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.
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.
is it possible to fit this level of nuance in a headline?
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.
a court shouldn’t be considering things they haven’t been convicted for unless it’s part of the matter before the court.
They didn’t consider it in the trial to determine his innocence or guilt, which carries a reasonable doubt standard. They considered it at sentencing, which falls under a an abuse of discretion standard. Basically anything can be relevant at sentencing. It’s up the the judge to weigh the evidence, and the judge must give appropriate weight to uncharged crimes (probably not much, certainly not as much as convicted crimes). Ever read a pre sentencing report? It’s the convict’s entire life story. All of it gets considered. Should the court not consider whether someone has a family or deep community ties because they weren’t convicted have having a family or deep community ties?
A rigid sentencing rubric that allows no discretion, to me, is the fascist approach to sentencing.
This sentence seems long for the kid’s age, but that’s Alabama. Vote.
It’s the felony murder rule. You intend the foreseeable consequences of your actions. Police shooting your accomplice in an armed robbery is certainly a foreseeable consequences of armed robbery. It’s one of the reasons doing armed robberies is illegal.
Police shooting your accomplice in an armed robbery is certainly a foreseeable consequences of armed robbery.
I don’t understand why that is being equated with murder though. If I would have forced my accomplice into the life threatening situation that got them killed, sure, I would be guilty of their death; but if we assume that they went along willingly how can I get blamed that they got themselves in the situation where (someone else!) killed them?
Oh look someone with a Pro-Genocide tag shows up to defend charging people for the violence committed against them.
Such surprise.
Pretty much guaranteed that when you see a ‘shocking’ headline, that there’s context that makes it make a lot more sense that’s either being obscured or obfuscated.
I hate sensationalism so much.
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.
Also seems to be a lack of understanding that just cause you didn’t pull the trigger doesn’t mean you didn’t help create the scenario where a trigger got pulled.
I’m not sure I agree with all instances of felony murder (like when it’s an accomplice who dies), but the general notion is you participated in the events that lead to this person’s death.
Body cam shows A’Donte Washington charging the officer with a drawn weapon,
Unsurprisingly there’s no footage of this other person in that link. Not that that would justify putting an innocent person in a cage.
There were five teens involved in this burglary, Smith was the only one who did not take a plea deal.
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.
The day before this burglary…
That’s irrelevant to the cop murdering this kid.
… Smith and others were involved in the murder of another man.
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.
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.
This is not a trial.
And the wall of text dumped above doesn’t make it one, either.
Police murdering someone and blaming others is the discussion. Save the rest for your L2 seminar discussion.
That’s my point. You did not present a “complete and accurate representation” at all. You just recycled copaganda, most of it misleading and irrelevant.
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.
It’s pretty debatable if it makes sense to charge someone for felony murder if they were an accomplice
That’s is the felony murder rule. It’s a transfered intent doctrine. I don’t think the rule itself is very controversial. This isn’t even a controversial application of the law except for the length of the sentence and the age of the offender. While those are motivating factors at sentencing, others have posted the many aggravating factors that apply in the case. And while prior convictions and prior arrests aren’t relevant at the trial, they are relevant at the sentencing.
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.
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 didn’t read into the situation …
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.
It’s still misleading to say “while 65 years is long, it’s not multiple life sentences.” That’s just flat-out not true.
I didn’t read into the situation and don’t have an opinion
You literally gave your opinion directly before this statement.
I meant an opinion on the situation regarding the subject of the article and the circumstances they’re in.
Does that make sense?
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.
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.
Yes, I can say the charges are bullshit because they’re bullshit. Felony murder in general is bullshit. Felony murder for a murder not committed by a member of the group is extra bullshit. Felony murder charges for a member of the group getting killed by the cops is ridiculous bullshit.
Each conviction carries a sentence. It is not unheard of for a particular conviction of many to be overturned on appeal, or for a sentence for one charge to be modified. In such a case, the remainder of the convictions or sentences remain in place.
There is a certain person who was recently convicted on 34 counts of fraud in New York State, and because of the “specialness?” of this defendant, the Supreme Court decided after the jury returned all those convictions that this defendant is immune from prosecution for certain kinds of crimes. This gives the defendant a ripe avenue to appeal those convictions. Some of those convictions may be overturned on the basis of that immunity … but not all of them.
The same concepts apply to any convictions and any sentences, including the death penalty. Not only is it just to render consequences for each crime committed, it is also a safeguard to ensure that someone who is convicted of multiple felonies does not escape all consequence in the case that only some of the sentences change in the future.
