http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/04/us/04 ... ref=slogin

Early in the morning of March 10, 2003, after a raucous party that lasted into the small hours, a groggy and hungover 20-year-old named Ryan Holle lent his Chevrolet Metro to a friend. That decision, prosecutors later said, was tantamount to murder.

The friend used the car to drive three men to the Pensacola home of a marijuana dealer, aiming to steal a safe. The burglary turned violent, and one of the men killed the dealer’s 18-year-old daughter by beating her head in with a shotgun he found in the home.

Mr. Holle was a mile and a half away, but that did not matter.

He was convicted of murder under a distinctively American legal doctrine that makes accomplices as liable as the actual killer for murders committed during felonies like burglaries, rapes and robberies.

Mr. Holle, who had given the police a series of statements in which he seemed to admit knowing about the burglary, was convicted of first-degree murder. He is serving a sentence of life without the possibility of parole at the Wakulla Correctional Institution here, 20 miles southwest of Tallahassee.

A prosecutor explained the theory to the jury at Mr. Holle’s trial in Pensacola in 2004. “No car, no crime,” said the prosecutor, David Rimmer. “No car, no consequences. No car, no murder.”

Most scholars trace the doctrine, which is an aspect of the felony murder rule, to English common law, but Parliament abolished it in 1957. The felony murder rule, which has many variations, generally broadens murder liability for participants in violent felonies in two ways. An unintended killing during a felony is considered murder under the rule. So is, as Mr. Holle learned, a killing by an accomplice.

India and other common law countries have followed England in abolishing the doctrine. In 1990, the Canadian Supreme Court did away with felony murder liability for accomplices, saying it violated “the principle that punishment must be proportionate to the moral blameworthiness of the offender.”

Countries outside the common law tradition agree. “The view in Europe,” said James Q. Whitman, a professor of comparative law at Yale, “is that we hold people responsible for their own acts and not the acts of others.”

But prosecutors and victims’ rights groups in the United States say that punishing accomplices as though they had been the actual killers is perfectly appropriate.

“The felony murder rule serves important interests,” said Mr. Rimmer, the prosecutor in the Holle case, “because it holds all persons responsible for the actions of each other if they are all participating in the same crime.”

Kent Scheidegger, the legal director of the Criminal Justice Legal Foundation, a victims’ rights group, said “all perpetrators of the underlying felony, not just the one who pulls the trigger” should be held accountable for murder.

“A person who has chosen to commit armed robbery, rape or kidnapping has chosen to do something with a strong possibility of causing the death of an innocent person,” Mr. Scheidegger said. “That choice makes it morally justified to convict the person of murder when that possibility happens.”

About 16 percent of homicides in 2006 occurred during felonies, according to the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Statistics concerning how many of those killings led to the murder prosecutions of accomplices are not available, but legal experts say such prosecutions are relatively common in the more than 30 states that allow them. About 80 people have been sentenced to death in the last three decades for participating in a felony that led to a murder though they did not kill anyone.

Terry Snyder, whose daughter Jessica was the victim in Mr. Holle’s case, said Mr. Holle’s conduct was as blameworthy as that of the man who shattered her skull.

“It never would have happened unless Ryan Holle had lent the car,” Mr. Snyder said. “It was as good as if he was there.”

Prosecutors sometimes also justify the doctrine on the ground that it deters murders. Criminals who know they will face harsh punishment if someone dies in the course of a felony, supporters of the felony murder rule say, may plan their crimes with more care, may leave deadly weapons at home and may decide not to commit the underlying felony at all.

But the evidence of a deterrent effect is thin. An unpublished analysis of F.B.I. crime data from 1970 to 1998 by Anup Malani, a law professor at the University of Chicago, found that the presence of the felony murder rule had a relatively small effect on criminal behavior, reducing the number of deaths during burglaries and car thefts slightly, not affecting deaths during rapes and, perversely, increasing the number of deaths during robberies. That last finding, the study said, “is hard to explain” and “warrants further exploration.”

The felony murder rule’s defenders acknowledge that it can be counterintuitive.

“It may not make any sense to you,” Mr. Rimmer, the prosecutor in Mr. Holle’s case, told the jury. “He has to be treated just as if he had done all the things the other four people did.”

Prosecutors sought the death penalty for Charles Miller Jr., the man who actually killed Jessica Snyder, but he was sentenced to life without parole. So were the men who entered the Snyders’ home with him, Donnie Williams and Jermond Thomas. So was William Allen Jr., who drove the car. So was Mr. Holle.

Mr. Holle had no criminal record. He had lent his car to Mr. Allen, a housemate, countless times before.

