Suspects under 25 couldn’t be charged with extra-crime felony murder under new Maryland bill

A bill in the Maryland Legislature proposes that people 25 and under couldn’t be charged with felony murder if they kill someone while committing another crime.

The law as it stands now makes felony murder charges possible for suspects who run over a security guard as they drive away from a robbery scene. Felony murder convictions can result in life in prison.

The Youth Accountability and Safety Act would remove that liability for suspects under 25. The bill’s text also calls for removing felony murder charges in cases where a suspect of one crime is involved in the death of someone in a burning building, carjacking or rape. 

The bill was put forward by Maryland Delegate Charlotte Crutchfield, Montgomery County Democrat.  

“It is a bedrock principle of our criminal justice system that a person be held accountable for their intended actions, and not the intended actions of another,” Ms. Crutchfield said during the Judiciary Committee hearing last week. “This undermines the principles of our criminal justice system by severely penalizing people for crimes they did not commit or intend to commit.”

One of the arguments in favor of the bill is that people under 25 are also more susceptible to rehabilitation, so their behavior and values can be reshaped toward a productive end for society.  

But critics suggest that the standard for when young people assume full agency is a moving target.

“Proponents of the bill say that the human brain is not fully formed in the frontal lobes until age 25. But yet we’re doing other things in the general assembly, letting children vote earlier and earlier, letting them get hormone inducing drugs to change their sex,” said Delegate Susan McComas, Harford County Republican, according to Baltimore Fox affiliate WBFF.