Multiple Life Sentences for Minor in Police Shooting He did not Participate in.
LINK TO THE PETITION
https://www.change.org/p/district-attorney-cj-robinson-free-lakeith-smith
This is probably "felony murder". The rule here is that if you are committing some kind of felony, and someone dies as a result, then you are guilty of murder for that person. This bypasses all of the usual intent filters between first degree murder, second degree murder, and manslaughter.
Classic example: you and a friend decide to hold up a bank. It goes sideways and a bank security guard shoots and kills your friend. You are guilty of murder because your friend died because you both decided to commit a felony.
It is a stupid law being applied in the most ridiculous way, by being punished for the police's actions.
But several in the group, including Washington, fired shots at Millbrook police officers who responded Feb. 23, 2015,
They fired at the police and one died as a result. They were all charged with murder.
Seems the law is being applied correctly.
As for the law itself I'm pretty torn on this. If someone dragged my kid along to a crime and they died as a result I'd have no problem with them getting charged for their murder.
Let's be clear though: being legal doesn't make it right.
Which, to be clear, is a fantastic way to charge people for the police hurting them. And not okay under most moral systems.
The rule here is that if you are committing some kind of feeling, and
someone dies as a resulta cop murders somebody, then you are guilty of the cop's murder.
FTFY
This bypasses all of the usual intent filters between first degree murder, second degree murder, and manslaughter... in order for police to pin their murders on minorities despite all reason and case history.
FTFY.
Your argument only holds up if the cop isn't also tried for that murder. I'm not even an American citizen so I don't know if that's the case.
Doesn't matter if the cop would be tried though, as cops are already immune to the law in america. They don't need to convict other people for that. I don't think at all that the purpose of that law is to protect cops.
committing some kind of feeling
When I hear that old song they used to play
\
I begin dreaming
\
'Til I see Marianne walk away
\
I see my Marianne walkin' away
Yeah. I eventually noticed that.
So basically police just have an open ticket to murder really.
That doesn't sound like the law of a civilized country to me ....
It's not
Why the fuck are we going to have different courts for children if we're going to try 15 year olds as adults?
To feed the racist slavery machine we call the US prison system.
Trying kids as adults in juvenile court is the perfect mixture of draconian sentences and judges that are more likely to take bribes to err on the side of incarceration.
It's basically the kind of all you can enslave buffet that the prison industrial complex and the politicians they own used to only know in their fucked up dreams.
Just another for-profit orphan crushing machine in the proto-fascist plutocracy that is the USA.
Those are for white children.
I'm not forgiving murderers, teens aren't children.
teens aren’t children
The Race Factor in Trying Juveniles as Adults
In our own work, we find that race can have a sweeping effect even when people consider the same crime. Prompting people to think of a single black (rather than white) juvenile offender leads them to express greater support for sentencing all juveniles to life without parole when they have committed serious violent crimes. Thinking about a black juvenile offender also makes people imagine that juveniles are closer to adults in their blameworthiness. Remarkably, this was true for both people who were low in prejudice and those who were high in prejudice and for both liberals and conservatives.
And yet none of Ashlii Babbit's co-conspirators were charged for her murder. Even the ones that brought a gun.
Gotta be committing felonies. Overthrowing the government isn't a felony until the house, Senate, and president impeach them or something lol.
Context copypaste from tumblr:
[iguanodonwildman]:
“So I checked up on this case, and it turned out his sentence was reduced...
to 55 years
55 years for a unsuccessful burglary, theft, and the murder of a friend that was killed by police, when his only crime was breaking and entering when he was 15 years old.
This is the most up to date article I can find on it: https://www.reuters.com/article/uk-factcheck-lakeith-smith-65-years-idUSKBN243246. “
I just finished my comment above with links to contemporaneous reporting, figured you might be interested.
It's so transparent how much of a hard-on you're getting with your justice rage. "I'm just presenting the facts", yes, just like the unjust legal system we are all living under, you have confidently defined the "reasoning" behind the conviction. The debate and conversation around it, is for the citizens to discuss the absurd practices of the justice system, which you are just being a speakerbox for with no personal context. That's already been done by the justice system so why regurgitate and post multiple links to your enlightenment.
