New, highly controversial issues spark new debate on the old legal concept of murder for crime

None of them pulled the trigger, but each of them was charged with death under a longstanding and increasingly controversial legal principle called the rule. criminal murder.

The centuries-old rule in 46 states allows the authorities to lay charges of murder when a person is killed during the commission of a crime, whether the death is intentional or unintentional. .

Prosecutors who support the rule say that it discourages people from participating in serious or dangerous crimes and reduces the risk of violence when committing a crime. They also argue that an additional level of guilt should apply when a person is killed in the course of the crime.

But the rule is now being questioned as part of a broader campaign for criminal justice reform in the United States. Critics say that its overzealous application has led to excessive incarceration and unnecessarily harsh sentences, especially among youth and minorities.

"This is the danger of these laws because they are so vast that they allow all kinds of strange scenarios," he said.

Pamela Pierson,

Professor Emeritus of Law at the University of Alabama.

The issue was raised last December in a case involving

Marshae Jones,

the pregnant woman of Alabama.

After a dispute of several days, Ms. Jones met

Ebony Jemison

in the parking lot of a Dollar General in Pleasant Grove, Alabama, according to Ms. Jones's lawyers. After the two words exchanged, Mrs. Jones, 27 years old and five months pregnant at the time, engaged in a fight with the other woman. Ms. Jemison then shot Ms. Jones in the stomach, causing the death of Ms. Jones' unborn baby.

A grand jury charged Ms. Jones with indictable murder under the State Murder Act. Prosecutors said that by engaging and intensifying the fight, Ms. Jones had committed a dangerous crime that could cause death.

The charge against Mrs. Jones was dropped during the summer. But they relaunched a national debate on the long-standing rule that Lucius Outlaw III, a professor of criminal justice at the Howard University School of Law, called the anomaly.

"Generally, the crime you are charged with and the punishment are supposed to match your intent," he said. "With the murder of felony, someone does not intend to kill."

Ryan Holle

was 20 years old in 2003 when he left his roommate,

William Allen Jr.

borrows his car. Mr. Allen and three other men used the car to travel to the home of a marijuana dealer to steal drugs and money. The burglary took a violent turn and resulted in the death of 18 years.

Jessica Snyder.

Mr. Holle said he did not know that the men were going to commit the crime and believe that these men were using the car to get food.

He was offered a 10-year plea bargain in return for pleading guilty to second degree murder, but Holle refused because he did not believe that he had participated in Ms. Snyder's death.

"The link between Mr. Holle and the offense was so far away," said

Barry Beroset,

one of Mr. Holle's lawyers. "I had the feeling that an injustice had been committed," Beroset said.

Attorney David Rimmer thought otherwise. "No cars, no crime," Rimmer told the jury. "No car, no murder."

Mr. Holle was convicted of first degree murder and other charges and sentenced to life in prison. The sentence was later commuted to 25 years in prison.

The crime-murder statues have long been contentious.

Hawaii and Kentucky have both abolished the crime of murder committed in the 1970s. In 1980, the Michigan Supreme Court invalidated it, calling it a "historical survivor for which modern law rests on no logical basis." or practice ".

Other states now generally restrict its application to inherently dangerous major crimes, such as robbery, or to individually dangerous acts committed during a crime, said

David Crump,

a professor from the law center of the University of Houston who has studied the rule thoroughly.

Yet, critics say, it is too often applied unfairly.

Masonic Saunders was accused of murdering his boyfriend,

Julius Tate,

after being shot by a police officer during a robbery last December in Columbus, Ohio. Ms. Saunders, 16 years old at the time, and Mr. Tate staged the robbery, unaware that their victim was a police officer involved in an undercover operation.

The state tried to try Ms. Saunders in adulthood, which would have made her eligible for a life sentence without the possibility of parole. But she withdrew her petition in May, when she agreed to an agreement in a juvenile court to plead guilty to manslaughter and two robberies. She was sentenced to three years last month.

Local activists formed the Coalition for the Liberation of Masonic, demanding the release of Ms. Saunders and the departure of the shooter, Officer.

Eric Richard,

to be held responsible "The Murder Crime Act is very similar to many other laws that seem to target and deprive black communities and communities of color of their rights," he said.

Dkeama Alexis,

an activist involved in the Coalition for the Liberation of Masonic.

Christy McCreary,

The spokeswoman for the Franklin County District Attorney's Office said that Ms. Saunders' guilt was indisputable because she had confessed to her involvement in the robbery. "All states and the federal government have laws that make an accomplice, an accomplice or a co-conspirator so guilty as the main or main offender," she said.

Ms. Saunders graduated from high school while she was at the juvenile detention center.

His lawyer,

Jonathan Tyack,

Ms. Saunders is fortunate to be rehabilitated into the juvenile justice system rather than being tried in adulthood. "The prosecution acknowledged that she was a young girl and made a mistake," he said.