Sandra Bullock played a woman in love with a stranger who
happened to fall into the path of an oncoming train in the movie, While you
were sleeping. Things got out of hand
when she told the nurse at the hospital she was his fiancé and the story took
off from there. Eventually she had to
fess up for her actions; but it all worked out and she lived happily ever
after.
Closer to home, a young man was arrested here in
Houston and charged with Felony Murder, a peculiar offense which covers
unintentional deaths which are the result of entering into criminal
behavior. The young man “allegedly was
involved in the felony of burglary” and had admitted to having been caught red
handed prior to his fleeing the scene and leaving his fellow burglary suspect
behind. His partner in crime was shot by
a police officer while wrestling for the officer’s gun according to the official
report.
“Ed Chernoff, Smading’s attorney, called the
charge unfair.
“A cop, rather than chase after some kids, decided
to start shooting,” Chernoff said. “There was no need to start shooting.”
Legal scholars said felony murder is unusual and
can be invoked in a number of situations.
“You see them in textbooks and occasionally in news
stories, but they’re rare by comparison to your average homicide, obviously,”
said University
of Houston law professor
Adam Gershowitz. “Felony murder is controversial anyway, and this is holding
someone criminally liable for an unintentional murder of their friend, while
they’re away from the scene.”
If you follow that line of thought then criminals aren’t responsible for bad
things that happen when their plans go sour.
The lazy cop just started blasting away, too lazy to chase some kid on
foot; it’s all the cops fault. The
burglary suspects only wanted to break in, steal some stuff and leave; they
never intended for anyone to see them, scream out for help, call the cops and
they certainly didn’t plan on getting shot.
You read about things like this all the time; a robber goes into the liquor
store to grab some quick money and “accidentally” shoots the owner of the
store. “It wasn’t my fault, he grabbed
for my gun and it just went off”. An
auto thief grabs an SUV and takes off, unaware there’s a baby in the back seat,
leaves the child abandoned in the cold night air and wonders why he’s being
arrested for kidnapping. This happens
all the time.
Geoffery Corn, a professor of law at South Texas College of Law summed
it up best:
“A reasonable person would foresee that the conduct you engaged in could
lead to the death of someone - a cop, a home-owner or maybe even your
co-felon,” Corn said. “Felony plus death equals murder.”
In spite of what you may have been led to believe, we are responsible for
our actions, I was about to say “even if you’re fleeing the scene of a crime”;
however, a better choice of words would be, “especially while you’re fleeing
the scene of a crime. When you start a
ball in motion what ever it runs over or into belongs to you.
This article has been cross posted to The Moral Liberal , a publication whose banner reads, “Defending The
Judeo-Christian Ethic, Limited Government, & The American Constitution”.