“All he did was go say, ‘Use the car,’ ” Mr. Allen said of Mr. Holle in a pretrial deposition. “I mean, nobody really knew that girl was going to get killed. It was not in the plans to go kill somebody, you know.”

But Mr. Holle did testify that he had been told it might be necessary to “knock out” Jessica Snyder. Mr. Holle is 25 now, a tall, lean and lively man with a rueful sense of humor, alert brown eyes and an unusually deep voice. In a spare office at the prison here, he said that he had not taken the talk of a burglary seriously.

“I honestly thought they were going to get food,” he said of the men who used his car, all of whom had attended the nightlong party at Mr. Holle’s house, as had Jessica Snyder.

“When they actually mentioned what was going on, I thought it was a joke,” Mr. Holle added, referring to the plan to steal the Snyders’ safe. “I thought they were just playing around. I was just very naïve. Plus from being drinking that night, I just didn’t understand what was going on.”

Mr. Holle’s trial lawyer, Sharon K. Wilson, said the statements he had given to the police were the key to the case, given the felony murder rule. “It’s just draconian,” Ms. Wilson said. “The worst thing he was guilty of was partying too much and not being discriminating enough in who he was partying with.”

Mr. Holle’s trial took one day. “It was done, probably, by 5 o’clock,” Mr. Holle said. “That’s with the deliberations and the verdict and the sentence.”

Witnesses described the horror of the crime. Christine Snyder, for instance, recalled finding her daughter, her head bashed in and her teeth knocked out.

“Then what did you do?” the prosecutor asked her.

“I went screaming out of the home saying they blew my baby’s face off,” Ms. Snyder said.

The safe had belonged to Christine Snyder. The police found a pound of marijuana in it, and, after her daughter’s funeral, she was sentenced to three years in prison for possessing it.

Not every state’s version of the felony murder rule is as strict as Florida’s, and a few states, including Hawaii, Kentucky and Michigan, have abolished it entirely.

“The felony-murder rule completely ignores the concept of determination of guilt on the basis of individual misconduct,” the Michigan Supreme Court wrote in 1980.

The vast majority of states retain it in various forms, but courts and officials have taken occasional steps to limit its harshest applications.

In August, for instance, Gov. Rick Perry of Texas commuted the death sentence of Kenneth Foster, the driver of a getaway car in a robbery spree that ended in a murder.

Mr. Holle was the only one of the five men charged with murdering Jessica Snyder who was offered a plea bargain, one that might have led to 10 years in prison.

“I did so because he was not as culpable as the others,” said Mr. Rimmer, the prosecutor.

Mr. Holle, who rejected the deal, has spent some time thinking about the felony murder rule.

“The laws that they use to convict people are just — they have to revise them,” he said. “Just because I lent these guys my car, why should I be convicted the same as these people that actually went to the scene of the crime and actually committed the crime?”

Mr. Rimmer sounded ambivalent on this point.

“Whether or not the felony murder rule can result in disproportionate justice is a matter of opinion,” Mr. Rimmer said. “The father of Jessica Snyder does not think so.”

I would think that a murder conviction could be warranted if the party was present and failed to prevent it, but a much lesser charge seems to fit this case.

The father of Jessica Snyder is also a drug dealer. That's some good lawyerin'.

I can kinda see it since he knew they were going to rob the guy. i just hope his homies get the same punishment

I f he knew the car was going to be used in a burglary, then I have no problem whatsoever with this sentence.

Devil's advocate time. Hypothetical: 20 guys kickin' the fuck outta some geezer. Some other fella passin' by stops and watches in horror (he's obviously present, right?). How's he supposed to stop 20 guys in the throes of violence? You're sayin' he should go to jail for not stoppin' 'em. How's he meant to do that?

No duty to act

That don't answer the question. I'll BOLD the pertinent part for you.

This is why I don't declare myself full Libertarian. Different laws in different states should only pertain to local issues, such as dealing with border-control issues for edge states and so on. The fact that, for instance, one can sleep with a seventeen year old in Texas but be called a sex offender in many other states is nothing more than non-objective, irrational moral relativism. Key issues such as these are either objectively right or wrong.

Do I believe the man should be imprisoned? Personally, the choice to use drugs and alcohol carry an inherent responsibility of the consequences, including an inhibited decision by the plaintiff when he learned that the individual targeted would be physically harmed. Had he known of plans for a killing, he's an accessory indeed, but until then, if objectively proven, given the individual's knowledge at the time (inhibited or not) can be proven was physical harm, he's an accessory to violence - not murder.

What if a friend borrowed my car to go get milk, and slammed it into a grocery store and killed thirty people instead? The injustice in this judgment is beyond the power of reason, and is in the spirit of nothing more than typical Christian eye-for-an-eye, except the Christshits want to gouge out as many eyes as possible.

