The following opinion piece “Why Are People in Massachusetts Being Sent to Prison for Murders They Didn’t Commit?” appeared May 11th in the Boston Globe, and is written by Caitlin Glass, a frequent collaborator with the Felony Murder Elimination Project.

Excerpts from the piece appear below.

This spring, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court ruled that mandatory life-without-parole sentences for people convicted of felony murder constitute cruel punishment and therefore violate the state constitution. This groundbreaking opinion signals state courts’ willingness to grapple with longstanding yet long-critiqued doctrines that extend the legal system’s harshest punishments to broad swaths of people without any inquiry into their individual actions and intentions.

The accomplice liability doctrine — or joint venture, as it’s known in Massachusetts — means that the prosecution does not have to show that the accused person caused a death, whereas the felony murder doctrine relieves the prosecution of its burden to prove intent to cause death. The result is that a person who was present at a homicide — standing nearby, coerced to join an abusive partner, or doing anything that prosecutors later frame as assistance — can be charged and punished the same as a person who intentionally killed.

Take the case of Roberto Lopez-Ortiz. In 2013, Lopez-Ortiz and others agreed to a scheme where they would set up a fake drug buy in order to steal narcotics and cash. Lopez-Ortiz testified that he told his friends he wouldn’t participate in the arrangement if there was a gun. When someone did bring one, Lopez-Ortiz yelled that he didn’t sign up for this and pushed the gunman away. He ran, but the gunman
remained and killed someone.

The jury believed that Lopez-Ortiz wasn’t armed and didn’t shoot anyone. It acquitted him of murder, armed home invasion, and armed assault. But it convicted him of unarmed assault with intent to rob, which in turn required it to convict him of murder. Under the law, Lopez-Ortiz was just as responsible for murder as the gunman. He would receive the same mandatory sentence of life imprisonment. Several jurors submitted letters to the judge asking for leniency, but the law left no discretion to grant it.

The joint venture and felony murder doctrines contradict some of society’s most basic instincts about the relationship between criminal liability and moral culpability. Jurors often experience confusion and moral distress about imposing a murder conviction in cases where the accused never killed anyone.

The Massachusetts Legislature has advanced a reform (S.1179) that would separate murder from accomplice murder, aligning the law with moral intuitions that distinguish between these categories. Instead of mandatory life imprisonment, accomplice murder would be punishable by up to 25 years, allowing for individualized assessments of culpability and punishment. These changes would be retroactive, giving people like Lopez-Ortiz a path to seek relief.

This kind of policy change is popular because it aligns with basic instincts about accountability. A recent poll of Massachusetts voters from across the political spectrum showed that 79 percent of respondents expressed support for distinguishing accomplice murder as its own offense carrying a sentence of up to 25 years in prison. Likewise, 84 percent of respondents indicated that a punishment should be based on
an individual’s actions and level of responsibility rather than the acts of another.

The proposed legislation in Massachusetts does not excuse harm or eliminate accountability. Indeed, several men who are currently serving life sentences under the joint venture theory have testified that they want to be held accountable. They’re only asking to be held accountable for what they’ve done.

You can read the full opinion piece, “Why Are People in Massachusetts Being Sent to Prison for Murders They Didn’t Commit?” at the Boston Globe website.

Caitlin Glass teaches at Boston University School of Law, where she directs the Racial Justice and Movement Lawyering Clinic.