Anyway, the hypothetical homeowner in the middle of the night is more likely to shoot the hypothetical teenaged daughter thinking the noise and the shadowy person might be an attacker, than to shoot an attacker. IME most people are not at their best, thinking and discerning most clearly, when woken up in the middle of the night.
Not to digress, but this is one of many, many reasons why a gun in the home is so dangerous, and likely to do more harm than good, and in a very bad way. In most countries, a homeowner shooting and killing an intruder is quite likely to end up in jail (as in the previously cited case of Tony Martin in the UK) and that’s not even the worse thing that can happen.
That’s why the story of the group of teen burglars facing felony murder charges after the homeowner shot and killed one of them set me off so strongly: it’s the intersection of a dangerously stupid gun culture with its overly permissive castle doctrine and an unbelievably stupid and archaic “felony murder” law.
Lots of things that end up leading to a death are not in fact murder. To arbitrarily make up a “murder” interpretation concerning a death where nobody involved either intended or committed murder, just so we can declare that surprise! this accomplice to a felony is now also officially a murderer, even though nobody got murdered!, is monstrously unjust.
Yeah. It’s one thing to argue that the homeowner should suffer no consequences for killing the burglar, because felonious home invasion and rational fear for life and so on. (I personally would want to see the specific circumstances scrutinized pretty carefully in court before I gave the homeowner a free pass for killing somebody, even a burglar. But I don’t think it’s necessarily unjust to decide that that free pass is merited on the homeowner’s part. If he took reasonable measures in self-defense then by definition he didn’t commit murder, so he’s in the clear.)
But saying that the dead burglar’s accomplices are somehow responsible for murdering him, even though they didn’t lay a finger on him or intend his death, and even though the court has explicitly found that he was not in fact murdered, but rather killed in self-defense? That’s some bullshit.
Yes, “Felony Murder” is but as i cited before, being an accessory to murder can get you a life sentence, even in Canada.
If no burglary, no death, right? And no, your second part is incorrect- it has to be a Felony and lead to a death.
Even in Canada, simply being an accessory to a murder can mean a life sentence- and that is true in many other nations. It is true, that in this case, the “felony murder” rule seems strained., but have we seen a link to the case? After we got a link to the Holle case, we saw that Oliver had left out several very important facts. so lets see-
The Indiana Supreme Court threw out the felony murder convictions of inmates connected to the Elkhart Four, a group of four young men who gained international attention after they were convicted for the shooting death of their friend even though none of them pulled the trigger.
So, the Courts agreed that in this one case- felony murder was an incorrect conviction, So, justice was served.- While the state’s highest court overturned the felony murder convictions, the justices ruled that they’re guilty of burglary, a Class B felony punishable by six to 20 years in prison.
So again Oliver left out a VITAL detail- their felony murder convictions were thrown out by the courts, leaving them with a felony burglary sentence.
However, in most cases of felony murder it goes like this- two perps commit a robbery- one perp kills an innocent victim. The other perp, even though he didnt kill anyone, still went along with the felony. And in Canada, even though they have no “Felony murder” laws, the second perp would clearly be an accessory, and get a Life sentence- not for “felony murder” but for being an accessory to a murder.
And this is my issue with Oliver- he lies by omission a LOT.
You’ve said this three times in this one post, and probably at least twice more before, making about five times in all. There is no such actual charge as “accessory to murder”, but there are two potential related charges. One is being a party to a criminal offense, defined as “aiding or abetting” the offense. The other is “accessory after the fact”, meaning providing aid and comfort to the offender after the fact, or helping them to escape, with full knowledge of the crime they had committed.
For both offenses, the burden of proof required to convict is very high, and the link to the crime and original offender must be very strong. Section 7 is still very much operative in protecting the rights of the accused. It’s not even remotely the same as the outrageous “felony murder” laws.
I’ve never thought of John Oliver as a shameless liar. Funny that you should have that perspective.
240 Every one who is an accessory after the fact to murder is guilty of an indictable offence and liable to imprisonment for life.
Yes, that is called accessory after the fact to murder but you left out the last two words.
A lie by omission is not quite the same as ‘shameless liar”.
and shame on the Guardian too- by 10 Nov 25 they should have investigated Oliver’s claims a bit- I mean a few minutes googling got us the true facts in both cases. They didnt need Woodward and Bernstein for that. The fact that the young hen who were originally convicted of “felony murder” got that conviction overturned by 2015, a couple years after- ten years ago, hardly “hot off the presses". Oliver just ignored those facts to get people riled up.
Yeah, “felony murder” is a travesty of justice. Accessory to murder (when a murder actually happens) is a perfectly fine charge. Feeling murder is just a way to be tough on crime or something.
No not at all. the accomplices in the burglary made no difference at all. If they hadn’t taken part the guy still gets shot, whether there was one burglar or twenty makes no difference. The only decision to burgle that led to death was the guy who got shot
Sure, but that involves, as @wolfpup pointed out, knowingly contributing to the commission of murder itself, either during or after it. Yes, of course people can and should be punished for that. And we’ve got laws against knowingly contributing to the commission of murder, which provide for such punishment. We don’t need an arbitrary draconian rule that says “felony + death automatically = murder, even if there wasn’t even a murder in the first place.”
No he didn’t: you did. Read the post you’re replying to there, which describes the two specific charges that apply to what you imprecisely called “being an accessory to murder”.
Dude, it is perfectly reasonable to get “riled up” about the fact that a legally constituted court convicted people on a charge of felony murder in a situation where nobody got murdered at all, even if an appeals court later overturned those convictions. FFS.
