Also known as: felonious homicides · felony murder
Written by attorneys — see sources below.
A category of homicide consisting of unlawful killings committed without legal justification or excuse. This category includes both murder and manslaughter at common law.
Felicity French and Floyd Franklin entered a hospital storage room after hours to steal diagnostic devices. Felicity injected an elderly patient with an unauthorized sedative to clear their path, causing respiratory arrest and death. The killing occurred during the felony and supplied implied malice, making it felonious homicide.
Farah Fox, a bus driver, angrily slammed the brakes and jerked the bus forward in violation of a traffic ordinance. A standing passenger fell, struck his head, and died. The death resulted from the unlawful act without qualifying as felony murder, constituting felonious homicide.
Francesca Fowler committed a securities-law felony by holding unauthorized sales sessions. During a confrontation about the activity, she shoved a colleague into a glass partition that shattered, causing fatal lacerations. The death was a foreseeable consequence of the felony, rendering it felonious homicide.
Flora Ford stabbed a coworker after an immediate shove during an argument. The prosecution proved an unlawful killing but the defense showed adequate provocation and no cooling-off period. The result was felonious homicide reduced from murder to manslaughter.
In June 1966, a jury convicted Stillman E. Wilbur, Jr. of murder in a Maine state court. The prosecution introduced Wilbur's pretrial statement describing how he fatally assaulted Claude Hebert in Hebert's hotel room after a homosexual advance, together with circumstantial evidence of the killing. Although the defense presented no evidence at trial, it argued that Wilbur lacked criminal intent or that the homicide amounted at most to manslaughter because it occurred in the heat of passion provoked by the advance. The trial court instructed the jury that an intentional and unlawful homicide would support a finding of malice aforethought unless the defendant proved by a fair preponderance of the evidence that he acted in the heat of passion on sudden provocation. After the jury twice returned for additional instructions on implied malice and the definition of heat of passion, it convicted Wilbur of murder. Wilbur appealed his conviction to the Maine Supreme Judicial Court, which upheld the trial court's instructions and affirmed the judgment. Wilbur then filed a petition for a writ of habeas corpus in federal district court. The district court granted the petition, and the Court of Appeals for the First Circuit affirmed that decision. After the Maine Supreme Judicial Court issued its opinion in State v. Lafferty reaffirming its view of state law, the Supreme Court granted certiorari in this case and remanded to the Court of Appeals for reconsideration. On remand, that court again applied Winship, this time to the Maine law as construed by the Maine Supreme Judicial Court. The Supreme Court granted certiorari a second time to consider the constitutional question presented by the Maine homicide law as applied to Wilbur's case.
View caseFelicia Fuentes killed during a sudden confrontation. The state treated the killing as felonious homicide and required her to prove heat of passion to reduce the degree. The allocation of the burden on the defendant was upheld as consistent with the single generic offense structure.
On December 27, 1970, Gordon Patterson shot and killed John Northrup in Glens Falls, New York. After a brief and unstable marriage, Patterson had become estranged from his wife Roberta. Roberta had resumed an association with Northrup, a neighbor to whom she had been engaged before her marriage to Patterson. Patterson borrowed a rifle from an acquaintance and went to the residence of his father-in-law. There he observed his wife through a window in a state of semiundress in Northrup's presence. He entered the house and killed Northrup by shooting him twice in the head. Patterson was charged with second-degree murder. At his jury trial in Warren County Court, Patterson raised the affirmative defense of extreme emotional disturbance and presented psychiatric evidence tending to show that he had been extremely emotionally disturbed when he killed Northrup. The jury was instructed that the prosecution had the burden of proving beyond a reasonable doubt each element of the crime of murder. The defendant had the burden of proving the affirmative defense by a preponderance of the evidence. The jury convicted Patterson of second-degree murder. The Appellate Division affirmed the conviction. While appeal to the New York Court of Appeals was pending, this Court decided Mullaney v. Wilbur. The New York Court of Appeals nevertheless affirmed, distinguishing the Maine statute at issue in Mullaney and holding that New York's allocation of the burden of proof on the affirmative defense was consistent with due process. The United States Supreme Court granted certiorari limited to the question whether the burden of proof placed on the defendant by New York law is consistent with the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.
View caseFidelity Trust's employee committed a killing during a felony. The resulting felonious homicide conviction led to a life sentence without parole. The sentence was reviewed for gross disproportionality under the Eighth Amendment given the circumstances of the offense.
Ronald Harmelin was convicted in Michigan state court of possessing 672 grams of cocaine. Michigan law imposed a mandatory sentence of life imprisonment without possibility of parole for that quantity of the drug. Harmelin had no prior felony convictions. The Michigan Court of Appeals initially reversed the conviction because evidence supporting it had been obtained in violation of the Michigan Constitution. On petition for rehearing, the Court of Appeals vacated its prior decision and affirmed the sentence. The Michigan Supreme Court denied leave to appeal. The United States Supreme Court granted certiorari. The quantity of cocaine at issue had a potential yield of between 32,500 and 65,000 doses. The sentencing court imposed the mandatory term without considering any individualized circumstances of the offense or the offender. Harmelin challenged the sentence on Eighth Amendment grounds, arguing both that it was grossly disproportionate to the crime and that the mandatory nature of the penalty was unconstitutional.
View caseFelonious homicide covers unlawful killings without legal justification or excuse and includes murder and manslaughter. Justifiable homicide arises from lawful acts such as self-defense or official duty and carries no criminal liability.
At common law, felonious homicide encompasses any unlawful killing. It is subdivided into murder when malice aforethought is present and manslaughter when the killing is unlawful but lacks malice.
Yes. When a death occurs during a felony that does not support felony murder, the killing is at least involuntary manslaughter if the death is a foreseeable consequence of the felony.
No. Felonious homicide is the broad category of unlawful killings. Malice aforethought is required only for the murder subdivision. Manslaughter within the category lacks malice.
…followed, was affirmed. The Maine Supreme Judicial Court held that murder and manslaughter were varying degrees of the crime of felonious homicide and that the presumption of malice arising from the unlawful killing was a mere policy presumption operating to cast on the defendant the burden of proving provocation if he was to be found…