Criminal Justice

In 39 States, People Can Be Sentenced to Life for Murders They Did Not Commit

The Sentencing Project highlights the perverse consequences of the felony murder rule, a vestige of British law that still prevails in federal courts and all but two states.

Jacob Sullum | 7.24.2026 4:35 PM

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When he was 19, Jamie Meade participated in a robbery that turned lethal. But it was Meade's partner in crime who actually shot the victim (accidentally, he said). Meade nevertheless was convicted of felony murder and sentenced to life without parole, while the killer pleaded guilty to lesser offenses and received a 12-year sentence. When Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer commuted Meade's sentence last year, he had served 31 years. By contrast, the man who fired the gun, who spent 10 years in prison, has been free since 2008.

Manifestly unjust results like those are a product of laws that treat people as murderers when they participate in felonies that result in someone's death, even when they did not intend, anticipate, or cause that outcome. A new report from the Sentencing Project highlights the perverse effects of the felony murder rule—a vestige of British law that still prevails in federal courts and all but two states nearly seven decades after the U.K. abandoned it.

Felony murder laws "violate the principle of proportional sentencing, which is supposed to punish crimes based on their severity," Sentencing Project Research Director Nazgol Ghandnoosh and her two co-authors say. "With one in six people in U.S. prisons serving a life sentence, ending mass incarceration requires bold action to reduce extreme prison terms such as those prescribed for felony murder. These laws run counter to public safety, fiscal responsibility, and justice."

Hawaii and Kentucky are the only states that do not have felony murder laws. Of the 48 states that do, 10 impose a mandatory sentence of life without parole (LWOP) on any adult convicted of felony murder, which is also what federal law requires. Eleven states mandate LWOP sentences for certain felony murder........

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