This very case of Lekeith Smith is a perfect example. 30 years for felony murder, 25 years for burglary and theft, served concurrently. There is a fair argument for overturning that felony murder conviction; there is no such argument for overturning the burglary and theft conviction.
I do recall hearing about either precedent or laws relating to being involved in a crime where if someone is killed all involved get charged with the murder regardless of who actually committed it, so that could be the reasoning here.
Though I don’t recall any of the specifics.
I think the biggest issue is not that he doesn’t deserve jail, he does. But if this exact crime had involved white teens, he would have gotten a few years tops
And what, by overwhelming majority, is the race of the wealthy class of America?
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.
J6 was a crime against the federal government on government property in the District of Columbia.
The feds do have this felony murder law, but it seems to be narrower in scope than many state laws. For instance, the case where law enforcement shoots a perp did happen at the capitol, but it seems like it can’t be charged as felony murder under the federal version of the law.
Also, the federal law lists specific crimes only that can be used as underlying felonies, and I suspect that “obstructing an official proceeding” and even “insurrection” are not specifically on that list. Possibly, the feds would have had to charge and convict on simple burglary to apply felony murder.
I don’t think any felony murders were actually charged. And a great many J6 defendants were charged with no felonies at all, so they would not be eligible.
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.
And what if someone dragged your kid along to a crime, then got themself shot and your kid now has to spend basically their whole life in jail?
Seems the law is being applied correctly.
Yeah that’s what they said about the holocaust.
That’s so fucked up. You can legally be held accountable for other people’s actions.
No. You can see in this very case. Our guy robbed the place but he wasn’t the one who decided to charge the police with a gun. That was the proximate cause of the officer shooting and one person made that decision. If we’re going to go further back then where do we stop? His parents? His teachers? His community center sports coach? His friends who weren’t present? After all we’re talking about decisions leading to decisions now. What was the deep cause of the cop firing his weapon? Did his dad get fired, requiring the family to find money in other places? Do we charge the dad’s former boss in that case? After all in that theory case our guy wouldn’t have been at the robbery at all without that firing.
Blaming anything or anyone not involved in the act is the height of rationalization for longer sentences brought by racists and executives in the prison industry.
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.
Cop murdered no one. Shooting someone who’s charging at you with a drawn weapon isn’t murder.
if it isn’t murder, then why is the kid charged with it?? that makes the entire thing even MORE ridiculous!
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.
Your argument only holds up if the cop isn’t also tried for that murder.
The U.S. Supreme Court rules in favor of officers accused of excessive force
The two cases concerned police officers accused of using excessive force when responding to domestic disturbances. In one, officers used beanbag rounds and a knee on the suspect’s back to subdue him; in the second, officers shot and killed the suspect after he approached them while raising a hammer.
Both decisions the court issued Monday were unsigned. No justices dissented.
Why the fuck are we going to have different courts for children if we’re going to try 15 year olds as adults?
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.
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.
So that’s a separate issue, teens of all colors should be tried the same way, a teen committing a murder, no matter their skin color, should be tried as an adult.
This is basic felony murder shit. Any attorney worth their salt should have been telling him to take the plea deal, because felony murder is a Big Fucking Deal. To be more exact, 46 of 50 states have some version of a felony murder statute, and in 24 of them–just under half–felony murder is a capital crime, and can potentially receive the death penalty.
A good attorney would be communicating this clearly to their client, and make sure that the client understood that going to trial would likely mean decades in prison, and possibly a death penalty; the odds of beating the charge, if you participated in the underlying crime, are very, very poor.
Here’s the basic deal: when a deal occurs during the course of committing certain felonies, any major participant in the commission of that crime are guilty of causing that death. If you’re the getaway driver in a bank robbery, and all of the robbers get killed by security guards, you get charged with murder for their deaths, even though it was legal for the security guards to use lethal force against them. Smith was one of the participants in the burglary, and it was during the commission of the burglary that Washington attacked a police officer and was killed. Because Smith was an active participant in that burglary, he’s guilty of that death, even though Washington was justifiably killed by a cop.
And, BTW, this isn’t bootlicking bullshit. It didn’t need to be a cop that killed Washington for a felony murder charge to apply to Smith. If Washington had attacked the homeowner, and the homeowner had killled Washington, it would have been the same felony murder charge for Smith.
Garbage in garbage out.
