There’s another issue here, and I don’t know if this is the best thread to discuss it... but there’s something I don’t like about this (sortof) new tactic of charging people with murder when somebody dies in a crime they’re a participant in.
Satisfying as it may be to hang these good-for-nothings, I think people should be charged with crimes they actually commit. Not things that other people do. If two people rob a bank and one of them kills the guard, I still think only one of them is guilty of murder. The other is a bank robber. If they ~planned~ it together that way, I can see a conspiracy charge for the other guy, but only the trigger man is the murderer. IMHO.
The concept of "parties to a crime" is as old as the common law. The intent to commit the crime is transferred to any reasonably foreseeable result. And when you and your partners in crime rob a drugstore with a gun, somebody getting shot is foreseeable.
Fwiw, this is a very odd case and something smelled about it from the start. I think 1st degree murder is a bit of a stretch, but this is not your typical self-defense case. Probably came down to how the defendant appeared on the stand ( or in the chair if he didn't testify).
“but only the trigger man is the murderer. IMHO.”
I agree.