Felony Murder Rule Discussion

beyond hope · Post by **beyond hope** » 2003-08-30 10:53pm

Maybe this would be a better analogy. A guy walks into a convenience store, produces a gun and demands the clerk empty the register. One of the customers in the store at the time is so frightened by what's going on that he has a heart attack and dies on the spot. Did the robber intend for that man to die? Doubtful. Will he be charged with (and likely convicted for) felony murder? Yes.

Post by **Darth Wong** » 2003-08-30 10:55pm

beyond hope wrote:Maybe this would be a better analogy. A guy walks into a convenience store, produces a gun and demands the clerk empty the register. One of the customers in the store at the time is so frightened by what's going on that he has a heart attack and dies on the spot. Did the robber intend for that man to die? Doubtful. Will he be charged with (and likely convicted for) felony murder? Yes.

He will? You can seriously get charged for murder if you scare some guy while in the commission of a crime and he has a heart attack?

beyond hope · Post by **beyond hope** » 2003-08-31 01:25am

Darth Wong wrote:He will? You can seriously get charged for murder if you scare some guy while in the commission of a crime and he has a heart attack?

Yes... accident is not a defense to felony murder. For that matter, if you're sitting outside the 7/11 driving the getaway car you can be charged with (and convicted of) felony murder. See here for model jury instructions. What crimes qualify may vary from state to state from what I can tell on Findlaw, but the basic principle is the same. The fact that our 7/11 robber is committing a felony, by the felony murder laws, is part of the chain of circumstances that lead to the frightened customer in question having a heart attack and therefore makes him responsible.

RedImperator · Post by **RedImperator** » 2003-09-01 10:36pm

Darth Wong wrote:
beyond hope wrote:Maybe this would be a better analogy. A guy walks into a convenience store, produces a gun and demands the clerk empty the register. One of the customers in the store at the time is so frightened by what's going on that he has a heart attack and dies on the spot. Did the robber intend for that man to die? Doubtful. Will he be charged with (and likely convicted for) felony murder? Yes.
He will? You can seriously get charged for murder if you scare some guy while in the commission of a crime and he has a heart attack?

Yup. If anyone dies because of your actions while you're in the process of commiting a felony, you're guilty of murder one, and so are all your accomplices. Shitty deal, but you shouldn't be sticking up 7-11s, either.

Post by **Darth Wong** » 2003-09-01 10:42pm

RedImperator wrote:
Darth Wong wrote:He will? You can seriously get charged for murder if you scare some guy while in the commission of a crime and he has a heart attack?
Yup. If anyone dies because of your actions while you're in the process of commiting a felony, you're guilty of murder one, and so are all your accomplices. Shitty deal, but you shouldn't be sticking up 7-11s, either.

So what if you aren't carrying any kind of lethal weapons during the commission of your felony and someone dies of the same cause (heart attack?)

Howedar · Post by **Howedar** » 2003-09-01 10:46pm

Tough luck. Don't commit felonies if you're worried about it.

Post by **Darth Wong** » 2003-09-01 10:52pm

Howedar wrote:Tough luck. Don't commit felonies if you're worried about it.

Glib dismissals aren't worth shit.

If I'm reading this right, it's possible for some unarmed guy to sneak into someone's garage and steal his lawnmower, and get charged with murder if the homeowner freaks out and has a heart attack. Doesn't this seem perverse to you? Especially since downloading music is also a felony? In theory, someone could get charged with murder if he downloads a file from a musician who gets so distressed by illegal downloading that he kills himself.

Howedar · Post by **Howedar** » 2003-09-01 11:05pm

There was a proposal to make music sharing a felony. Nothing has come of it.

As for the lawnmower example, if he committed a felony and caused someone to die, intentionally or not, I don't have a great deal of sympathy for him. Look at it from the other way. Say you're that guy's wife, and your husband just died because a criminal broke into your garage and literally scared him to death. I'm sure he'd get a pretty leniant sentance, but the fact of the matter is that, through his crime, he DID kill someone.

aronkerkhof · Post by **aronkerkhof** » 2003-09-01 11:50pm

I'm not sure downloading music is a felony. Its been brought up before, but thankfully it didn't pass the laugh test. At least, I hope its not.

I've seen a lot of mention about gross incompetance from a user or network point of view. I had a lot of small business clients hit with this thing because they're just on dialup and don't have a firewall. They grab updates from windows once a month, but they were two weeks late in this case. Virus scanners did little more than say "hey, you're infected". It really sucked.

Several clever admins got bit because people brought their laptops from home into the office, where the infection bypassed the firewall (it was on the "trusted" network) and raged out of control. Again, that would suck.

The guy was at fault because he wrote the damn thing. Microsoft is at fault for shipping the product with so many ports open by default. The end users are at fault for being dumbasses, but they're end users. Computer security is hard, and yet we let people get on broadband connections with leaky windows and linux (yes, linux, its only good if you keep it patched too!) boxes. What can you do?

I'm just grumpy about it because I had to wear a tech support weanie hat for the last week instead of getting my goddamned programming projects done.

