OKPOLICY.ORG
There was an informative interim study last week on Oklahoma’s “felony murder” statute in the House Criminal Justice and Corrections Committee, requested by Committee Chairman Justin Humphrey of Lane. Rep. Humphrey has a bachelor’s degree in criminal justice from East Central University in Ada, and he retired from the Oklahoma Department of Corrections after 20 years of service.
Humphrey considers his service to have been as a law enforcement officer. Prior to being elected to the House, Humphrey owned and operated a private company that contracted to provide drug court supervision and private probation services, and he was the Atoka/Coal County drug court administrator.
The outspoken representative seems to approach his criminal justice work in the Legislature with the zeal of an “insider” who remembers the flaws within the system he observed while in it and as one who also understands its effect on the offenders he later supervised. This makes him both a thorn in the side of many and the recipient of numerous contacts from people who believe they or their loved ones or clients are victims of injustice at the hands of Oklahoma’s criminal justice and corrections system.
The lengthy study last week on Oklahoma’s felony murder statute was just one of many hearings Humphrey has held to point out perceived wrongs that have been brought to his attention. Oklahoma’s felony murder statute is not an outlier among the states. In fact, many states have similar statutes. But, as witnesses pointed out in the hearing, it is fertile ground for what many would consider entirely legal but horribly unjust results.
The statute, 21 O.S. 701.7, provides a person is guilty of first-degree murder “regardless of malice, when that person or any other person takes the life of a human being during, or if, the death of a human being results from, the commission or attempted commission of” one of thirteen enumerated crimes such as robbery with a dangerous weapon, eluding an officer or first degree burglary. The penalty for first degree murder includes life, life without parole, and the death penalty.
So, under the law, a person who killed no one, had no intention of killing anyone, who did not know someone would be killed, and did not want anyone to be killed, can be convicted of first degree murder and put to death because, during a crime the person participated in, someone was killed by another person. The death can be the result of actions by a codefendant, an officer, a witness, or someone else, and it may even be accidental or unjustified.
To some this may seem perfectly proper. They say, if you decide to participate in a serious crime, and someone is killed during the commission of the crime, you deserve what you get, even the death penalty. The victim is just as dead regardless of your intent. But, as pointed out in the hearing, the statute often results in the least culpable person involved in the crime getting the death penalty while the actual killer gets something less, sometimes because of a plea bargain. The killer knows what he did and may be the first one in the door to make a deal.
Witnesses in the committee hearing offered several solutions if the Legislature chooses to act, such as requiring the defendant have some intent the victim be killed. Perhaps the most feasible approach would be to reclassify felony murder as second-degree murder, which would expose the defendant to a penalty of 10 years to life, but not the death penalty. Rep. Humphrey and Rep. Danny Williams of Seminole, said they would propose some sort of change in the law, but Humphrey acknowledged it could be an uphill climb.
