At least about my local laws.
Over at the Heartless Libertarian’s place they’re having a discussion about a fatal shooting that took place in Tacoma
Background: there was a gang shooting in Tacoma Saturday morning, one dead (a 19 year old gang member who the Bradys will not doubt call ‘another child tragically killed by guns’), two wounded, one of those an innocent bystander who is now paralyzed. Nothing much unusual about the shooting, except it happened downtown instead of in the parts of Tacoma where this kind of thing normally happens. One of the shooters, Verick Yarbrough, age 17, is being charged with murder and assault for killing one member of a rival gang and wounding another.But here’s the twist: the DA says he can’t charge anyone for shooting Tiffany Walker, the now paralyzed bystander. The DA says the shot the hit her were fired in self defense, by other people who were with the deceased.
Take a moment to go over to his place, click through the links, and make sure to read through the comments.
I know a civil suit will follow, as it rightly should (you should only hit what you aim at, not what you point at), but it is a bit weird to find out that accidentally hitting a by-stander while firing in self-defense is not a crime in this locale. Good, but weird.
What??!! Don’t you have the felony-murder rule in Washington?
That’s the law — on the books in most if not all states, I believe — that says a criminal is liable for the death of anyone caused during commission of the crime, even if the criminal didn’t pull the trigger.
The classic scenario is where two goons stick up a 7-11, and the first goon kills the shop owner. The second goon can also be prosecuted for murder even though he didn’t fire a shot — just because he participated in the stickup.
I had thought that extended to holding the criminal culpable for the deaths of bystanders caused when, say, the first goon and the store owner get into a shootout. Obviously the local DA doesn’t see it that way.
The local DA can be forgiven for not applying the felony murder rule, since the bystander didn’t die (a requirement to indict for murder).
There is no “felony wounding” rule.
I would bet that the shooters could all be charged with SOMETHING, though, such as Carrying a Concealed Weapon with intent to use (felony in Oregon). I’ll have to bet that NONE of the ganstas involved had CWPs.
Oops! Missed the part about the bystander not dying.
In the comments over at the Libertarian’s post, somebody mentioned also that Washington’s felony-murder statute is rather more narrowly drawn than others — according to the commenter it apparently doesn’t cover bystanders or accomplices accidentally killed during assaults on others. So even if the bystander had died, the rule may not have applied.
Time to change that law!