Man Covicted of "Murder" . . . 40 miles away!

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HankB

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In 2005, a guy named Massigh Stallman held up a convenience store, robbed a woman, and wounded a deputy. After a car chase, Stallman ran into the woods, and police began a manhunt.

Meanwhile, 40 miles away, Missouri Highway Patrol Trooper Ralph Tatoian, on his way to join the search at high speed, came over a hill and ran into a semi - he died in the crash.

Stallman was convicted of his murder!

http://www.ksdk.com/news/news_article.aspx?storyid=124701

As far as I'm concerned, Stallman ought to be in prison until he's old and gray for what he actually did, and I understand that if you kill someone in the course of a felony, you're guilty of murder; so if you're robbing a bank and your partner kills someone, YOU are just as guilty as he is . . . and this holds even if you're the getaway car driver outside when it happens. And I agree with this.

But the case at hand - holding the guy responsible for a fatal traffic collision caused by a trooper running into a semi 40 miles away - seems unreasonable. If this holds, think about what else can be used to pile on . . .

* Suppose Martha Stewart's office was being searched with a warrant, and an agent fell off a ladder while lifting a box of files off a high shelf and broke his neck - would Martha be a murderer?

* Suppose a warrant is being served at someone's house because someone saw the owner with an EBR and nobody is home . . . so the cop breaks a window to get in. If a piece of broken glass hits him in the neck and he dies . . . is the homeowner a murderer?

* Suppose while searching a home with a warrant, the owner being away, police find a loaded shotgun . . . and while fiddling with it, the officer has an ND and kills another officer. Will it be the homeowner who's charged with murder?

Am I the only one who thinks this specific instance of prosecution is absurd?
 
In the examples you list, there are no felonies being committed. Thus, there could be no prosecution under the felony murder rule.

In the case at bar (or at THR), there was a felony being committed, thus the felony murder doctrine could apply. Absurd? No, but I would think there would be problems with this one as a matter of law. E.g., there is always the problem of intrevening cause. We shall see what happens on appeal.
 
El T, I believe Martha was convicted of a felony. If the warrant being served was in connection with that investigation . . .
 
Hank, yes, you are correct (what was a woman with that kind of coin talking to cops anywho, but that's another subject). However, the search happened after the crime transpired, thus the felony murder requirement of "in the course of a felony" would not apply. But, you know how I am, everyone's not guilty.:neener::D

1 old, yes, search and arrest warrants for felonies are issued everyday. Misdemeanor and probation violation warrants are served everyday.
 
Second degree murder - consequences of his acts. Not a bad thing for people who think that they can commit a crime and run and then get away with everything.

The Doc is out now. :cool:
 
That is a stretch... So a person is charged with felony. Person figures the only way out is to find out what actually happened. This person does not turn himself in and a warrent is signed for his arrest. A tip comes in that he is at a store. Officer races over and runs over kid. The person of interest is NOT there/never has been. Felony murder? :( :(
 
OK . . . suppose the SWAT team was called out to help search, and in the squadroom, as they're gearing up, one of the SWAT team members has an ND in the locker room and kills another officer.

Since they were called out to chase down the bad guy . . . is HE now the murderer of the SWAT officer?

And if not, how would that be different from nailing him for murder because a trooper on his way to the search - not in hot pursuit - made a mistake behind the wheel?

Again, the bad guy in this instance ought to go to prison for a good long time . . . robbery, attempted murder of an LEO, etc., - but Murder 2 for the trooper's auto accident 40 miles away looks like too much of a stretch to me . . .

This bothers me in a ". . . camel's nose under the tent . . ." sort of way . . .
 
It bothers me in a "this is major BS" way. The suspect in question may have been the the impetus for the officer heading toward the scene, but he did not cause the officer's negligent driving. He did not directly and willfully force the officer to crash his vehicle. He had no intent to make the officer crash his vehicle. He did not act upon the officer. The officer was 40 miles away. The two events are only connected in the most coincidental way possible.

This was a serious miscarriage of justice, and a very dangerous precendent to set. I fully expect this one to be appealed and get turned over.

It would be akin to charging a butterfly that flapped its wings in China for the drowning deaths from a torrential flood in New York.
 
I'm with Cannonfodder. Even though there is a connection, I don't see it as particularly causal. Without a causal connection, I don't see any justice in such a conviction.
 
If it stands, it sets a bad precedent.
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It's not really a precedent at all. Rather it is the majority rule and has been. Same goes for a guy sitting outside (or across the country) while an accomplice shoots a cop. Or a cop shoots and kills his accomplice. All potentially liable for felony murder.
 
