Minnesota’s second-degree felony-murder statute represents a unique and creative charging mechanism that affords wide discretion to prosecutors. This makes it ripe for inequitable application. It is the most serious charge brought against George Floyd’s killer, Derek Chauvin. Prosecutors can find novel ways to charge felony-murder for almost any unintended death, and they often use it in cases where they also allege homicidal intent. At the same time, it is a charge prosecutors can find plausible justification not to bring in most cases. This wide discretion provides leverage to prosecutors in plea negotiations. Plea negotiations can work to the benefit of defendants who are initially charged with second-degree intentional murder by affording them the opportunity to plead down to felony-murder, which carries less than half the guideline sentence. This wide charging discretion also has the potential to unfairly elevate crimes that should have been charged as manslaughter, third-degree murder, or other lesser offenses. The discretion can entail a twenty-fold inflation in sentencing over the charges on which it is commonly predicated. For these reasons, the charging and disposition of felony-murder cases reveal much about racial disparities in the larger criminal justice system.
The felony-murder doctrine is frequently weaponized against people of color, while prosecutors and judges allow White defendants to exploit the doctrine to their benefit. Killings by peace officers magnify the disparity; officers who should be charged with felony-murder instead face reduced charges, or more frequently, no charges at all. The victim’s and the killer’s race matter, both in police killings and in the broader application of the felony-murder doctrine. This context allows for an informed assessment of the evolution Minnesota and the world have undergone in the year since George Floyd’s killing. It also provides a framework for an analysis of the inevitable appeal of Chauvin’s convictions and the implications this may have on reform or abolition of the felony-murder doctrine. It situates this prosecution within the affected community as it moves forward through reform, growth, and unity.
Section II of this Article analyzes sentencings, plea negotiations, convictions, and charging under Minnesota’s felony-murder doctrine across race, buttressing statistics with examples and exposing racial inequities in the way the felony-murder doctrine is deployed. Section III provides a legal analysis of the case against Philando Castile’s killer, Jeronimo Yanez. While the world applauded the second-degree manslaughter charge against Yanez, the case was actually ripe for felony-murder charging. This section juxtaposes the Yanez case with a more obscure shooting by a defendant of color who was not a peace officer, illustrating that a killing by a peace officer can be more egregious, yet not result in charges of the level faced by a lay person of color. Section IV exposes how Minnesota peace officers who kill have, until now, rarely been prosecuted at any level. It provides a brief overview of the only other four prosecuted Minnesota police killings in recent memory, reconciling these cases with larger trends and accounting for race. The section weighs the implications of Chauvin’s appeal of his convictions against the broader historical abuses of the felony-murder doctrine. It analyzes the impact these legal proceedings have on public policy and recognizes their symbolic and social power, which reframes the hurt, the hope, and the heart of the Twin Cities community.