And I notice you don’t have jack-shit to say about another case described by Oliver in that segment, where Lakeith Smith (aged 15) was convicted of felony murder in 2015 after joining some other teens in burglarizing houses, during which one of the other burglars was killed by a policeman during an exchange of gunfire.
Once again, nobody in this situation was murdered at all: the cop who killed the other burglar was rightly cleared of blame. Lakeith Smith himself certainly didn’t kill anybody, or shoot at anybody, or even have a gun. Nor did he knowingly aid and abet anybody else in the commission of a murder, either before or after the fact. There was no murder, and the fact that Smith’s felonious involvement with a situation where a death occurred is punished as if it were the commission of an actual murder is simply bullshit.
(Lakeith Smith, AFAICT, at present has been serving time for this felony murder charge for nearly ten years, though he’s appealing to get the conviction overturned, as happened for the other burglars whose fellow burglar got killed in a non-murder. Are you going to tell us it’s NBD if another person convicted of felony murder for a non-murder situation ends up in jail for a decade or more, as long as he can manage to get an appeals court to overturn his conviction eventually, maybe sometime in the future?)
What “true facts”? The true facts are that, as outlined on the show, a great many people have been convicted under this egregiously insane law. Some have had their sentences reduced on appeal, some have not, but this idiotic law is still on the books, and as such, will be used again in the future. That’s the true fact of the matter that both Oliver and The Guardian are citing. The Indiana Supreme Court did nothing either to alter previous convictions, or to do anything to affect future travesties of justice enabled by the “felony murder” law.
Just a minor point, I think we’re agreeing more than disagreeing though - because I’m not saying he wasn’t more involved than the initial site in the OP would indicate, and that a jury would have more information than I do of course.
But.
If the prosecution reads out what the “felony murder” law is for that state, and proves that it applies in this case if only tenuously, that’s all the jury needs to convict. I was arguing mostly that the sentence for the crime is disproportionally harsh for the degree of involvement. Thus my mention of an approval for a cap on sentences for a crime that applies a heavy sentence for such things.
Everyone can and likely will differ on what it should be, and of course, as mentioned upthread, it differs dramatically from state to state.
I think some of the disconnect is (and apologies in advance to all for my poor legal knowledge) that because of the very punitive punishments and comparative ease of establishing a causal link in felony murder that it’s subject to abuse.
While if said defendants were being charged as an accessory to murder it would be a much tougher case to prove beyond a reasonable doubt.
Hope that makes it more clear to all.
Okay, it is actually hilarious what you inadvertently missed here when you went off on your “John Oliver lied by omission by not acknowledging that the Elkhart Four got their convictions overturned” rant:
Namely, in that very same segment, John Oliver did in fact explicitly point out that some people convicted on felony murder charges, including the Elkhart Four, later had that conviction overturned. (See, for example, this clip of the segment at 19:34.)
Oh yes, do please tell us more about the crucial importance of finding out basic information with a simple and easy fact-check before flying off the handle complaining about an erroneous and misleading view of the situation. 
It’s not “subject to abuse” it’s fundamentally unjust. It’s making something “murder” that is not close to anyone’s definition of murder.
Even if it might sometimes be applied to people who did have some culpability in the death, that doesn’t make it any less unjust and a travesty of justice.
Because it wasnt mentioned by the Op nor the Guardian article.
Two “egregious” examples were mentioned by the OP, and both those examples have proven to be not at Oliver talked about them- in one, the guy admitted he knew about the burglary and the Governor- quite rightly- commuted his sentence. In the other, the sentence was quickly overturned by the State Supreme court.
I agree, and thus the Governor’s commutation was the right thing to do. Yes, he deserved some penalty, but the original sentence was too harsh.
Not mentioned by the Op.
But now you claim that you never saw the show in the first place, so are you contending that the OP was supposed to quote the entire show?
Nope, but when two examples are given and they are both not as given, it is the OPs responsibility to give correct facts, not just stuff to rile up the reader. And the Guardian article linked too didnt mention the sentence being overturned or the Commutation. We reply to what the OP said, and what others mention. If they want to use a show to make a point- they need to give correct and full facts.
And having now found a transcript of the show Oliver did mention the sentence being overturned and the commutation- but at the very end. Not when riling the viewers up with the ‘facts”. Why use those two examples at all?
Because being convicted of murder has rather serious costs, even if your conviction eventually gets overturned as an especially egregious example of how the law is designed to work?
Well, then the question becomes: Why are you basing your (confidently and categorically expressed) assessment of whether John Oliver has “left out a vital detail” or “ignored those facts” or “lies by omission” merely on partial summaries of John Oliver’s remarks by some third party, instead of taking the trouble to find out what John Oliver actually said?
It’s one thing to read a third-party partial summary and say “hmmm, it appears from this summary that an important fact about this case is being ignored, I better go to the source and find out the details”.
It’s another thing—and considerably less impressive on the ignorance-fighting front—to respond to a third-party partial summary with “hmmm, it appears from this summary that an important fact about this case is being ignored, SO OBVIOUSLY JOHN OLIVER IS LYING BY OMISSION AND THE GUARDIAN SHAMEFULLY FAILED TO FACT-CHECK HIM!!”
Nope. There is somebody in this discussion who didn’t do due diligence on the fact-checking before overconfidently jumping to an unwarranted conclusion, but it’s not John Oliver, and it’s not the Guardian, and it’s not the OP. (Hint: his username begins with D.)
For the second or third time, the show and this discussion is about the felony murder law. The fact that in some cases the charge was reversed on appeal or in other cases penalties reduced on appeal is irrelevant to a discussion of the felony murder law. Appellate courts have no power to change the law, which is intrinsically unjust and is still on the books and can and will be used again. Why use those two examples at all? That’s why.