The letter of the law vs. the spirit of the law. The law vs. common sense. The context of fairness. Questionable law. They are among the rationales for appeals courts and sometimes constitutional amendments. Redressing a wrong always needs a lifeline, however tenuous.
Case in point. The felony murder doctrine that holds that an accomplice is just as responsible as the actual killers when a murder takes place during the commission of a felony. For example, all masked gang members are guilty–not just the one actually spraying victims with his Uzi. Or the idling, get-away driver in the convenience-store homicide. Or the murder-for-hire recruiter who never fired a round. We get it. They’re all integral parts of the final, fatal result.
But the doctrine, by definition, is rife with gray areas of unforeseen subplots and arguable exceptions. If the same penalty–including life sentences and capital punishment–is to be meted out to those who literally kill and those who literally don’t, there should be unequivocal complicity by all principals.
Which brings us to the equivocal case of Ryan Holle. He was 21 when a Pensacola jury found him guilty of first-degree murder. Among the details: He was drunk and handed his car keys to four friends who burglarized a house and killed a teenager. Holle was a mile and a half away and had no criminal record. The state said he knew they were up to no good; Holle said he thought they were joking. Etc.
Because it wasn’t an iron-clad, felony-murder case, the prosecutors offered a plea deal: 10 years in exchange for testimony against those directly involved. He rejected it. Had he not, he would have been out by now. Instead, at 32, he’s still at Graceville Correctional Facility in North Florida and hoping a clemency hearing–Gov. Rick Scott and the Florida Cabinet–will vote for his release.
It didn’t happen. The Pensacola prosecutor’s office was against it. So were emotional members of the victim’s family. Holle was analogized to Charles Manson. The governor ultimately took the case “under advisement.” That was in lieu of a vote that almost assuredly would have been no.
To no one’s surprise, Attorney General Pam Bondi was the most vocal opponent of Holle’s release.
The felony murder doctrine: It can be a tortuous call. But it shouldn’t be determined by a coin flip with counsel over a plea deal–one proffered because the prosecution knew it didn’t have a get-away driver.