So you guys are lifers.

Lifers.

This is me just a few months ago in San Quentin State

Prison, in California.

I spent the last 16 years of my life

in prison serving time for murder.

That’s right — murder.

But the thing is —

I didn’t kill anyone.

And don’t just take my word for it.

The judge, the prosecutor and the jury in my case

all agreed that I hadn’t killed anyone,

but they still sentenced me as the actual killer

and put me in prison with 25 years to life.

All right.

I want to tell you about something called the felony

murder rule.

It’s a glitch in our criminal justice

system, a glitch we only have in the United States.

And it basically says this.

Felony murder rule.

Any death which occurs during the commission of a felony

is first-degree murder, and all participants

in that felony can be charged with and found guilty

of murder.

Translation: If you commit a felony,

and while that felony is happening,

someone gets killed, you can be found guilty of murder

whether or not you killed anyone.

Here’s an example.

Let’s say you let your friend borrow your car.

You know he’s going to use it to commit a robbery.

But then he ends up killing someone.

The felony murder rule says that you're

equally guilty of the murder as your friend.

This actually happened to a guy named Ryan Holle.

Instead of going to prison for an attempted robbery,

he’s serving life without the possibility of parole.

Or what about this?

You and your friend decide to commit a robbery.

As you’re running away, your friend

is shot dead by the police.

The felony murder rule says that you

are going to prison for his murder

even though it was the cops who killed him.

You guessed it.

There’s a kid named Tevin Lewis serving 52 years

to life for this exact situation.

Or it could be a robbery, a snatch

and grab where your accomplice unexpectedly pulls out

a knife and kills someone.

That’s what happened to me.

We agreed that no weapons were to be used,

but the guy I was with brought a knife.

The jury found me guilty of an intent to commit a robbery,

but the felony murder rule said

I should be sentenced for first-degree murder.

And that’s what I got —

25 years to life.

I was 18.

Maybe you’re thinking I deserved to go to prison,

and I agree with you.

I committed a robbery, and I should be held responsible.

But one of the basic principles

of a fair legal system is that people should only

be held responsible for the crimes

that they committed, not for crimes

committed by someone else.

The felony murder rule dates way back to England

in the 1700s, but they repealed it in 1957.

In fact, every other country that

had a version of the felony murder rule

has ditched it except one.

Now, the felony murder rule does have its supporters.

If you set out to commit a crime,

you should expect that someone’s going to get hurt.

But how can you expect an accidental death

or know that someone is going to suddenly pull out

a weapon.

The felony murder rule deters people

from being involved in violent crime.

That might work if people knew the rule even existed.

The first time I heard about it

was when I was first charged.

Well, someone should be held responsible

when a person is killed.

Yes, someone should be held responsible,

but it should be the person who actually did it.

So how many people are incarcerated

for murders everyone agrees they didn’t commit?

The truth is we don’t even know.

Nobody is keeping track of this, not even the courts.

The closest we have is a guess from a study of crime data.

It said that one in five people for murder convictions

are there for felony murder.

If that’s true — and again, we’re not for sure —

but if that’s true, that’s 36,000 people

in prison right now serving time

for murders they should never have been charged with.

Various of our states, including California,

have not appropriately defined our murder statute

so that it can fit the crime that is committed.

And now the good news —

during my own incarceration, I campaigned

to get the felony murder rule amended

in the state of California.

So it took three years, but last August, Senate Bill 1437

was passed saying that people who

are serving time for felony murder

but who never had any intent to kill

are eligible to have their life sentences overturned.

In January, 2019, my sentence was reduced to three years,

and I had already served 16 years.

So I was released.

California is only the seventh state

in the country to amend the felony murder rule.

If you live in any one of these states,

there are definitely people in prison

near you serving life sentences for murders

that everyone agrees they didn’t commit.

As if America’s mass incarceration crisis

isn’t bad enough already.

It’s crazy being back here, but I

want to help those people who are still

behind these walls who are still

serving those long sentences.

State governors and legislators

need to take the lead and make a push

to amend the felony murder rule in every state

so other people like me don’t lose decades of their lives

serving time for crimes that they didn’t commit.

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