Petition: Eliminate Florida's felony murder rule.

[Tiberius]

The burglary involved a murder, the way that our law is setup an accomplice to any given crime is also culpable for any other crime committed in the course of it's commission Tibs.

Yes, and it's a stupid way to set up a law (which is what the petition is about). People should only be held responsible for the crimes they commit. There is a reason why crimes like burglary have lower sentences that crimes like murder. Even an accomplice to a murder should not get the same sentence as the person who actually committed the murder, unless it can be proved that the accomplice had the same intent.

That's how it is in the UK, and it's a fairer system IMO.

People deny their guilt when murder charges are brought. Don't get me wrong, I'm not agreeing with this ruling. I'm simply pointing out that there are a great many cases where an accomplice denies knowledge of a crime, and he is an accomplice to murder under Florida law...as well as burglary.

Sure, but there are also people who honestly didn't know anything about it. You don't know if he's telling the truth, and neither do I, but the evidence seems to suggest that he was at home, sleeping off a hangover. In that state of mind, whether he knew about the burglary or not is inconsequential; he could have easily thought his friends were joking around, or even that he was dreaming it.

Correction, he lent a car for the commission of a crime which ultimately led to homicide.

Not according to his testimony.

Okay, should we haul in everyone they -might- have borrowed a car from? No, of course not, that's not how this works. No one in this case was charged with what -might- have happened. His car, which he freely lent, presumably with the knowledge that they were going to commit a crime (I understand that he disputes this...but this argument would have had to have been made -perhaps a "friend" threw him under the bus) was used in the commission of a crime, which happened to involve felony murder. That's pretty clear cut.

Wow. That's a pretty appalling strawman of my position. I'm not saying we should charge people based on what might have happened; I'm calling to attention the bad application of logic used by the prosecutor, which was:

"No car, no crime."

This is clearly illogical. It simply does not follow that if Mr Holle had not lent his car, the crime would not have been committed; that was my point. Like I said before, if Mr Holle had said "no", they could have found another car (whether they borrowed it from someone else or stole it) to go and commit the burglary in. Heck, they could have taken public transport, or walked as well.

The prosecutor might as well have thrown the murderer's mother in jail as well, saying "No conception, no crime"...it's exactly the same argument.

Look, I do think that these sorts of rulings blow, but they are solid and there are many cases in which you would want to see the accomplice laws applied. Consistent application of law amigo. "I was drunk, I was hungover, I thought they were kidding" is not an effective defense against robbery or murder. Even without felony murder doctrine this kid would still have faced charges as an accomplice to murder (though it's likely that he would have been sentenced, if convicted, much more leniently approaching the scale of manslaughter).

What the felony murder doctrine allows is that accomplices be sentenced (and charged) to the maximum, whereas other laws allow accomplices to be charged with murder/manslaughter even when they do not actively strike a blow or even involve themselves directly in the crime.

I never said accomplices shouldn't be charged, but it's fucking stupid to charge them for the same crime that someone else did. Punishments should be proportional to the crime committed. If Holle did lend his car with the knowledge that it would be involved in a burglary, then he should have been convicted based on his involvement in the burglary (and he should have received a far lighter sentence that anyone in the actual burglary itself).

These are people's lives we're talking about. People make mistakes, they have bad friends. Lending your car to a thief is a big mistake, but it certainly shouldn't cost you your whole life, especially with the amount of people the USA throws in jail anyway.