JuanCarlos
New member
So let me get this straight. A police officer shoots and kills a burglar. That killing is determined to be lawful and justified. The officer faces no punishment.
A burglar two blocks away is in police custody. He's sitting in handcuffed in a car while his partner is shot. The same killing is determined to be unlawful and unjustified. He faces murder charges without having firing a shot.
That strikes me as very wrong. A murder is an unlawful killing. If the killing was unlawful than the person who shot the victim (the police officer) should be charged along with the accomplice (the captured criminal). If the killing was lawful and justified, than no murder has taken place and no one should be charged. As I see it, it can't be a murder and not a murder at the same time.
This is where my objections come from, but when you put it like that a counterexample comes to mind. What if a stray bullet from an officer kills a bystander? The officer likely wouldn't be charged, so in relation to him the shooting would be lawful...but at the same time wouldn't the actions of the criminals have led to the shooting (obviously it would not have occurred but for their actions), and thus couldn't they be held responsible for it and it be found to be unlawful in regards to them?
As for it being murder and not-murder at the same time, I think that's part of the point of "felony murder" charges. Your commission of a crime led to a death, and whether it was intended or not and whether you actually killed the person or not you are responsible and it is defined as a murder. Obviously some kind of line needs to be drawn as too how loosely connected the death can be (again, the accidental death of an officer on his way to the scene is definitely on the other side of the big fuzzy line in my book) but the entire point is to hold criminals responsible for actions that are unintended, even out of their control, but that they are still ultimately responsible for. (Sorry to repeat myself there.)
Basically it's the idea that you can kill somebody indirectly. That you can be responsible for their death without actually holding the gun. I'm not sure I'm entirely opposed to the idea, and if we were talking about a bystander here rather than accomplice I'm not sure that I'd have given it a second thought.