Child killers walk free after Washington Supreme Court vacates convictions

http://cbs11tv.com/national/KillersWalk-aa/resources_news_html

SEATTLE (AP) Yvonne Roberts used to take comfort in knowing that the killer of her 3-year-old son was behind bars. That was before two recent state Supreme Court decisions let him out four decades early.

And that man, David Crane, isn't alone. Noreen Erlandson served 12 years instead of 40 for killing her own 2-year-old daughter. Keith Whitling was supposed to serve another 15 for his infant's death in 1992. In all, at least two dozen child killers could end up walking after the court found they were improperly convicted.

The court's rulings concerned Washington's law on felony murder, defined as a homicide that occurs even by accident during or ``in furtherance of'' another felony, such as robbery. For decades, prosecutors charged defendants with second-degree felony murder if an assault led to someone's death. In 2003, the court decided the law did not allow for felony murder charges in assault cases. In a 5-4 ruling, justices reasoned that in such cases, the assault and homicide are the same act: The homicide does not occur ``in furtherance of'' assault, it is the assault.

About 280 prisoners may be entitled to have their convictions vacated, as well as an unknown number of people who already served time. Prosecutors face the option of filing new charges of manslaughter, which carries a lesser penalty; finding another felony on which to base a felony murder charge; or trying to prove the killing was intentional a daunting task years after the fact. In cases where children were impulsively shaken or beaten to death, intent is especially difficult to prove.

...it's hard to fault the legal reasoning. The notion of "it's felony murder because it took place in furtherance of assault" is a real stretch of a law that was clearly designed for robberies gone bad -- by the interpretation prosecuters were using, wouldn't every homicide qualify as felony murder?

Better that our state legislature should have rewritten the law to make cases like some of the above (such as the intentional killing of a child under a certain age) felony murder in and of themselves, rather than relying on a prosecutorial parlor game to gain them that status.

i'm one of those who's a stickler for details when it comes to the law.
it's one of the reasons americans sought independence.
legal specificity protects everyone.

Crack someone over the skull, and he dies of an unexpected aneurysm, and you get manslaughter.

Shoot a gun into the air during a robbery, and someone drops dead of a heart attack, and you're a murderer.

state to execute people who did not have the requisite mental state to qualify for simple murder. And yes, it is incoherent.

Sounds like the prosecutors made a mistake by getting "tricky" as they tend to do.

One of the guys getting out of prison is a man who killed a baby by shaking him and hitting him upside the head--the little brat was too loud and interrupting TV watchin. The prosecutors charged Felony Murder--cause they could not prove he intended to kill the baby--just shut it the fu*K up. Those damn tricky prosecutors trying to pull one over on this citizen.