If you accept US disgusting legal system as fair or ‘normal’ you can justify this outcome. Its obviously not.
Charging a person with felony murder when no murder was commited is not justice no more than Saudi Arabia executing people for being gay.
I 'll also give you some personal advice, no non-bootlicker preemptively disclaims being a bootlicker.
I 'll also give you some personal advice, no non-bootlicker preemptively disclaims being a bootlicker.
People here seem to think that anything that could even remotely be taking as being favorable towards cops is bootlicking. It’s not bootlicking bullshit because the person that kills the burglar is not relevant to the charges. Moreover, it’s not relevant whom Washington attacked; if it had been the homeowner that had been attacked by, and shot and killed Washington, the charges would have been identical.
I’m not in favor of the way most cops conduct themselves, but I’m even less in favor of being attacked by someone that takes umbrage with not being allowed to burglarize my residence.
I am not complaining about the cops’ behavior here. While the cops are the boot a bootlicker shows their submission to the wearer of the boots; the US “justice” system in this case, not just the police.
People here seem to think that anything that could even remotely be taking as being favorable towards cops is bootlicking. It’s not bootlicking bullshit because the person that kills the burglar is not relevant to the charges. Moreover, it’s not relevant whom Washington attacked; if it had been the homeowner that had been attacked by, and shot and killed Washington, the charges would have been identical.
I am not arguing that US law is not being applied correctly, I am arguing it is immoral as unjust. You accepting US law on this issue as just is precisely why you are a bootlicker.
I’m not in favor of the way most cops conduct themselves, but I’m even less in favor of being attacked by someone that takes umbrage with not being allowed to burglarize my residence
I don’t give a shit about your residence in that shithole of a country.
Exactly. I’m not even particularly opposed if you take part in a violent felony that resulted in death so long as it’s a victims death. Participants dying by accident or by external deadly force especially police use of force getting charged is fucking dumb.
Why? Just because it feels wrong?
Their decision to break and enter directly lead to a persons death. Why do make a distinction between who’s life it is?
If your actions lead to a persons death, you should be charged for it.
The flip side of this is what? As long as you have others do the murdering you can’t be charged?
Walk me through why its wrong?
'I don’t suck authority’s dick, but when I do…"
Yes, you do. Stay the fuck away from me.
I mean, that’s still mighty fucked up. So you’re accomplice couldn’t run as fast as you and you get charged with their death someone else caused? How are people ok with that?
And yes I totally understand that it was a justified shooting but charging someone with murder when they didn’t murder someone one is insane as fuck.
It’s pretty simple to understand: you were a participant in the underlying felony that lead to someone’s death. Had that underlying event not happened, no death would have happened. Because you participated in the event, you share the legal responsibility.
It’s the same general principle as RICO (racketeer influenced and corrupt organization) laws; when you participate in a criminal undertaking, you’re responsible for the results of that activity. If you don’t want to be responsible for the results, then you shouldn’t participate in the crime.
…And if you do participate in the crime, take the goddamn plea deal instead of expecting that the jury is going to nullify the results, because jury nullification is both very rare, and leads to a lot of undesirable results.
Don’t even have to be present. If you say and planned an armed robbery with a gang, then fell asleep and they went out and enacted the plan, and someone died (either a gang member, or a third party) as a result. You’re liable if they can prove that involvement.
It is simple to understand that that is the rule. Its also very simple to understand how absolutely fucked up that is.
Next time they shoot another innocent person and murder them at the wrong address is the person who’s address they were supposed to be at going to be held responsible?
To add to this, say an addict buys drugs from a dude but that dude is a cartel member and murders a family after a few months. Addict didn’t give him the gun, maybe addict didn’t even know he was cartel but because of ol’ Rico since you interacted with a criminal organization your hands have blood on them too?
Any attorney worth their salt should have been telling him to take the plea deal
Apparently, he was the only one of the four charged who didn’t take a plea deal.
At the same time, seems his plea deal was for 25 years, only 5 less than the 30 he got.
Also, unless I’m mistaken, that sentencing was a year and a half ago, wonder why it’s coming up now out of nowhere…
This is a bad law for obvious reasons. Not least of which is that literally anyone can be charged with a crime for simply being with a criminal if it works the way you explained it.
It would make more sense if it had guardrails that required the police show the crimes were planned and coordinated together.
And yet none of Ashlii Babbit’s co-conspirators were charged for her murder. Even the ones that brought a gun.