Opinion ID: 1795142
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Sufficiency of the Facts to Constitute Felony-Murder

Text: Appellant argues that in order for an accused to be convicted of felony-murder under § 559.020, RSMo 1969, the underlying felony should as a matter of logic be a felony at common law. . . . Although appellant has cited no authority for that proposition, his concept has been adopted in some other jurisdictions. LaFave and Scott, Criminal Law, Section 71, p. 547. However, this concept has been rejected in Missouri. In State v. Robinett, 279 S.W. 696 (Mo.1926), this court held that if a homicide is committed in the course of committing any of the felonies enumerated in what is now § 559.010, RSMo 1969, that becomes murder in the first degree; while if the intention is to commit any other felony, then the act becomes murder in the second degree under what is now § 559.020. Furthermore, this court quoted with approval from Wharton on Homicide which states that a felony-murder may be based upon an underlying act which has been made into a felony by statute although not such at common law. The common-law felony-murder rule as developed in Robinett has been applied since to cases involving acts which were not felonies at common law. In State v. Shuler, 486 S.W.2d 505 (Mo.1972), the court applied the felony-murder doctrine to a homicide occurring during the felonious discharge of a firearm into a motor vehicle. The court in Shuler expressly rejected a contention there made that the crime of shooting into a motor vehicle is not statutorily defined as a felony and was not a felony at common law, and therefore the felony-murder doctrine was improperly applied. In rejecting that contention the court held that shooting into a motor vehicle is a felony in violation of § 562.070, RSMo 1969; and that since it is neither a felony listed in § 559.010, nor manslaughter, it must be considered murder in the second degree under § 559.020.