Ok . . . I get that, and appreciate the analogy.
But, what if you and your worst enemy both decide to jump into traffic together, and only one of you dies? Accusing the other of murder seems inappropriate (barring any evidence of coercion or something else like that. As I said, the simple facts don’t seem appropriate to convict someone without evidence that one person really lead the other into the situation).
Okay, since the news now is that she was the one who planned the robbery, does that make it more reasonable to charge her with murder?
If both jump willingly in front of your car, then no felony has occurred (just an attempted mass suicide), so the felony murder rule doesn’t apply.
Friedo lists one big interest, i.e. a disincentive for participation in violent crime for the protection of potential victims, even if your manner of participation (e.g. as an unarmed getaway driver) is not likely to result directly in a death.
Another one is that the perps, despite committing criminal acts, are still somebody’s kid (and possibly somebody’s parents/spouse). Had they not been killed, they might have gone on to live productive/contributory lives. Their deaths, despite occurring during the commission of a violent felony, are viewed (by some, at least) as tragic losses, and we have an interest in preventing such tragedies.
Ok, sure, but my attempt at running with that analogy was meant to indicate that there is a difference between being pushed (as Shodan proposed) and making a choice of one’s own volition. Let’s say both jumpers were running from the cops who were chasing them for felony drug possession.
-A man breaks into a house and is shot by the homeowner. No one has been murdered.
-A man is driven to a home, breaks in and is shot by the homeowner. The man was murdered by his driver?
Charge the driver with something if you want, but calling it murder makes as much sense as calling a handshake . . . well, you know.
Law of felony murder explained simply by aid of comic strip.
Includes an example very similar to the above.
And keep your eye on the sparrow.
Okay, two people commit an armed robbery. One of the robbers gets away, but the victim manages to push the other robber off a bridge. The robber lands in front of a runaway trolley, saving the lives of 5 people. Does the living robber get charged with murder?
Is the trolley on a treadmill?
He does.
He also gets 5 awards from the mayor for heroically saving people from the runaway trolley. That nets to plus-4, so he’s a hero, given a ceremonial key to the city and a city park named after him. The charges are quietly dropped.
In my personal opinion, punishment is mostly counter-productive. Having said that, it doesn’t bother me that some action is called a ‘crime’, and that some crimes are called ‘murder’.
You and your friends go exploring in a quary, and your friends all get killed? What you did was wrong. That’s why they have the signs ‘Danger, No Entry’. I hope you don’t do it again, and I hope other people don’t think it’s a good idea.
I’m comfortable with the idea that you shouldn’t do crimes that get your friends shot. I’m pretty much not comfortable with the death penalty, or even any kind of sentence past 15 years for anything, but that’s a different question.
I think the United States hands out harsh sentences and felony convictions way too freely, but there are some people who should never, ever, ever get back out into society again; whether that means the death penalty or life in prison without parole.
An example off the top of my head: Ted Bundy. If he had gotten a max 15 year sentence at his (second) trial, he would have been released in 1994 at the latest, at which point he would only have been 48 years old.
The reasoning has been explained. As for fairness I am mixed; I would call it fair to be labeled as murder but would hope people so prosecuted received a sentence more in line with manslaughter.
Until we look inside the box, both yes and no!
The analogy was to show how someone can be guilty of murder when somebody else innocently does the killing.
How about this one - I talk you into a drag race on a dangerous track. I win the race, you crash and die. I am morally guilty because I enticed you into doing something very risky, even if I am not the one who kills you directly. I would call it manslaughter rather than murder, but IANAL.
Maybe we just disagree with what constitutes “really leading the other into the situation”. If I drive the getaway car, I am enabling you to participate in a risky situation (burglary) where you stand a good chance of dying. Moreso if I plan the robbery, because I bear the moral onus of having my plan of a clean getaway not working.
I guess the general push of the law is that, if you are going to do something, you need to make damn sure that nobody dies, and if somebody does, it’s on you. A robbery or other crime where nobody dies is bad enough. Obviously it’s way more serious when an innocent person - a cop, or a victim - dies. Even if you are only driving the getaway car, I think you are morally responsible when your buddy shoots a victim. When your buddy is the one getting shot? Clearly not as serious as if it were a cop, but still more serious than a robbery where nobody at all died.
Or maybe just “don’t rob people, and the worse the outcome, the worse it will be for the robbers”. Although I concur that the fact that one of the robbers got what was coming to him should make some kind of difference over a cop or a victim dying.
Regards,
Shodan
I guess to me there’s still the idea embedded in this analogy that person A convinced person B to do something they would otherwise not have done, and person B happens to be the one who gets killed. What if both people decided to do the action independently of each other? What if it’s person A (the convincer) who gets killed?
Yeah, or rather, a disagreement about how much enabling (of varying degrees of enabling) someone to participate in a risky situation means that you have committed murder in cases where that situation leads to death.
Bottom line for me is that the question of a murder charge in these instances shouldn’t rest upon whether or not the activity involved is against the law.
I’m all for, at first glance, steep punishments for co-conspirators when something goes wrong, for the reasons of deterrence that you and others have mentioned. But don’t call it murder. It stretches the meaning of the word, both in the legal and vernacular senses.
I don’t know about the legal sense, but I agree with you on the vernacular one.
Regards,
Shodan