DarthBlight · Post by **DarthBlight** » 2003-09-02 12:47am

Darth Wong wrote: If I'm reading this right, it's possible for some unarmed guy to sneak into someone's garage and steal his lawnmower, and get charged with murder if the homeowner freaks out and has a heart attack. Doesn't this seem perverse to you? Especially since downloading music is also a felony? In theory, someone could get charged with murder if he downloads a file from a musician who gets so distressed by illegal downloading that he kills himself.

Mike, ever hear of the "thin skull" rule? Basically it means that any adverse medical conditions that the victim had cannot be held in your favor. So, if you robbed a bank and someone had a heart attack, you can't try to get out of felony murder by proving that the guy had a weak heart or high blood pressure or whatever.
Also, there are some exceptions to the felony murder rule. Most of these came from California cases so check your local statutes and case decisions.
1. The felony has to be inherently dangerous. In your theoretical, burglary is an inherently dangerous felony. Breaking into a person's house to steal something carries quite a bit of risk.
2. There has to be an independent felonious purpose. There is no felony murder if there was an intent to kill in the first place. This would be murder.
3. The killing has to be in perpetration or furtherance of the crime. In the lawnmower scenario, the death (I assume) is after the discovery of the missing mower. This would not be felony murder and would probably be the deciding factor.
4. Who did the killing? This goes back to the rules of agency and master/servant responsibility.

There would be no felony murder in pirating music. It's not inherently dangerous and the killing is not in furtherance of the crime.

EmperorChrostas the Cruel · Post by **EmperorChrostas the Cruel** » 2003-09-02 01:09am

This comes under the legal theory of "there are no accidends in the commision of a crime."
All bad that results from the crime is the fault of the criminal.
Accidents happen to law abiding folk, minding their own business.
If you are comitting a crime, it is a risk you shouldn't ever be assuming.
If an officer accidentaly shoots a fellow officer, causing death, the criminals all get pegged with murder 1. Even the wheel man, outside.
I met a man, who was robbing a liquer store with his sister and best friend. The liquer store owner shot him and his sister and friend all three. He got a punctured lung, his friend died from a head wound, and sister was paralyzed from the waist down by a spinal shot.
Both he and his paralyzed sister were facing murder 1.
(Some family eh?)
Pled down to manslaughter, both parties served 8 years, on 12 year sentances.

Nova Andromeda · Post by **Nova Andromeda** » 2003-09-02 08:28am

Darth Wong wrote:
Howedar wrote:Tough luck. Don't commit felonies if you're worried about it.
Glib dismissals aren't worth shit.

If I'm reading this right, it's possible for some unarmed guy to sneak into someone's garage and steal his lawnmower, and get charged with murder if the homeowner freaks out and has a heart attack. Doesn't this seem perverse to you? Especially since downloading music is also a felony? In theory, someone could get charged with murder if he downloads a file from a musician who gets so distressed by illegal downloading that he kills himself.

--What you don't like American "justice"!?! You must be one of those terrorists!

Keevan_Colton · Post by **Keevan_Colton** » 2003-09-02 01:09pm

Element Number Two: killing committed during the commission or attempted commission of the felony
The second element the Commonwealth must prove to you beyond a reasonable doubt is that a killing occurred while the defendant was committing or attempting to commit the felony. The Commonwealth must prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the killing occurred in connection with the felony and at substantially the same time and place. [A killing may be deemed to be connected with the felony if the killing occurred as part of the defendant's effort to escape responsibility for the felony.]
If accident is an issue in the case, the jury must be instructed that accident is not a defense to felony murder.
If the Commonwealth has proved beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant committed name of crime or attempted to commit name of crime and that an unlawful killing occurred in the course of this felony or attempted felony, then the first two elements of felony murder in the second degree have been satisfied.
For cases in which more than one felony is alleged, the jurors must be instructed that they must be unanimous with regard to at least one of the underlying felonies in order to return a verdict of guilty of felony murder in the second degree.

The "accident is not a defense" applies to a "killing" that implies and active part....shouting "boo" loudly could cause the same very weak hearted individual to have a stroke. I'd say far more intelligently, the "accident is not a defense" would aplly to something like tripping as you ran from the scene of a crime, knocking someone else into traffic, that would be directly your fault.
Unfortunately it all too often seems logic has very little to do with anything.

Stormbringer · Post by **Stormbringer** » 2003-09-02 01:19pm

Nova Andromeda wrote:--What you don't like American "justice"!?! You must be one of those terrorists!

Shut the fuck up and quit trying to hijack the thread.

beyond hope · Post by **beyond hope** » 2003-09-02 04:44pm

Darth Wong wrote:
Howedar wrote:Tough luck. Don't commit felonies if you're worried about it.
Glib dismissals aren't worth shit.

If I'm reading this right, it's possible for some unarmed guy to sneak into someone's garage and steal his lawnmower, and get charged with murder if the homeowner freaks out and has a heart attack. Doesn't this seem perverse to you? Especially since downloading music is also a felony? In theory, someone could get charged with murder if he downloads a file from a musician who gets so distressed by illegal downloading that he kills himself.

