Arizona State Sen. Anna Hernandez introduced a bill to repeal the state’s felony murder law, which has repeatedly been used to imprison bystanders for killings committed by police officers, reported The Appeal. Hernandez also introduced a separate bill that would change the law so that people can only be charged with murder if they killed someone or helped kill someone.
Under Arizona’s felony murder law, people can
be charged
with murder even when they did not kill anyone. If someone dies while a
person is committing certain felony offenses, such as robberies or certain drug
offenses, that person can be charged with felony murder.
Senate Bill
1422 removes the sections of Arizona state law that allow people to be
charged with murder even when they did not kill anyone. The bill would also
give anyone previously convicted under the state’s felony murder statute a
chance to be resentenced.
Senate Bill
1423, meanwhile, adds two sentences
to the state’s homicide statute defining specific cases in which
people can be charged with first-degree murder. One sentence states that people
may be charged if the person is the actual killer. The second says someone can
be charged with first-degree murder if the person is not the killer but had the
intent to kill and “aided, abetted, counseled, commanded, induced, solicited,
requested, or assisted” the actual killer in the conduct that caused the death.
Last year, The Appeal published
a story that brought renewed attention to the Phoenix Police
Department’s killing
of Jacob Harris—and the incarceration of his three friends using the
state’s felony murder law. In 2019, Phoenix Police Officer Kristopher Bertz
shot 19-year-old Harris in the back, killing him. Police and prosecutors
cleared Bertz of any wrongdoing. Instead, they charged three friends with
Harris that night—Johnny Reed, Sariah Busani, and Jeremiah Triplett—with the
murder. Reed, who was 14 years old at the time, was sentenced to 15 years in
prison—more years than he had been alive at the time of his arrest.
Busani, aged 19, and Triplett, aged 20, were
sentenced to 10 and 30 years respectively. All three have been incarcerated
since the night police killed Harris.
Our reporting revealed that multiple law enforcement
officials made false or misleading statements about the night of Harris’s death
and deleted text messages related to the shooting. Thermal footage of the
shooting obtained by The Appeal contradicted the Phoenix Police Department’s
version of events.
Our investigation also raised questions about the
department’s conduct prior to the shooting: officers had been surveilling
Harris and his friends for over 12 hours at the time, believing that they were
connected to a string of robberies. Though police had many opportunities to
stop the group throughout the day, they ultimately chose to “allow a robbery to
happen,” as one officer put it.
In a written statement, Hernandez told The Appeal
she filed two bills in order to increase the likelihood at least one passes.
“These came about after conversations with the
coalition supporting Mr. Roland Harris and the Free the Phoenix 3 [Coalition],”
Hernandez said. “This statue is especially concerning as we have seen a rise in
police shootings and what this could mean for other individuals that could be
impacted by this law.”
Hernandez also praised The Appeal’s reporting in a
Tweet last March.
Tomorrow morning, the Justice for Jacob Harris and
Free the Phoenix Three community coalitions—which formed in response to The
Appeal’s investigation—will hold a press conference alongside Hernandez outside
the state capitol to support the bills. The coalitions include the Anti
Police-Terror Project, Black Lives Matter Phoenix Metro, Decarcerate Arizona,
and the families of Harris, Reed, Busani, and Triplett.
Several states, including Hawaii, Kentucky,
Massachusetts, and Michigan, have abolished
the felony murder rule.
Hernandez’s two bills each have more than seven
co-sponsors. The state senate is currently composed
of 14 Democrats and 16 Republicans. The state house has 29 Democrats and 31
Republicans. Some Republican lawmakers in Arizona have supported criminal
justice reform measures in the past. Arizona’s governor, Katie Hobbs, is a
Democrat who has endorsed criminal
legal system reform. The new round of bills also puts added pressure on
Hobbs to grant clemency to Harris’s three friends.
To read more CLICK HERE
No comments:
Post a Comment