Violent criminals whose participation in crimes result in someone being murdered can no longer be convicted of murder in California, unless they actually shot the victim or played some kind of active, physical role in the act that killed the victim, the California Supreme Court has ruled.

A man who broke into the home of an 85-year-old woman whom he violently raped was properly convicted under a vestige of the felony-murder rule where the victim died following a fall in her home while still traumatized by the attack, fractured her hip,  and experienced complications from surgery, the Fifth District Court of Appeal has determined.

Div. Six of this district’s Court of Appeal held yesterday that a defendant was properly convicted of felony false imprisonment based on testimony that he drove erratically with his then-wife in the car and, when she demanded that he let her out of the vehicle, told her “try it” with a “malicious” laugh, rejecting the assertion that prosecutors must show that he threatened force that is greater than that necessary to effectuate restraint on a person’s liberty.

The State Bar of California’s Standing Committee on Professional Responsibility and Conduct