The rule of felony murder is a legal doctrine in some common law jurisdictions that broadens the crime of murder: when someone is killed in the commission of a dangerous or enumerated crime, the offender, and also the offender's accomplices or co-conspirators, may be found guilty of murder.
California Men's Colony (CMC) is a male-only state prison located northwest of the city of San Luis Obispo, San Luis Obispo County, California, along the central California coast approximately halfway between Los Angeles and San Francisco.
Lionel Alexander Tate is the youngest American citizen ever sentenced to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole, though this sentence was eventually overturned. In January 2001, when Tate was 13, he was convicted of first-degree murder for the 1999 battering death of six-year-old Tiffany Eunick in Broward County, Florida.
Mandatory sentencing requires that offenders serve a predefined term of imprisonment for certain crimes, commonly serious or violent offenses. Judges are bound by law; these sentences are produced through the legislature, not the judicial system. They are instituted to expedite the sentencing process and limit the possibility of irregularity of outcomes due to judicial discretion. Mandatory sentences are typically given to people who are convicted of certain serious and/or violent crimes, and require a prison sentence. Mandatory sentencing laws vary across nations; they are more prevalent in common law jurisdictions because civil law jurisdictions usually prescribe minimum and maximum sentences for every type of crime in explicit laws.
Clarence Ray Allen was an American criminal and proxy killer who was executed in 2006 at the age of 76 by lethal injection at San Quentin State Prison in California for the murders of three people. Allen was the second-oldest inmate at the time to be executed in the United States since 1976.
California Medical Facility (CMF) is a male-only state prison medical facility located in the city of Vacaville, Solano County, California. It is older than California State Prison, Solano, the other state prison in Vacaville.
Brandon Wade Hein was sentenced to life imprisonment without possibility of parole for his involvement in the 1995 stabbing murder of 16-year-old Jimmy Farris, the son of a Los Angeles Police Department officer. Hein and two other youths who were present when the murder took place, as well as the actual killer, and were convicted under the felony murder rule because the murder was committed during the course of a felony – the attempted robbery of marijuana kept for sale by Farris's friend, Michael McLoren. Under the felony murder rule, any participant in a felony is criminally responsible for any death that occurs during its commission. In 2009, Hein's life sentence was commuted to 29 years to life.
Gerald "Gary" McGivern was a felon found guilty in 1967 of the armed robbery of a gas station in Pelham Manor, New York, United States, during which two police officers were wounded. McGivern was tried with his partner in the robbery, Charles Culhane, and was sentenced to ten to twenty years in state prison. On September 13, 1968, McGivern, Culhane and a third convict, Robert Bowerman, were being transported by two deputies, from Auburn State Prison to a court hearing in White Plains. During a rest stop along the New York State Thruway, a deputy's gun was seized in an attempted escape. During the struggle inside the police car, a deputy and Bowerman were shot to death.
Ryan Keith Skipper was an American man from Polk County, Florida, who was murdered on March 14, 2007, in what authorities declared a hate crime. Skipper's body was discovered on March 15 along a roadside in Wahneta, Florida. Two men were arrested in connection with the crime: William David Brown Jr., and Joseph Bearden, 20 and 21 years old at the time of the incident, respectively. The men were charged with first-degree murder and robbery.
In the United States, life imprisonment is the most severe punishment provided by law in states with no valid capital punishment statute, and second-most in those with a valid statute. According to a 2013 study, 1 of every 2 000 inhabitants of the U.S. were imprisoned for life as of 2012.
On May 30, 2009, 29-year-old Raul Flores Jr. and his daughter, nine-year-old Brisenia Ylianna Flores, were murdered during a home invasion in Arivaca, Arizona. The perpetrators were Shawna Forde, Jason Eugene Bush and Albert Gaxiola, all members of Forde's vigilante nativist group, Minutemen American Defense (MAD). Gina Gonzalez, the victims' wife and mother, was wounded but survived the attack after exchanging gunfire with the intruders, wounding Bush.