That's not really the issue. It wasn't his inebriation or poor judgment that led to his conviction (apparently). It was his FOREKNOWLEDGE of the plan to commit a dangerous felony (burglary).


Intent transfers, just like in that "racism" thread. He intended to be an accessory to burglary. Burglary turned into murder. Now he's an accessory to murder. His intent to do harm is enough to prove mens rea.


Did you know ahead of time that he was going to commit a crime with the car? Did you know he would use the car to kill people? Did you have any reasonable belief that the by giving him your car to get milk that people might very likely get hurt or killed?

No, you didn't. So there is no punishment for you. You had ZERO criminal intent in lending the car. Unlike the guy who lend his car to assist in a burglary, a crime that has a reasonable probability of leading to violence.


No.

Thank you for BOLDING the pertinent part for me....

Anyway...my answer remains the same. NONFEASANCE. In your hypo, you describe an innocent person who happens to stumble upon the commission of a crime. This person has absolutely no duty to act (he has no obligation to call the police or intervene). Despite the fact that he chooses not to intervene, he remains innocent. HOWEVER, in the case that is the subject of this thread, the person had actual knowledge that his friends were going to use his car to commit a crime. He voluntarily allowed these friends to use his car to commit the crime. As a result, he is just as guilty as they are.

It also would never had happened if you weren't a drug dealer



The EXACT same thing if you're dealing drugs. Ship the parents off for life in prison without chance of parole

Another hypothetical: if them lads in the burglary said to their mate, 'can we use your car?', but didn't say for what, is he still gonna go to jail for murder? Like the article says, the law's nearly done away with outside the US.

No, he's not. Next question.

Would he have been charged with anything?

what kind of vague shit is this?! what did he actually know? not enough info.

assuming he knew a burglary was going to occur, to make the leap that he should be sentenced as a murderer is completely ludicrous...why should he have the same accountability as the individual(s) capable of bashing a young woman's skull in ?? this is profoundly disturbing to me

1. and 2. Another "what if": let's say I lend my car to a friend to pick me up a few grams (let's say of coke, to make it a felony). Little did I know about my "friend," he ends up shooting the dealer to death, taking as much jewelry/money as he can, and coming back to tell me what happened. I send someone out for what would likely be a probation charge, and I end up with life in prison.

Justice served? No. I had the foreknowledge that I was only getting cocaine, not that the retriever was going to murder someone and steal. If the intent here was to burglarize, then the man had no decision and no opportunity to stop a further crime, leaving the commitment of the actual crime outside of the scope of his knowledge (see below on burglary vs. robbery to answer the argument you presented). That is patently unfair, and as mentioned before, has been banned in several states.

It reminds me of some mule who got caught with coke in Michigan or something. The same amount of coke would've been five years or so a few miles down south, but it got him 20-life or something. The same goes for statutory rape - is the morality of sleeping with a 17 year old in Texas different than sleeping with a 17-year-old in Oklahoma, objectively? But in the former, you're free, and in the latter, you're in jail for a bitsy and a registered sex offender for the rest of your life. Fair? Under the law, I think that "equal protection" doesn't apply state-to-state, but there's a morally ambiguous law if I ever saw one, and a complete invalidation of the idea of equal protection that saved this country from racism far worse than we see it today.

Personally, I think stat should be at 17 or 18 across the board; objective standards should be defined. It's shocking that conservatives turn their back on what is apparently the pinnacle of moral relativism in a country based on intrinsic rights.

2. Burglary, from what I understand it, is simply an attempt to steal shit. I am just replying to your post, really, and haven't read up on the case, but if this were a case of robbery I will buy your argument, since violence is inherent. But if the car-loaner was convinced this would only be a burglary, my vote is max time for him on that charge, not murder.

3. Point taken. I refined a better argument in (1) above.

4. I just can't help to think of it, and besides, I'm fired up a little after covering the Skeptics Annotated Bible for a few hours. Sorry bout that.

That probably wouldn't happen. I'm not 100% sure in this case, but most "felony murder" statutes under which a person who was merely an accomplice to a lesser crime gets a murder rap only apply to certain enumerated violent and dangerous felonies. Armed robbery, rape, burglary, arson, kidnapping, that sort of thing. Drug possession or even drug sales would not qualify for a felony murder conviction.


These issues are unrelated to the discussion at hand.

I actually believe this guy when he says he thought his friends were joking when they said they were robbing a dude. From the sounds of the story, the guy was probably half awake, his buddies said "i need your car"
"huhh?" all groggy and shit "what the fuck do you need my car for"
"we're gonna go steal 3 pounds of pot off some nigga down the road"
"what?" *throws keys* "bring me back an eggmcmuffin"