About those hazing charges coming out of Florida A&M's band program . . . .

[Stinky The Clown]

. . . . what do you think about the prosecutor's decision to charge Felony Hazing (6 years, max) instead of some level of murder?

The young man, Robert Champion, Jr., was determined to have died as a result of the cumulative injuries he received in the hazing. No one injury, and therefore no one perp, specifically killed him.

His parents are very disappointed that the prosecutor chose to charge so timidly.

Curiously, to me at least, there are other crimes where, even if you are simply an accomplice, like the getaway driver in a bank robbery, if someone is killed, everyone is chargeable with murder. Why isn't this case any different. The victim was punched, slapped, kicked, and stomped as he was repeatedly made to run from the front to the back and front again of a band bus. In my view, everyone else on that bus, students, the driver, chaperones, band officials, each and every one of them, was an active participant, to one degree or another, in the slow motion murder.

Those are my initial thoughts. What are yours?

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/03/us/13-charged-in-hazing-death-at-florida-am.html

[cthulu2016]

1. For "felony murder" such as you describe...

there usually has to be an over-arching felonious crime, like robbing a bank, stealing a car, etc..

(Classic felony murder example: You go to rob a bank with a toy gun. A customer has a fatal heart attack when you start waving the gun around. It may well be charged as first degree murder.)

If band hazing is not itself felonious then a death arising from it would not necessarily be "felony murder."

Oddly enough, felony murder usually does not apply to, say, felonious assault. If you punch the law school classic "soft skulled man" and he dies your felonious assault would usually not be increased to first degree because the act of punching is the same as the act of murder... there's no surrounding felony. In that case, since you did not intend the blow to kill you'd usually get manslaughter.

It's tricky and interpretations probably vary widely in practice.

[Scuba]

2. There were likely one or more on the bus who were appalled....

.... but afraid to speak up. You gonna charge them with murder?

That said, this should not be treated lightly.

[CactusJak]

3. Shouldn't there be hate crime and Federal civil rights violations brought?

Robert Champion


Parents reveal FAMU hazing victim Robert Champion was gay

http://www.thegrio.com/news/parents-reveal-famu-hazing-victim-gay.php

This horrible incident would appear to be the ultimate "bullying" crime.

[cthulu2016]

4. Why would you say that?

The article certainly doesn't suggest it.

Witnesses have told Champion's parents that the 26-year-old drum major may have been targeted for severe hazing because of his opposition to the marching band's culture of hazing. Other witnesses have told them Champion being gay, and the fact that he was a candidate for chief drum major, also may have played roles. They believe it was the first time he was hazed.

"The main reason that we heard is because he was against hazing, and he was totally against it," Champion's father, Robert Champion Sr. said in an interview in Orlando, Fla.

[CactusJak]

5. Because "felony Hazing" (6 years, max) seems a lame charge

and maybe it's time to make an example of some of these little darlings in spite of what the parents may say. Other witnesses seem to differ with their assessment.

Bring it to a court of law and let justice decide what the motivating factors were.

[provis99]

6. the dead kid was black. hence, hazing, not murder.

back in Mississippi, black people killing black people didn't get a murder charge as often as when a white is the victim. North Florida is a southern state, like Mississippi; they have the same attitudes there.