Posted on September 30th, 2009 at 2:33 pm by GregM
I want to tell you about something called felony-murder. This is something that you can be charged with if you’re committing a felony and someone dies. For example, if you steal someone’s car and accidentally hit someone with it while leaving, and that person dies, you will be charged with murder, even though it was an accident.
There was a case that I recently studied where two men broke into a house. The police were called and Person A was chased down by the police, handcuffed, and placed in the back of the police car. Another cop was chasing Person B. Person B shot at the cop, and the cop returned fire and killed Person B. Person A was charged with Person B’s murder because it was the result of their felony. Do you think this was right? It went to the Kansas Supreme Court where it was decided that Person A was not guilty of felony-murder, but a lot of people seem to think this was a bad decision. How do you feel?
Link Here | September 30, 2009,
Well, while I can see that Person B’s killing was a result of the felony, Person A could not control Person B’s reaction to the arrival of the police. In other words, Person A is not responsible for the fact the Person B chose to run away from the scene and attempt to shoot at the police officer since, at the time of the killing, Person A was sitting in a squad car.
How’s that?
Comment by Lynne |