Exactly what qualifies for felony murder varies from state to state, so there'd be 51 different answers to that (counting the Feds.) Like DarthBlight posted, the determining factor would most likely be that you're doing something dangerous. Armed robbery, for example, or kidnapping. I have yet to hear of a felony murder case involving embezzlement, for example (but I'm sure that a more dedicated person than I will probably find and post one, since I said that.)

If you really want a fucked-up law, look no further than the "attractive nuisance" laws. Say you have an outdoor pool. You can have a fence around your yard, a second fence around the pool, locks on both, and a cover over the pool, and if a neighbor's child successfully climbs both fences, lifts the cover, and drowns in the pool, you are liable. The reasoning for that is that certain pieces of property will tend to attract children, who are not assumed to know any better (hence "attractive nuisance.) If you own a dog or have playground equipment in your yard, those both qualify as well.

aronkerhof wrote:I'm not sure downloading music is a felony. Its been brought up before, but thankfully it didn't pass the laugh test. At least, I hope its not.

Last I heard it hadn't made it through congress.

Pu-239 · Post by **Pu-239** » 2003-09-02 06:36pm

sigh... so many laws have no logic in them whatsoever- e.g. one can attempt murder and get away with a lighter sentence if one failed then if one succeded.

beyond hope · Post by **beyond hope** » 2003-09-03 04:14pm

Pu-239 wrote:sigh... so many laws have no logic in them whatsoever- e.g. one can attempt murder and get away with a lighter sentence if one failed then if one succeded.

IIRC vehicular homicide is still the easiest murder charge to beat... as long as you don't back up and give your target a second pass.

Post by **The Yosemite Bear** » 2003-09-13 02:13am

downloading "Lawyer's Guns and Money" is making Warren Zevon's cancer worse they tell us. in an added moment of irony

Advocate · Post by **Advocate** » 2003-09-13 03:03am

Not too sure about American law, but under Commonwealth law the issue is whether the robbery attempt was the substantive and operative cause of the heart attack in the first place.

If yes, the perp would be at least liable for manslaughter, which I assume is the same as felony murder?

If no, well, he's off the hook for murder.

Arguing that a normal person wouldn't get a heart attack simply by being in a shop being robbed won't get him off the hook, as under the law, "One must take one's victim as one finds them"

Alyeska · Post by **Alyeska** » 2003-09-13 10:51am

Darth Wong wrote:
beyond hope wrote:Maybe this would be a better analogy. A guy walks into a convenience store, produces a gun and demands the clerk empty the register. One of the customers in the store at the time is so frightened by what's going on that he has a heart attack and dies on the spot. Did the robber intend for that man to die? Doubtful. Will he be charged with (and likely convicted for) felony murder? Yes.
He will? You can seriously get charged for murder if you scare some guy while in the commission of a crime and he has a heart attack?

Any death that is the result of a felony is an automatic murder. If two idiots try and rob a store and one gets killed in the process, the other can be convicted of murder.

CelesKnight · Post by **CelesKnight** » 2003-09-13 10:32pm

Darth Wong wrote: So what if you aren't carrying any kind of lethal weapons during the commission of your felony and someone dies of the same cause (heart attack?)

It doesn't matter. On a similar note, if you claim to have a weapon during a robbery and your victum feels threatened,, it's considered armed robbery, regardless if you really have a weapon or not.

Another interesting law is that if you intentionally create a deadly trap (such as setting up a shotgun to scare a potential robber when your away from your home), if it kills someone it's considered murder, even if the victum really was a robber.

I'm quoting both from vague memories of a law class. It also likely varies from state to state.

beyond hope · Post by **beyond hope** » 2003-09-14 12:12am

Yep. Property ownership comes with the legal obligation to maintain it safely. That's how you hear about burglars harming themselves on peoples' property and suing successfully.

CelesKnight · Post by **CelesKnight** » 2003-09-14 01:29am

beyond hope wrote:Yep. Property ownership comes with the legal obligation to maintain it safely. That's how you hear about burglars harming themselves on peoples' property and suing successfully.

Sad isn't it. I heard of the following (hypothetical?) case in a law class. A man owns a small business. It starts freezing rain at 2AM. A drunk is out carousing at that hour and slips on the side walk outside the business. Guess who's liable b/c he's not out cleaning the sidewalk at 2AM?

beyond hope · Post by **beyond hope** » 2003-09-14 01:55am

CelesKnight wrote:
beyond hope wrote:Yep. Property ownership comes with the legal obligation to maintain it safely. That's how you hear about burglars harming themselves on peoples' property and suing successfully.
Sad isn't it. I heard of the following (hypothetical?) case in a law class. A man owns a small business. It starts freezing rain at 2AM. A drunk is out carousing at that hour and slips on the side walk outside the business. Guess who's liable b/c he's not out cleaning the sidewalk at 2AM?

I can believe it, and even if the guy wins against the town drunk, he'll be stuck with the court costs. There's justice for you...