Felony homicide is when someone dies during the commission of a crime, such as burglary or rape. The rule varies by jurisdiction and is meant to deter people from killing while committing a crime. Limitations on the rule vary widely, and some countries have abolished it.
The definition of felony homicide varies from jurisdiction to jurisdiction. The classic definition, however, states that someone is guilty of murder if another person dies because any other crime, such as burglary, rape, arson, or mayhem, was committed or attempted. It doesn’t matter if the murder was intentional or unpredictable, if another person dies while committing a crime, it is a criminal murder. The reason behind the rule is to dissuade people from killing others while committing a crime. Courts hope that someone who commits a crime, such as robbery, will take care not to injure or kill the victim for fear of being convicted of a felony of first-degree murder or capital murder, instead of manslaughter.
Criminal homicide can be seen in many different types of criminal law cases. For example, if a person steals an unattended car without using any violence, that person has committed a burglary. If that thief or one of his accomplices unintentionally kills another person during a high-speed chase, both the thief and his accomplice will be prosecuted for the felony of murder. The person who wasn’t even driving the car could be convicted of a first-degree murder charge, simply because he committed the burglary and someone died.
As modern lawmakers have spawned a wider range of statutory offenses, they have diminished the meaning of the classic definition of criminal homicide. Unjust consequences have dictated that strict limits be placed on the rule. For example, according to the rule, a liquor store clerk would become a murderer if he sold alcohol to a minor and that minor fell asleep in an alley on his way home and died of cold exposure. Many legislatures have said that the store clerk should not be prosecuted for felony murder. As a result, there are varying interpretations from jurisdiction to jurisdiction as to what qualifies as a felony of murder.
Most courts require felony to be completely separate from murder. For example, if a person commits a robbery and the victim dies in the process, the rule may apply. Alternatively, if a person intentionally abuses a child and the child dies, the rule would not apply. Courts argue that the purpose of the rule is to dissuade people from killing others in the course of committing a crime. In this example, the act of committing the crime of child abuse resulted in the death of a child, and the abuser could not be deterred from negligently killing the child.
Limitations on the rule vary widely. Other courts require that the offense in question be a felony under the common law, such as arson, rape, theft, burglary, mayhem, or robbery. Some courts have held that the felony crime must be inherently dangerous before it can be used to classify a homicide as a felony homicide. For example, if a person visits a massage therapist and dies of a hemorrhage as a direct result of the therapist’s massage, the massage therapist would not be guilty of felony murder.
The United States and Australia use the felony homicide rule to charge people with first-degree murder for a death that would otherwise be considered manslaughter. Many other countries, such as India, England and Canada, have chosen to abolish the rule, claiming it is too strict. Those countries do not believe that a person who commits a robbery, for example, should be guilty of murder, especially if the actual murder was committed by the robber’s accomplice.
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