Defenses to Felony Murder
by: Ryan • August 15, 2012 • no comments
I have previously written that the Oregon Supreme Court has provided some very helpful guidance in developing defenses to felony murder. I wrote about it in this post.
Today, the COA issued an opinion in State v. Perez-Chi that furthers the discussion in some very good ways.
Later today, this website will summarize the criminal cases that came out this morning from the COA.
Perez-Chi, like its predecessor Lopez-Minjarez, deals with these defenses indirectly. When those defenses are addressed at the trial level, either when these two cases are re-tried or new felony murder cases go forward, preservation needs to be made by way of an MJOA and a special jury instruction. But of the two, the jury instruction is far more important.
