9 years ago
9
Why a teenager who didn't kill anyone faces 55 years in jail
Blake Layman made one very bad decision. He was 16, an unexceptional teenager growing up in a small Indiana town. He’d never been in trouble with the law, had a clean criminal record, had never owned or even held a gun. That decision sparked a chain of events that would culminate with his arrest and trial for “felony murder”. The boy was unarmed, had pulled no trigger, killed no one. He was himself shot and injured in the incident...
Continue Reading
http://www.theguardian.com
Join the Discussion
Charge him with burglary but do not charge him with murder. In my opinion there should be no murder charges at all in this case for anyone involved.
This is what's called Felony Murder. It makes anyone committing a felony culpable of a murder committed during that felony or in furtherance of it. A more direct example would be if his partner has murdered the home owner he would still be culpable for that murder.
I'm not an expert in the law but I generally agree with this principle because people shouldn't be absolved of their participation in dangerous criminal actions. It's not a remote possibility that a burglary would result in violence or a death and the actors should be held accountable for the result of their actions.
What happened was tragic and he should not be excused but I don't believe he should be in jail for 55 years. That's my main feeling on the situation.
Indeed, sometimes there are situations where it might be unfair to the person being charged, but the goal is to make other actors within the felony responsible. Definitely a tough call on the part of the Judge.
I dunno, as a victim of grand theft from my home (it took me a long time to recover from that one), I have no sympathy for punk kids who break in and steal things they did not work for or earn in any way. This modern idea of being sorry for the perpetrator of crime makes me sick. However, as a person who has friends in prison myself, I do believe that the mandatory sentencing guidelines are draconian and need to be updated, though it isn't going to happen as long as there are such things as for-profit prisons and arrest quotas.
The system is certainly skewed, but still, fuck this kid for being a thief. That is all.
While I agree with you that punishment is necessary for such an action, I think that the controversy is about him being charged with murder when, as far as I know, nobody should have been charged for this. Every teenager make mistakes at some point. He was a dumbass to think that this would be a good idea, but charging him for a crime (my opinion) he did not commit is not fair. He did not want anyone to die, and everyone involved was conscious of the risks and were willing to go, they just needed money and even tried to make sure that the man was not home (they were not smart about that either). I don't excuse them at all. An incredibly stupid idea, but a wrong judgement I think.
Yea, that's how murder works. Someone committing a serious criminal act should reasonably know that this could have been the outcome.
Actually, none of them were armed. They could not have anticipated that they would be killing anybody. In fact, none of them fired a shot. The lawyer for Layman are right. This should not be felony murder, since none of them killed anybody in the process of the robbery. It is the wrong charge and a ridiculous sentence.
I have to disagree. Expecting a home owner to be armed is not a remote possibility when breaking into a house and it's also not unreasonable to assume the home owner would use that firearm. Indiana also has a castle doctrine statute which would further increase the likelihood of a violent outcome to a home invasion.