Felony Murder Reform Movements in the US - Minnesota

Felony Murder Law Reform is an advocacy group established in Minnesota in 2018. They started with community meetings with criminal justice reform organizations, elected officials, county attorneys, victims’ rights support groups, and the public. During their grassroots work, it grew more and more evident that few people understood the antiquated felony murder rule, much less knew of it's existence as a tool used by prosecutors to charge and convict unjustifiable murder convictions.

The goal of FMLR-MN seeks to reform the guidelines under which a person can be charged, tried, and convicted of felony murder ONLY if:

1. The person charged, tried and convicted is the actual killer.
2. The person charged, tried and convicted acted with intent to kill, such as assisting the actual killer or encouraging the actual killer to kill the victim.

In January 2019, with bi-partisan support in both the Minnesota House and Senate, FMLR-MN worked to draft HF 3976/SF 3802. These bills would have provided for the creation of a task force to study the data, laws, and impact of the felony murder laws as written in Minnesota. The Minnesota State House held hearings in the Spring of 2020. As a result, HF 3976 passed through the Public Safety and Criminal Justice Reform Committee on March 11, 2020, eventually  passed through the Gov Ops committee. On May 7, 2020, as part of an Omnibus Bill, HF 3976 passed through the Minnesota House of Representatives. Yet even with bipartisan support in the house, the Senate counterpart, SF 3802, was not able to obtain a committee hearing in the GOP-majority Minnesota Senate.

FMLR-MN continues to advocate at a grassroots level, gathering data and continuing to analyze sentencing guidelines and application of the felony murder law in Minnesota. Additionally, they serve to tell the stories of more than 450 relatively low-risk incarcerated persons that will cost Minnesota taxpayers over 500 million dollars the course of their confinement, due to the process of over sentencing individuals for a crime they did not commit.

Maureen, above, is one of those stores. At age 28, she was sentenced to life without parole for felony murder when she accompanied a friend of her boyfriend on a drug deal where a murder took place. This friend asked Maureen to hide the murder weapon and she obliged. She admitted to this as well as lying to the police during questioning, acknowledging to guilt of aiding and abetting after the fact. After initially being charged with drug possession, she eventually found herself charged with first degree felony murder despite never killing anyone nor intending to do so. The co-defendant in the case acknowledged that Maureen didn't provide the gun and did not know his intentions that day prior to the murder.

"I’m the same person I was before I came to prison. I just stopped surrounding myself around negative people . I have continued my schooling . I earned my paralegal diploma. I am a lead worker at my job. Before COVID I was a mentor, involved in several committees, and went through numerous groups/treatment base classes and writing classes for Minnesota prison writers workshop."

You can read more about Maureen and others FMLR-MN continues to advocate for at the FMLR-MN website.