Posted on 04/14/2014 12:19:11 AM PDT by PaulCruz2016
Several years ago I read a piece in The New York Times by Adam Liptak about Ryan Holle. Ryan, who had no prior record, is serving a life sentence with no chance of parole in Florida. He was convicted of pre-meditated murder, even though no one, including the prosecutor, disputes that Ryan was asleep in his bed at home at the time of the crime. This could only happen in America, because we are the only country that retains the Felony Murder Rule. What the Felony Murder Rule essentially says is if anyone has anything to do with a felony in which a murder takes place, such as a robbery, that person is as guilty as the person who has committed the murder. Every other country including England, India and Canada has gotten rid of it because of its unintended consequences. In America, Michigan, Kentucky and Hawaii no longer have the law. The Canadian Supreme Court ruled, when they discarded the Felony Murder Rule, that a person should be held responsible for his own actions not the actions of others.
Exactly what did Ryan Holle do? At a party in his apartment over ten years ago, he lent his car to his roommate and went to sleep. He had lent his car to his roommate many times before with no negative consequences. This time the roommate and others went to a house where they knew a woman was selling marijuana from a safe. They planned to get the marijuana, but in the course of their break-in a teenage girl was killed. Those at the scene all received appropriately harsh sentences, but so did Ryan Holle. I got involved with the case shortly after I read Adam Liptak’s piece. I have been advocating on behalf of clemency for Ryan, who was first offered a plea deal of ten years but chose to go to trial. I’m sure it was difficult for a young man, who had never been arrested, and who believed he had done nothing to accept that he should go to prison for ten years, so he went to trial, was convicted and sentenced to life in prison with no chance of parole. He is now in his eleventh year of incarceration. Again, this is a young man who was home asleep in bed at the time of the crime. I personally know of no other felony murder conviction where the person was not even present, and the pre-meditated part of the conviction suggests that Ryan knew his car was going to be used in the course of a murder, which to me, isn’t credible. To the best of my knowledge, in the entire history of the criminal justice system in America, no one has ever been convicted and sentenced to life in prison for loaning a car and going to sleep.
A few years ago I was on a television show with the father of the girl who was murdered in the robbery attempt. The father felt that it was entirely justified that Ryan Holle spend his life in prison. At the time, I couldn’t bring myself to say what I was feeling. I felt the father and mother were a lot more responsible for their daughter’s death than Ryan Holle. The mother did actually serve three years in prison for selling drugs, but both parents in no way should have been involved in selling drugs from their house. It would only be a question of time before the wrong person knocked on the door. In my judgment, parents who would do that with two teenage daughters at home have a lot more responsibility for this tragedy than Ryan Holle.
Ryan writes me from prison telling me that when he gets out, he plans to speak out against the Felony Murder Rule. Unless people of good will and common sense publicize his case, Ryan Holle will die in prison.
Well stated.
I love people on here who can’t see the myriad circumstances under which they could find themselves in similar straits.
That is because most of us apply logic and reason rather then rampant emotionalism.
“can i borrow your pen?” stab someone in the head and hand it back to you mr guilty.
Prime example. If you ask me for a pen so you can stab someone in the head I am not going to lend it to you. If I do then there is something wrong with me.
How about you lend a family member 20 bucks who turns around and solicits a child prostitute? Guess what you little enabler you. Guilty.
Another good example of rampant emotionalism with no logic to back it up. Would I lend $20 bucks to some one who told me that he intended to hire a child prostitute with it? No.
we can go on and on but i’m quite certain that anyone who can say its not the point whether he knew or not will never admit to being wrong.
You certainly can go on and on but you apparently can not see beyond your emoting to the fact that if he knew has everything to do with the case.
In this case you are flat out wrong.
Having served on a jury, I doubt this story. It is very difficult to get a murder conviction, much less when you were asleep at the time of the murder.
Hey Brainiac.
i wasn’t wrong.
i responded to ‘Sorry but the point is if he did or did not know.”
You see at that point your post was over. You wasted a bunch of typing. You set me up with a line that you never meant and then refute the argument i made to that mistake.
So no. You were wrong.
apology accepted and i don’t need to ever hear another word from you. go play on the Huff Post.
When NYT reported on this story in 2007 they reported the detail that Holle testified that he was told they might need to knock out Jessica Snyder. He not only knew about the burglary, but also knew they intended to steal the drugs by violence if necessary. That’s why he was convicted of felony murder. He claims now that he thought it was all a joke. Which I’m calling BS on and so did the jury obviously, finding him guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.
I’ve seen this story told at least 3 other times since it happened, it’s more like a folk tale each time as more and more of the facts of his guilt are whitewashed. I expect the next incarnation to read that his roommate took the car without his knowledge at all.
People get scared because they think “it could be me! I lend my car to my friend all the time!” But unless your friend told you they intended to use it to rob someone by force and then killed them when it went pear-shaped you’ll be fine. I’m amenable to revisiting felony murder as law, as a lot of other countries have, but that’s a seperate issue. The prosecutor recognized his lesser involvement and offered him, and only him, a plea deal of 10 years. Holle rejected that offer and would already be out if he’d taken it. The killer was up for the needle, but ultimately he and all the rest of them got LWOP.
I have very little sympathy for Holle at the moment.
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