As federal prosecutors file charges against rioters who took part in last Wednesday’s violent takeover of the U.S. Capitol, investigators continue to gather evidence in the death of Capitol Police officer Brian Sicknick, who died from injuries sustained during the attack.
While most murder investigations focus on the person or persons who caused the fatal injury, former federal prosecutor Tim Heaphy said prosecutors could charge many rioters with felony murder, even if they were nowhere near Sicknick.
Under the doctrine of felony murder, which applies in the District of Columbia, any murder that occurs during the commission of one of several underlying felonies is chargeable as felony murder.
“The classic example is if three guys go to rob a convenience store, and one guy is the getaway driver. If in the commission of the robbery, the clerk was shot and killed, all three of the participants in the robbery of the store are potentially guilty of felony murder,” said Heaphy.
Read more at WTOP.
{Matzav.com}
federal prosecutor Tim Heaphy said prosecutors could charge many rioters with felony murder, even if they were nowhere near Sicknick
Welcome to Sedom!!!
Unless the other people involved can be proven to have coconspired to kill Sicknick there is no way a legitimate justice system can prosecute someone who was nowhere near him for his death.
Based on that logic anyone who partook in a BLM riot or any other type of gathering where some people broke off and killed someone should be responsible if people were killed in it.
Technically speaking anyone who was by a violent BLM riot where someone was killed WOULD be subject to the murder-felony law. The purpose of the law is to allow prosecutors to charge defendants with murder, even when a victim dies accidentally and the accused only had indirect involvement in the accidental death.
Technically speaking if the POLICE shoot and kill the robber in the store, the robber in the car can be charged with murder.
It one of those laws that only exists for and is only used when the government is looking to give their enemies a hard time.
I agree that the law is straight out of Sedom. It has no function other than charging people for things they aren’t guilty of.
I totally don’t get the logic. Three people plan to ROB a store. One is in charge of driving the getaway car. While he is in the car the guy in the store kills the clerk. Why is is the guy in the car responsible for murder if he only intended to partake in a robbery? Why can’t he say “had I known the guy in the store was going to shoot the clerk if the clerk put up resistance I never would have gotten involved in this”?
What kind of tzushtell is this anyway? If three planed together to rob a store they can be theoretical looked at as one group (for some things) How would that be true if people were involved in one crime and then without their participation some of them went on to do another crime totally unrelated to the crime the other group was looking to do?
I hope anyone involved with Officer Sicknick’s despicable murder is charged with murder. I think the rioters’ behavior was completely wrong and inexcusable. That said, I also think it would be a tremendous overreach and prosecutorial abuse of power to charge a bunch of rioting, trespassing buffoons who had nothing whatsoever to do with the murder as accessories.
Our justice system was always like Sodom.
At the risk of stating the obvious, the three robbers who conspire to rob the store know each other and conspired with each other at least to rob the store. The proper comparison here is where three guys who don’t know each other and never conspired with each other independently decide to rob the store at its most vulnerable time (let’s say, when it opens or closes), and happen to show up at the same time and one of them kills someone.