These are 2nd and 3rd+ order consequences of the root crime.


There's gotta be a method of determining the limit of liability somewhere, and that method needs to be something other than the DA's creativity in drawing up charges.

[sarcasm]

Waaaaay out at the 145th order of consequence, we have deaths due to industrial accident relevant to the mining of the ores used to create the escape vehicle.

I consider it a sign of sloth on the DAs part that he did not uphold the rights of those miners and bring those charges as well.
[/sarcasm]

:scrutiny:
 
There's gotta be a method of determining the limit of liability somewhere, and that method needs to be something other than the DA's creativity in drawing up charges.
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I agree. That is why we have courts and juries.
 
Gonna need it, because the murder charge is still ridiculous
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May be but as mentioned the idea is VERY old, and many many prosecutions have been made under the felony murder concept.

I don't see this one as a second or third order connection.

The DIRECT reason the trooper was doing what he was doing was in DIRECT response to a (suspected) felons actions.

That's hardly 7 degrees of Kevin Bacon here.
 
Gonna need it, because the murder charge is still ridiculous.
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How is it any more ridiculous then the car man of an armed robbery team being charged with murder because his partner shoots someone? He didn't pull the trigger. He didn't decide to pull the trigger. Didn't even know it happened maybe. Might not even have known the other guy was armed.

If you don't like it, work to get the legislature to change the law.

I am personally not thrilled with these kind of things and crimes like aiding and abetting, resisting, obstruction, conspiracy, etc. They often have nothing directly to do with an actual crime. You should be charged with what you actually did and not something that is easier to prove (which is why these charges are used so much), but does not require you to have actually done something.

You can actually be charged with multiple felonies for giving first aid to a person who would otherwise die, and potentially go to jail for it, if the authorities decide to go after you because they don't like the person whose life you saved.

It is a sick system where we create crimes out of nothing just to make it easier to convict someone on something.
 
I strongly disagree with the charge. If he was accomplice to someone who directly killed the officer, I can understand, and would not complain of all involved being charged. However, an accidental death, not directly caused by the criminals, should not produce a murder charge. Perhaps something like manslaughter would be more appropriate (I'm not very familiar with the 50 different kinds of murder charges, so there may be some sort of negligent homicide or something that's in-between).


As he drove with his lights and siren on, he came over a hill near Pacific, and slammed into a tractor trailer. Trooper Tatoian was killed.
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It's a shame he died, but a large part of this looks like it is the officer's fault. I don't care how fast you need to go, or who is being chased, don't go through/around any blind turn/hill at high speeds. Slow down for 10 sec, then resume. We've had a few schoolbuses hit because of that kind of driving around here.
 
Here's another question for those in the know: Why wasn't the trooper's dispatcher also charged with felony murder? After all, it was his/her radio call that put the trooper in pursuit in the first place.
 
You can actually be charged with multiple felonies for giving first aid to a person who would otherwise die, and potentially go to jail for it, if the authorities decide to go after you because they don't like the person whose life you saved.
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Have any case law or examples of this? I seriously doubt that is remotely true.
 
Why wasn't the trooper's dispatcher also charged with felony murder? After all, it was his/her radio call that put the trooper in pursuit in the first place.
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Nooooo

The dispatcher was several degrees away, hence no charges.

IMMEDIATE causation was the felony.

THEN there was a call to 9-1-1.
THEN there was a call from dispatch to officers.

That is not DIRECT causation, that is the 7 degrees of Kevin Bacon crap again.

The INITIAL cause of all of this was the commission of a felony. Everything after that is secondary.

Why is this hard to understand?

Commit a felony, someone dies, go to prison. Quite simple, I don't see the problem.

You can actually be charged with multiple felonies for giving first aid to a person who would otherwise die, and potentially go to jail for it, if the authorities decide to go after you because they don't like the person whose life you saved.
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You can actually be charged with multiple felonies for impersonating Elvis, since THEY know that Elvis is really alive and controlling everything from his compound inside Ted Nugents Ranch.

Hey, makes as much sense as the other statement, and has just about as much backing.
 
All this horse**** about degrees of causality and vicarious responsibility is just so much crap akin to how many angels can dance on the head of a pin.

It doesn't pass the smell test. Its wrong. I don't need some high end legal degree to understand that charging a man with murder because some JBT
was speeding and driving recklessly at a distance of 40 miles is just political grandstanding. Just another example of how the legal system likes to apply the concept of piling on. Charge the poor bastard with anything and every crime we can fancy up and pull out of our collective legal ass. That way if we botch the charges for the real crime we can get him on some made up sham charge instead.
 
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