Minnesota lawmakers changed felony murder laws, which could mean the release of prisoners

The DFL-controlled Legislature changed the law this year so people can no longer be charged with murder unless they intended to cause a death or were a major participant in a murder. 

Because the new law is retroactive, it could also lead to the release of dozens of people now imprisoned for murder.

Previously, a person could be convicted of murder even though they didn’t kill or even intend to harm anyone, via the state’s aiding and abetting liability and felony murder statutes.  

That led to murder convictions of people who, for example, were unwittingly in a getaway car after someone was killed in a botched robbery.

The law was changed to focus murder charges on those who commit a killing, directly aid and abet the murderer, or act with reckless disregard for human life.

Now, people convicted under the old law could get out of prison, have their sentences reduced or petition to get their convictions tossed out. Nobody has been released yet: Cases will be reviewed first in the county where the cases originated.

Toni Cater, a Burnsville realtor whose daughter witnessed a murder in 2017, was a key advocate. Her daughter, Megan, was a Lakeville student-athlete who was raped during her junior year. Substance abuse followed. She was barely 19 when she and her friend Briana Martinson went to a drug dealer’s house to retrieve prescription medication they believed he’d stolen, accompanied by the dealer’s former roommate, who also wanted to retrieve some stolen belongings.

They went with some guys they didn’t know who ended up beating and killing the dealer and locking the girls in the apartment. The two young women pleaded guilty to aiding and abetting second-degree murder, and were both sentenced to 13.5 years.

“The girls could never have imagined what was going to happen,” Toni Cater told a panel of lawmakers in March. “What we know now is that this is not uncommon.”

Toni Cater declined to comment to the Reformer on passage of the law, on the recommendation of her daughter’s attorney.

Data suggest a sizable number of people may qualify: One-third of Minnesota prisoners serving time for murder were imprisoned under the so-called felony murder doctrine, according to a bipartisan task force report commissioned by lawmakers in 2021. Their average sentence was 24 years.

Both Republicans and Democrats supported studying reform of the felony murder laws — conservative former state Sen. Roger Chamberlain, R-Lino Lakes, co-authored the bill creating the task force.  The change in the law, however, was part of a larger public safety bill that Republicans opposed this year.

The task force report said data from 2010 through 2019 showed the aiding and abetting felony murder laws disproportionately affected people 25 and younger, Hennepin County residents, Black people, and people with little to no criminal history.

University of Minnesota law professor Perry Moriearty, a member of the felony murder task force, said it’s a “uniquely American phenomenon that we continue to use these laws so liberally” to lock people up while every other common law country has abolished felony murder laws, which are controversial because people can be punished for murder even though they never intended to kill anyone.

Felony murder laws trace back to 18th century England, wherein people can be held liable if someone dies in the commission of an inherently violent or dangerous felony. The U.S. imported the practice, and expanded the list of underlying felonies to crimes such as burglaries.

Before the law changed, if a group robbed a gas station and the clerk shot a robber, the others could be held liable for the death of their codefendant.

JaneAnne Murray, a University of Minnesota law professor, is representing two prisoners seeking release after being involved in robberies that went wrong, but declined to get into specifics until the judge rules on their requests. She expects the cases to be resolved early next year.

“It’s a terrible tragedy but they’re just really cases that are botched burglaries and botched robberies,” she said. “It’s just a very tragic situation that results in very tragic penalties.”

In many cases, prosecutors charge ancillary actors with first-degree murder. “It’s terrifying to be in that boat,” Murray said, so defendants often plead guilty to second-degree murder charges. “The overcharging is pretty common in these cases to force the guilty plea,” she said.

The retroactive aspect of the law means judges can re-sentence people, who could get credit for time served and be released.

State corrections spokesman Aaron Swanum said judges will ultimately decide who qualifies under the law, and the DOC doesn’t have an estimate of how many prisoners could be released.

Murray estimates about half the people charged with second-degree murder will be eligible for relief. That so-called “second look” part of the law makes it a “very progressive and humane law.”

The law may also clear up criminal records of people like Jamiccia Donnerson, who left her home at age 16 because she didn’t feel safe, and ended up homeless at times. She and another young woman were in a car when two 23-year-old men they were with killed someone during a robbery.

Although she was 16 at the time, she was charged as an adult, convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to 12 years. She served 10 years at the Shakopee women’s prison, but also got her G.E.D., took college courses and was certified as a paralegal.

She’s free now, and a new mother, but struggled to get an apartment, job and insurance because of her criminal record.

 “No matter how much you try to explain to an employer or landlord, it says ‘murder’ on my background,” she told lawmakers earlier this year. “I’m still punished for murder I did not commit … Somehow I get punished for a bad choice someone made 15 years ago. When will the punishment ever stop?”