I think it was hit upon upthread–the threat of eating a murder conviction should be leverage enough to get the driver to cooperate with the prosecution of the actual trigger man.
That’s a theory, anyway. I’m willing to bet it is far more often the case that the concept is a gift to the DA, who gets to game the system for another murder conviction trophy.
I’m not good at reading legalese, but here is what wiki says:
I still think Isaac’s charge would be involuntary manslaughter.
ETA: There are other citesbesides wiki.
What about when the police kill somebody? Say you rob a bank with your friend, the police get an itchy trigger finger and kill your friend, should you be charged with murder for the actions of the officer? That’s where “felony murder” goes off the rails, in my opinion.
Frankly, it’s bullshit. The posters in here in favor of it are basically just taking the position of “fuck criminals, more punishment is always better”. This is just an example of an arbitrary and capricious system of ‘justice’.
Speaking only for myself, no, I’m not, but thanks for thinking that you know what I’m thinking.
If I were God Emperor of the Universe (<beep> now? <beep> not yet, soon), here’s my thinking on an example of what makes a difference to me, if it were up to me to be prosecutor/judge.
Person X, the getaway driver, and his cohorts go to rob a place. He knows they’re armed. They tell him, we’re not going to kill anybody. They kill somebody. In my view, he gets the same sentence as the person who pulled the trigger. He went into that knowing full well that his cohorts were armed and that a murder was a very real possibility.
Person X, the getaway driver, and his cohorts to go to rob a place. They tell him they aren’t armed, and they are definitely not going to hurt anybody. Now suppose, I believe that Person X truly believed that. They kill somebody. In that case, I think he still could be charged with felony murder but I certainly wouldn’t sentence him as much as the person who pulled the trigger.
But ultimately, if you get into an enterprise, where the possibility of fatal causing violence is quite significant, then that increases your legal exposure to the consequence in my mind. You committed the crime as an enterprise so you suffer together as an enterprise, with some adjustments on a case-by-case basis depending on the specifics.
All of the secondary effects are ridiculous. Helicopters crashing, police shooting your partner, etc. I don’t agree with any of that. This, for me, should be about the direct outcome of the operation itself. You go in to rob a place, during the robbery your partner(s)-in-crime kill somebody. That’s it. End of it.
I am the OP, and I don’t think I was taking the position of “fuck my cousin.” I was reasonably fond of him when we were kids, but I have always felt that he did this (incarceration) to himself. I never believed his claim that he did not know that his Confederates in the crime were armed, and there is no way to commit an armed robbery without the risk of killing someone. I had warned him before the incident in question that these guys were going to get him in trouble, and I always quit his company when they were around. As I recall (and I might be wrong, as it HAS been a quarter of a century), he refused to roll on the other two to get a lighter sentence.
And let us not forget the clerk who got shotgunned. Isaac was willing to threaten this guy with grievous bodily harm in order to make his own life easier, and the clerk died as a logical result. I have never pitied Isaac or thought his conviction was unjust. And I used to like that idiot.
Yeah, I’m not either.
I think that sentences should likely be reduced, that the criminal justice system is very racially biased, that prosecutors have too much power. Lots of things need to be reformed in the criminal justice system.
But, also, I think that if you’re the getaway driver for people with guns who are going to go rob someone, and they kill someone in the process, you bear some responsibility for that murder. Probably not as much as the guy who pulled the trigger, but also not none because you were “just the driver”. Totality of circumstances, etc.
This is the key in my view. Punishment should be proportional to the degree of responsibility.
I think even the mopiest of mopes is aware that murder is illegal.
And murder is permanent. The guy that Isaac and his friends killed is still dead. So as far as I’m concerned, they should still be in prison.
Instead of the outcome being determined in large degree by the wealth of the perpetrator? The only thing that keeps that socially stable is fear of a bullet in the back.
It’s called the Parks Doctrine if you are an officer of the company.
I disagree, but I think they believe outcomes can be more accurately predicted than they are.
I was present at an armed robbery once.
That’s a “fuck criminals, they deserve what they get” attitude.
The flaw is that harsher and longer punishments don’t deter crime. This isn’t me saying it, this is the national institute of justice. So those men being in prison does **not **mean that other young potential criminals are going to “learn from the example” and not commit a crime themselves.