After the first comment I just scrolled by after reading, then you've plastered your masterlink of pleasure confirming the pleasure and how much you want others to view it. What's your personal opinion on a 15 year old being charged in this manner? Does this 15 year old have the full faculty of an adult? Do you believe a 15 year old is an adult or just for this case? How do you feel about the murder charge? Yeah, you can hide behind the law, but I would rather hear what your actual opinion is especially after seeing a post you've done like "The less racist a country is, the harder it is to detect enemy spies. #showerthoughts"
Felony Murder is a bitch, just like whoever wrote that headline.
Have you considered that maybe felony murder is fascist bullshit and the headline writer is completely correct to call it out?
Yes, if a crime you are committing results in a police death of a person then you are liable
In the US at least, not Canada
Love that people doing crimes are held to higher standards than cops
Well of course he should be charged for burglary and theft. He did commit those crimes, but I don't think he should be charged with murder. He didn't shoot the gun, the cop did. I'm not necessarily saying the cop should be charged with murder though.
Maybe the pig tamers need to step up their fucking game?
all-white jury
Since he admits he was guilty under the terms of the law I don't see how this is possibly relevant. Are we knowing he is guilty supposed to think they were biased for finding him guilty?
LaKeith was non-violent
Breaking into homes with a gun to shoot the home owner if things get dicey isn't non-violent. Invading people's home is inherently violent
offered him a plea deal of “only” 25 years.
Which would have seen him potentially out in 20 a man of 35
LaKeith, being a child with a life ahead of him, declined the plea deal and exercised his constitutional right to a trial.
It is absolutely his right but it was also fucking stupid.
It is likely that if LaKeith had been tried as a juvenile and/or tried appropriately for the burglary, he would be free today.
Are we assuming this is a good thing. He broke into a home with a gunman ready to murder the occupant. What sort of man is he now?
EVERYONE WHO DISAGREES WITH ME IS RACIST #BOOKLICKER #FACIST #MYPARENTSDIDNTLOVEME
Mugging people and invading their homes is an evil act when anyone does it. Systemic racism didn't make those young men break into another man's home with a gun. The young man in question pled innocent to a crime he did in fact commit. He got a jury and they put him away ultimately for about 30 years after it was adjusted to be concurrent instead of consecutive. Considering one fellow young person is dead and either a cop or a family might have been killed I don't think he got a rough deal. Now that he is in prison he wont be victimizing his community.
Look at all the other people of the same background living and working in their community who would never invade their neighbors home or fucking shoot them because not even desperate poverty makes them want to kill or rob their fellows.
Your rant is embarrassing.
your lack of awareness of how plea deals and intimidation and dishonesty around them are actively weaponized against accused, with disproportionate impacts on minorities, is apparent. In addition, the all-white jury is always worth mentioning, and hand-waiving of its particular importance to the outcome is screening for white supremacy. It is off the bat not a jury of his peers, and that it turned up like that regardless of the outcome is criminal. It almost never is a proportionally-representative jury of one's peers when it is a black person charged with a crime. And there is a long, and deliberately-racist legacy and history why that is.
"ready to murder" is grotesque and malicious falsehood from the information provided. I didn't see anything implying the people whose houses were broken into were caused any bodily harm nor that being the intent from the robbers least of all the 15 year old kid they threw the book at for his friend dying in a shootout. Most people who have weapons to rob are not intending to kill anyone, only intimidate for compliance, or be prepared if they are met with lethal force so they don't end up dying themselves (while explicitly hoping that does not happen, because robbers/muggers are there to get money or jewels or electronics or whatever, not kill or die). If they intended to kill the people they robbed, which was a few houses broken into, those people robbed would be dead. Instead, the cops themselves got into a firefight with a friend of the 15 year old kid who they threw the book at, who himself didn't shoot anyone and was cowering in a bush. There is a reason there are different crimes regarding armed robbery vs breaking and entering vs different homicide types and degrees, etc. Not that you seem to care much.
"What sort of man is he now?" what kind of chauvinist colonialist celebratory rhetoric is that? Gross. You sound indistinguishable from MAGA people about stuff like this.
have weapons to rob are not intending to kill anyone, only intimidate for compliance,
The only people who act like this are garbage human beings. Being poor or discriminated against doesn't make you break into your neighbors house with a gun to intimidate him into letting you take his property.
