress of a maturing society” has at times informed understandings of the Eighth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, which bars cruel and unusual punishment and calls for proportionality in sentencing. Global trends reveal that U.S. felony murder laws are anomalous and that the extreme sentences that they often impose are cruel and unusual.
Foreign jurisdictions increasingly recognize felony murder laws as violating the fundamental principles of justice and of proportionality. The United Kingdom, where the felony murder rule originated and subsequently spread to other Commonwealth countries and the United States, abolished felony murder starting as early as 1957. Other countries followed suit in the 1960s, including the Republic of Ireland, Antigua and Barbuda, Barbados, and Tuvalu. In 1990, the Canadian Supreme Court also eliminated felony murder, underscoring “the principle of fundamental justice that subjective foresight of death is required before a conviction for murder can be sustained,” which, in the Court’s opinion, is necessary to “maintain a proportionality between the stigma and punishment attached to a murder conviction and the moral blameworthiness of the offender.”
In Canada, a person is only guilty of being a party to a murder if they had the mens rea to commit murder, namely a subjective intention / foresight to kill. If they were participating in an unlawful act, such as a robbery, without knowing that the other person intended to kill, they may be guilty of manslaughter, but not murder.
So no, the driver of a car who didn’t know that the robber had a real gun, would not be guilty of murder.
If the Crown does not prove beyond a reasonable doubt that they had the requisite mens rea, it’s manslaughter.
I’m not in a position to say how other countries would deal with this issue, so I can’t share your confident assertion that most other countries would charge with accessory to murder.
Just pointing to the maximum sentence does not establish that the law in England & Wales treats manslaughter the same as murder. The two sentencing regimes recognise different moral culpability between murder and manslaughter.
In England & Wales, there is a clear distinction in sentence between manslaughter and murder. Both carry a maximum life sentence, but murder carries a minimum time of imprisonment before the accused can be considered for parole (commonly called the tariff; usually a minimum range of 15 to 30 years, but can be whole life).
Although life is the maximum sentence for manslaughter, there is no minimum sentence. An accused could get imprisonment, a suspended sentence, or a community sentence.
Also, there is no uniform criminal law in the UK. Scotland and Northern Ireland have their own criminal law. The info I’ve given is the law in England & Wales.
And the maximum penalty for manslaughter in Canada is… Life in prison.
Cool. Good thing I didn’t say anything about wanting people in that situation to be charged with murder specifically:
Burglary plus Manslaughter is a harsher charge than Burglary alone, so sounds like Canada is doing exactly what I said I supported.
no, but they would charge you with Manslaughter, which is perfectly aligned with my suggestion.
Another option would be Reckless Endangerment or a similar charge.
What on Earth are you talking about? I agree, England treats murder and manslaughter differently. What is your point? I never said murder and manslaughter were identical.
What I said, for the third time now, is that I agree with the core idea of charging someone more harshly if while committing a felony the actions they take part in end up causing the death of someone, whether an innocent or a member of their felony committing party - even if they aren’t directly responsible for the death.
And by the way England has the principle of “Joint Criminal Enterprise” which is very similar to Felony Murder except that it does require that the death be “foreseeable” which the US law does not require.
To me, the point was that the law was intended to protect victims (the homeowner in this case) but was used in court to actually convict the dead teen’s fellow criminals. The “justice” system (note the air quotes) twisted the law to its own purpose.