Sweeping criminal justice reform package would curtail felony murder prosecutions in Illinois

The Illinois General Assembly passed the sweeping criminal justice reform bill, HB3653, that included a provision narrowing the state’s murder statute. The bill has been sent to Gov. J.B. Pritzker’s desk for approval.

Illinois lawmakers are considering changing a controversial rule that allows individuals to be charged with murder when they commit certain felonies that lead to someone’s death.

Under current Illinois law, defendants who commit forcible felonies, including robbery, burglary, criminal sexual assault, and arson can be charged with first-degree murder when someone is killed in the course of those crimes—even if the defendant did not directly cause the death.

Under the so-called felony murder rule, prosecutors charged, convicted, and sentenced Marshan Allen to life in prison for a murder that occurred when he was 15. Though Allen stole the van used to get to and from the crime scene, it was his older co-defendants who shot and killed two men at an apartment on Chicago’s South Side in 1992.

Advocates for criminal justice reform have long advocated narrowing the law, which they say is excessively broad and punitive.

In Illinois, the felony murder rule serves as “a major engine of mass incarceration in the state,” said Steven Drizin, co-director of the Center on Wrongful Convictions and clinical professor of law at Northwestern Pritzker School of Law.

“Because the punishment gap between a murder sentence and a sentence of a lesser felony is so extreme, you keep people locked up for much longer periods of time than they need to be,” said Drizin.

Changes to the definition of “felony murder” are part of the sweeping criminal justice reform package being pushed by the Illinois Legislative Black Caucus during the General Assembly’s lame-duck session, which ends Wednesday.

If passed, the bill will ban prosecutors from filing first-degree murder charges in cases where defendants did not commit the act or know it would occur, or where the death was caused by a third party. These amendments will bring Illinois’ felony murder statute, one of the broadest in the nation, in line with those in dozens of other states. The changes are not retroactive.

Juvenile justice impact

Because juveniles often commit crimes in groups, Illinois’ current felony-murder statute has had an outsized effect on young people, according to Drizin.

In one high-profile 2019 case, prosecutors in Lake County, Illinois, charged five teens with the murder of their 14-year-old friend, who was shot and killed by a homeowner as the youth allegedly attempted a burglary. The controversial charges were eventually dropped against the teens, known as the “Lake County Five.”

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