A jury in Brooklyn found someone guilty of robbery and manslaughter, but not of "felony murder"--the elements of which are robbery and manslaughter. Oh dear. Looks like as a result of not having gone to law school, the jury made a logical faux pas.
Asked about that, [jury foreman] Mr. Linetsky posed his own question: “Were we about to send somebody to life when he wasn’t the direct cause of it?”
Felony murder, like many legal doctrines, is left over from ye olde England and runs contrary to moral sense. Courts and legislatures keep it alive because they don't care. Juries do. Can we please have juries in every dispute ever except the ones in California?
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