The fact of the jury being all white is irrelevant because the juries only role is to decide guilt and he is manifestly by his own and his own defenders words guilty of the crime the jury found him guilty of. HE SAID HE DID IT.
It is likely that if LaKeith had been tried as a juvenile and/or tried appropriately for the burglary, he would be free today.
Are we assuming this is a good thing. He broke into a home with a gunman ready to murder the occupant. What sort of man is he now?
This alone is absolutely insane to me. Where I am from, if you're under 18 there is no option to be tried as an adult, even 20 year olds can be tried as an adolescent here.
Yes, you're reading it right: "whom was shot".
Whomsoever wrote that should be shot.
Headlines are always abysmal at impartially presenting facts.
This happened in 2015. The now ~25 year old kid's sentence has been reduced to "just" 30 years. https://aldailynews.com/advocates-back-effort-to-amend-alabamas-proximate-cause-murder-law-prosecutors-push-back/
The kids were robbing houses, a neighbor called the cops, the kids bolted when the cops showed up. The cops shot them in the back despite there being no threat to anyone's life... except those the cops shot at.
How the murder charge isn't just a case against the cop shooting unarmed teenagers who were committing a crime without any risk to life and limb is astounding.
Kid and his buddies were definitely on the hook for the burglary, sure... but that's certainly not decades of prison. It's been ten years now, the kid should have been out of prison at least 9 years ago. Burglary just shouldn't be a long term sentence for 15 year old children.
In one article posted on this case, one of the teens charged an officer with a drawn gun per body cam footage. If that's correct, then that teens life was forfeit the moment he pulled the weapon. It's stupid to commit a burglary, it's really stupid to do it with a gun, and it's suicide if you pull it against a cop.
Ah, here we go. The omitted devil from the details. Of course that will be left out when they talk about getting the kids off the hook.
It is quite fucked up to be guilty by proxy for murder but that's the law there. I think it should be changed but I have exactly this much influence in alabama's house and senate:
I think we all agree on that. But the other 4 having the book thrown at them just for robbery is a bit... Fucked.
You really have to wonder who benefits from sharing such bullshit lies like this post.
So you're telling me they give the police incentive to shoot people, as a game, to send people to jail for even longer, because they think it's fun and hilarious?
Fash in alabama have been doing this racist bullshit for centuries. Bootlickers have been justifying it for just as long.
According to this: https://www.wkrg.com/alabama-news/lakeith-smith-resentencing-alabama/
The time was for two charges, theft/burglary and felony murder. The resentencing set the prison term to 30 years, effectively setting the sentence for felony murder alone at 5 years.
One: 65 years, while long, is not "multiple life sentences." Two: The 65 years was shortly thereafter reduced to 55 years, though I am not finding any details on why. That 55 years was 30 for felony murder and 25 for burglary and theft (???), consecutively. Three: Body cam shows A'Donte Washington charging the officer with a drawn weapon, so this does not appear to be a case of abuse of force. Four: A later court changed those to run concurrently, making it an effective 30 years. In this hearing, the victim's own father made a statement that Smith did not deserve to be charged with his son's death. Five: This screenshot is dated less than a week after the original sentencing.
Other notes: There were five teens involved in this burglary, Smith was the only one who did not take a plea deal. The day before this burglary, Smith and others were involved in the murder of another man. The stolen car used in the burglary came from yet another murder. I have to think it was a difficult argument for the defense to make, that Smith "did not intend to hurt anyone." The prosecution surely had an easier time framing this in terms of "Smith was at least present when someone was murdered the day before [it may have been a short time, hours, since the earlier murder was "around midnight" and I don't see what time of day the later burglary occurred]. He had to know that continuing to commit crimes with the same group of people could end with death, and still pressed on."
Whatever your opinion about this situation, you will be better served by presenting it alongside a more complete and accurate respresentation of facts than this screenshot of a tweet contains.
Unsurprisingly there's no footage of this other person in that link. Not that that would justify putting an innocent person in a cage.
Why would anyone take a plea deal for a murder that they didn't commit? The real problem here is this scam of forcing people into plea deals by threatening them with insane punishments in a fundamentally unjust system. It's gross when people act like refusing a "deal" is some kind of guilt. It's mostly likely the opposite.