And second, someone who’s involvement in the robbery was to drive the car is probably not going to kill anyone if released. Though I would check the evidence on that. Point is, if the evidence, not kneejerk ignorant statements like the one you have made (“eye for an eye” is what you said), justifies further imprisonment, then ok. But if it doesn’t, then they should be released.
You know, Sammy baby, I’m just good with people who have, together, committed a crime being punished together. The guy they killed isn’t going to be made whole again, no matter what. If they rehabilitate themselves, that’s nice. They can be model prisoners who serve as examples of good behavior to the rest. Recently, a student of mine received a 65 years to life sentence for killing two young men. One of his two co-defendants received a similar sentence. I don’t have a problem with all three of them spending the rest of their natural lives in prison, though only “Pooh Rat” pulled the trigger. They conspired to rob the boys who were trying to sell weed. That’s why “Pooh Rat” brought a gun. They were prepared for there to be violence and_fuck me!_ there was violence.
Well, I wouldn’t say “fuck criminals” but I have no problem with people who commit serious crimes receiving serious punishments for it. And murder is the most serious crime there is.
So what if somebody gets rehabilitated and will never commit a second murder? As far as I’m concerned, nobody is entitled to one free pass on murder. You commit one murder, you should spend the rest of your life in prison. You take away the rest of a person’s life, the rest of your life is a fair punishment.
Now I’m willing to listen to arguments about people who commit manslaughter and how maybe they should get released at some point. But you shoot a guy while you’re committing an armed robbery? That’s straight-up murder.
I think you missed the point that Melbourne was making. Casuistry is when you make an argument that superficially sounds reasonable but that falls apart due to its illogic when you examine it.
Being as he quoted my post in his response, I assumed he was saying my argument was an example of casuistry. Which I obviously disagree with. So I responded by explaining the logic which supports what I said and why I feel the counterexamples he mentioned do not apply to my argument.
Just a note that people are conflating two different legal principles here.
Firstly, the Felony Murder rule applies when someone “accidentally” dies during a crime. The shooter claims he didn’t mean to shoot the guy. He thought he loaded the gun with blanks. He dropped the gun and it went off. The law says that such claims don’t matter, he’s still guilty of murder.
The thing is, this rule is sometimes applied to someone who took no violent actions. There was a case where a policeman responding to a call crashed his car and died. The non-violent perpetrator of the crime was charged with murder one. The justice of that is questionable.
Secondly, there is the Joint Enterprise or Common Purposerule. This says that all participants in a crime are equally guilty, whatever their actual role. The driver and the shooter are equally guilty.
It appears to me, Skald, that you are mostly talking about the second of these.
I will say that I mostly support both these legal principles. There are a few occasions where they might be excessive or unjust, but the driver in an armed robbery isn’t one of them.
There’s definitely a line between what I think should count as felony murder and what shouldn’t. Where that line is I can’t say for sure, though. Someone who hires a hitman is obviously just as guilty of murder as the hitman themself. It gets blurrier beyond that.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but I don’t think the purpose of this thread is to argue what the law is. It seems more of a debate about what the law ought to be. As such, I don’t see how this is relevant.
What exactly is your point here? Do you not think someone would be charged in this situation? If not, why? It seems to fit the definition of someone dying as a result (albeit indirectly) of a felony. But it is a hypothetical. Do you think the example scenario is flawed, or do you just have no interest in arguing a hypothetical?
I’m not meaning to be rude, by the way. These are all genuine questions.
No, I was disagreeing.
It IS possible to be guilty of wrong doing simply by working at a company. Or was.
An eye for an eye, eh?
I like to think that we’ve figured out at least a little something about psychology that we can come up with a better criminal justice system than Hammurabi.
The primary goals of punishing criminals should be:
Keeping anyone convicted of a murder locked up for life is ineffective at #1 and #2, and is generally a very damaging and costly way to accomplish #3.
Making sentences longer doesn’t really help deter people. No one considering committing a crime is thinking “I’m gonna do the one where I get out after 15 years in prison, but not the one with a life sentence.” The reformative value of prison is questionable at best, but if you never let people out, then they can’t ever become productive members of society.
That’s what gibbets are for.