Ryan Holle - anyone see this/follow this?

[Dobber]

This is crazy. And it's true - I looked at a few other articles to confirm:

http://www.thenation.com/article/178...d-going-sleep#


The key point:

Several years ago I read a piece in The New York Times by Adam Liptak about Ryan Holle. Ryan, who had no prior record, is serving a life sentence with no chance of parole in Florida. He was convicted of pre-meditated murder, even though no one, including the prosecutor, disputes that Ryan was asleep in his bed at home at the time of the crime. This could only happen in America, because we are the only country that retains the Felony Murder Rule. What the Felony Murder Rule essentially says is if anyone has anything to do with a felony in which a murder takes place, such as a robbery, that person is as guilty as the person who has committed the murder. Every other country including England, India and Canada has gotten rid of it because of its unintended consequences. In America, Michigan, Kentucky and Hawaii no longer have the law. The Canadian Supreme Court ruled, when they discarded the Felony Murder Rule, that a person should be held responsible for his own actions not the actions of others.

Exactly what did Ryan Holle do? At a party in his apartment over ten years ago, he lent his car to his roommate and went to sleep. He had lent his car to his roommate many times before with no negative consequences. This time the roommate and others went to a house where they knew a woman was selling marijuana from a safe. They planned to get the marijuana, but in the course of their break-in a teenage girl was killed. Those at the scene all received appropriately harsh sentences, but so did Ryan Holle.

There's following the letter of the law...and then there's common sense!

[Pengwin7]

Yeesh.
Even in fantasy hockey (as a commissioner), I consistently have to remind people that the rules-in-place should not be viewed as the be-all, end-all.
Common sense still has to be considered.
And rules/laws need to be revisited and changed... as they are reviewed to be out-of-date.

Truly unfortunate... some laws.

More reading from 2007:
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/04/us...anted=all&_r=0

[Bass56]

How is this even ''legal''. If there was a doubt that he could be at the scene, then fine; it sucks to be wrongfully accused, but it's a case of wrong place, wrong time. If there was proof that he knew what was going to happen, same thing. But this... this is garbage!

Why did the person who built the house where the woman lived not get the same verdict for building a house that could be broken in to. Or the town's police department for failing to prevent a crime? Or the woman herself for not defending herself enough to survive the attack? Or the car dealership for selling Holle a car that would be used in a murder case?

There's ridiculous, and then there's this!

[Loch]

See... trickle down economics totally work.