That's irrelevant to the cop murdering this kid.
Even if this were relevant, did this even happen? Your article is from 2016 says nothing about Lekeith being convicted.
More generally it's amazing how "normal" people are brainwashed enough to post this kind of copaganda word salad.
There's no "opinion" here. Teenagers shouldn't be convicted for murders committed by cops. It's that simple.
It's really important to know the details because it's the details that allow us to parse and challenge injustice effectively.
Knowing the context of Felony Murder and how it applies to this sentencing is not saying 'this is fine then, no worries'. Rather, it means we can actually talk about the systematic issues in the legal system that enable things like this.
The comment you replied to was in no way 'word salad' or 'copaganda', it was context.
... so this does not appear to be a case of abuse of force. That is the context here, which I made sure to include in the sentence you selectively edited.
So let's be clear here, he was charged with felony murder of his accomplice in a dangerous felony. Felony murder is the crime of killing of a person in the commission of a dangerous crime.
It's pretty debatable if it makes sense to charge someone for felony murder if they were an accomplice, but that's a different discussion than the framing of "charged for a murder committed by cops". The cops didn't murder this guy, it seems pretty clear that the cops acted in self defense here. So it's not like they transferred the "blame" as it were from murderous cops to an innocent kid.
The reason felony murder exists is that even if there was no actual intent to kill, the risk of death during a dangerous crime is so high it becomes reckless. There's a similar crime of depraved heart murder where the act that causes the death of someone is so dangerous that one could only do it if they had no concern of killing someone. You go into a felony knowing someone could get hurt or killed and do it anyway, so you are responsible for the consequences whether you "pulled the trigger" or not. A more common example would be if you and a buddy are robbing a bank and your buddy kills a teller or a cop, you get charged with felony murder.
Waiting to hear about the drugs they found in his system.
The parent comment doesn't appear to be copaganda, or even have a stance one way or the other. The comment is context, which is important for discussing the issue at hand. Because of the context, we should not be discussing police brutality or excessive use of force in this case, we should be discussing the immorality of a justice system which allows someone to be charged with felony murder in the case of an accomplice.
To clarify, if this group of teens broke into a home and shot the homeowner, that would be a justified charge of felony murder for all the accomplices. However, their friend chose to essentially commit suicide by cops, and the convicted was running away at the time. Again, the parent comment did not make any qualifiers on the actions of the cops or anyone else present, they posted context with which other commenters can frame their discussion. Nowhere in their other comments could I discern a pro-cop stance, reading with an objective eye. Reactionary pointing of fingers just discourages future posters from providing context.
Before you accuse me of copaganda as well, ACAB, systemic racism is a huge problem in the US, and our justice system is rigged against the most vulnerable.
Thank you for this
Thanks for the context but a court shouldn't be considering things they haven't been convicted for unless it's part of the matter before the court.
Also it doesn't matter if the police shooting was justified. Charging this guy with the police shooting is, and always has been, fucked up.
65 years is 3 life sentences in the normal world. That's not a normal sentence for burglary outside authoritarian countries.
is it possible to fit this level of nuance in a headline?
perhaps reading past the headline is recommended
It’s possible in a post on Lemmy but OP wasn’t about to do that.
Just included links to help the POS.
Here's another one:
1 you shouldn't be charged with a murder you didn't commit.
I feel like that one is super important here.
A lot of people here are discovering felony murder for the first time.
Appreciate you being informative but 65 years is, in most cases due to multiple life sentences. It's more to do with how many years before you're eligible for parole, not the expectation of 100 years or something.
I didn't read into the situation and don't have an opinion, but your first point is already misleading.
I did. The sentences were 30 years for felony murder and 25 years for burglary and theft.
Which I stated were initially set to be consecutive, and later changed to concurrent. So you didn't even read the comment you replied to.
You literally gave your opinion directly before this statement.
Gee, it's almost as if there were real crimes he could have been charged with, instead of the bullshit crime of his friend getting killed by the cops.
His friend getting killed by the cops as a result of a crime sprea is grounds for Felony Murder charges. You can say it's a dumb law but you cannot say the charges are bullshit.
We need more people like you.
I appreciate this more than you know. Thank you.