A felony murder charge is one of the most serious charges a person can face. It can become complicated but here is a classic example that can break it down. There are three individuals and they decide they are going to rob a bank. Two of the individuals are going to go into the bank and present themselves to the teller with a bag and say, don’t say anything. Just take all the money in the drawer and throw it into this bag. Then they’re going to run out of the bank to a getaway car. The person in the getaway car is the driver. They didn’t go into the bank, they’re just sitting there to make sure that the two co-conspirators can get away.
As the two co-conspirators come out of the bank, they’re approached by a police officer. One of the co-conspirators takes a pistol out and point blank shoots the police officer dead. What will happen is that the intent from the first two individuals, the criminal intent, an intent to kill, that went into the bank and then came out and confronted this officer and killed him or her, is now transferred to the individual sitting in the car. The argument of course is, well, I’m just a driver. It doesn’t work that way. In the criminal law, the intent is transferred. If you are part of this enterprise, which is to commit a criminal activity, and a fatality occurs during the commission of it, then the intent for that fatality, that murder, is transferred to all of the parties involved in the criminal enterprise.
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