The murders of Byrd and Melanie Billings occurred on or about July 9, 2009, in Pensacola, Florida, United States. Byrd Billings, 66, and his wife, Melanie, 43, were found shot to death on July 9, 2009. The suspects, dressed in "ninja garb," stole a safe and other items during the break-in at the sprawling Billings home west of Pensacola. Nine of their children were home at the time, but were not hurt by the intruders. The family's attorney said that the safe contained jewelry, family papers, and prescription medications.
On November 29, 2009, four police officers of Lakewood, Washington were fatally shot at the Forza Coffee shop, located at 11401 Steele Street #108 South in the Parkland unincorporated area of Pierce County, Washington, near Tacoma. A gunman, later identified as Maurice Clemmons, entered the shop, shot the officers while they worked on laptops, and fled the scene with a single gunshot wound in his torso. After a massive two-day manhunt that spanned several nearby cities, an officer recognized Clemmons near a stalled car in south Seattle. When he refused orders to stop, he was shot and killed by a Seattle Police Department officer.
The FEAR militia was an American terrorist group of between four and eleven individuals that the State of Georgia alleged in 2012 to have planned to destroy a dam and poison apple orchards in Washington State, set off explosives in Forsyth Park in Savannah, Georgia, and assassinate President Barack Obama. Four of the individuals charged were soldiers stationed at Fort Stewart, Georgia. The group killed two people in an attempt to prevent them from revealing their plans to the public. The group used the Army to recruit militia members, who wore distinctive tattoos that resemble an alpha and omega symbol.
John Allen Burt was an American Christian fundamentalist, anti-abortion activist, and convicted child molester who called himself the "spiritual adviser" to murderers Michael Griffin and Paul Hill and other anti-abortionists. Burt ran "Our Father's House", which began as a Christian ministry and shelter for unwed mothers, later evolving into a private religious reformatory boarding school for "troubled" teenage girls. In 2003, he was arrested for molesting a 15-year-old girl who was living there. He was convicted and sentenced to 18 years in prison, where he died in 2013.
Cyntoia Brown Long is an American author and speaker who was convicted of murder and robbery at the age of 16. Brown, who was a victim of child sex trafficking at the time of the incident in 2004, claimed that Johnny Allen had paid her $150 to have sex with him, and that she feared for her life during their encounter, leading her to shoot him. Prosecutors argued that Brown killed Allen while he was sleeping in order to rob him. Brown was found guilty of robbing and murdering Allen and was sentenced to life imprisonment.
On June 18, 2018, 20-year-old American rapper and singer-songwriter Jahseh Dwayne Ricardo Onfroy, known professionally as XXXTentacion, was murdered in Deerfield Beach, Florida. Onfroy was fatally shot by 22-year-old Michael Boatwright after being robbed in his car by Boatwright and his accomplices Trayvon Newsome, Dedrick Williams, and Robert Allen outside RIVA Motorsports, an upscale seller of motorcycles and watercraft in Deerfield Beach. Authorities charged the four men with first-degree murder and robbery with a firearm.
Hubert Geralds Jr. is an American serial killer who murdered five women between 1994 and 1995. He is serving his prison sentence, life without parole, in Menard Correctional Center, which is operated by the Illinois Department of Corrections. During his spree of murders he was known as the Englewood Strangler. Geralds is in custody under the identification number B39967. He was admitted to the Menard Correctional Center on January 16, 1998.
On June 2, 2020, David Dorn, a 77-year-old retired police captain, was fatally shot after interrupting the burglary of a pawn shop in The Ville, St. Louis. The incident occurred on the same night as riots in St. Louis, Missouri over the murder of George Floyd. Stephan Cannon, who was 24 years old at the time of the incident, was convicted of his murder on July 20, 2022.
Murder in Florida law constitutes the intentional killing, under circumstances defined by law, of people within or under the jurisdiction of the U.S. state of Florida.
