Illinois also modified its felony murder law in 2021, removing it as a possibility in cases where a third party, like a police officer, rather than an accomplice, kills someone. The Modesto Bee recently reported on three of the hundreds of people who’ve had their sentences reduced under the change.Ĭolorado reduced the sentencing range for felony murder in 2021, from automatic life in prison to between 16 and 48 years. California narrowed its application of felony murder in 2018, shortly after The Marshall Project looked at the rule there. is the only country that still has felony murder laws, and legislative efforts to scale back their use have been limited. She notes a number of apparent contradictions in statements by police and prosecutors about the shooting, and that the officer who killed Harris deleted text messages about the night’s operations. In a deeply reported piece published this week at The Appeal, Meg O’Connor examines the case well beyond the use of felony murder and into broader questions about Harris’ death. Harris’ father pleaded for leniency on behalf of all three during their prosecution, and continues to push for the officer involved to be held accountable instead. The dynamic is similar in Phoenix, where police shot and killed 19-year-old Jacob Harris in the aftermath of a 2019 robbery, and prosecutors charged three accomplices - including 14-year-old Johnny Reed - with felony murder. “I feel like he shouldn’t do another day and he needs to come home,” Washington’s mother, Vernice, told Vice News. Rooting for Smith in the courtroom will be A’donte Washington’s parents, who blame the officer who killed their son - not Smith - for his death. His attorney convinced the judge to at least consider that Smith’s age at the time of the crime, and other mitigating factors, were not properly accounted before. According to Vice News, at next week’s resentencing supporters are hopeful that the judge could lower Smith’s prison time dramatically, or maybe even release him. The judge reduced Smith’s sentence to 55 years in 2019. Smith went to trial, was convicted, and sentenced to 30 years for Washington’s death, and another 35 for charges tied to the burglary itself: a de facto life sentence of 65 years. In Alabama, Smith’s three co-defendants pleaded guilty and received sentences of 17 to 28 years. If you want to get into the legal weeds on felony murder, The Appeal and Reason both have helpful deep dives with law professors on the subject, including a muddy historical debate over its origins. Research nationwide has found that the rule disproportionately affects the young, women, and Black people. The Sentencing Project found that in Pennsylvania, which has one of the country’s harshest felony murder laws, almost a quarter of people serving life without parole were convicted of that charge. As my colleagues Abbie VanSickle and Cary Aspinwall wrote in October, these laws exist in most states and they allow prosecutors to file murder charges “against someone involved in a crime that led to a death - even if the person didn’t pull a trigger or mean to kill anyone.” At the second burglary, police showed up - and after an exchange of gunfire - an officer shot and killed one of the teens, 16-year-old A’donte Washington.Īll four surviving teens were charged with Washington’s death under Alabama’s “felony murder” law. Smith was one of five Alabama teenagers who burglarized two homes in 2015, when he was 15 years old. LaKeith Smith is scheduled to be resentenced Tuesday for a killing that, in the literal sense, no one - not even prosecutors - believes he committed. Want this delivered to your inbox? Subscribe to future newsletters here. This is The Marshall Project’s Closing Argument newsletter, a weekly deep dive into a key criminal justice issue.
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