Helpful Hints
- (1) You can search the entire content of Dean’s by phrase or by individual words. Just type your keywords into the search box and then pull down the search icon on the right and choose the option you need: search by word or by phrase or reset the content.
- (2) Double click on a word in the content of a definition, and if the word is listed as a keyword in Dean’s, it will look that word up.
- (3) You can use the search function to help jump the scrolling function. Simply type the first 2-3 letters into the search box then hit enter on your keyboard and the scroll will go to those Keywords that begin with those letters and allow you to scroll from there.
Felony murder has never been a static, well-defined rule at common law, but throughout its history has been characterized by judicial reinterpretation to limit the harshness of the application of the rule. Some, dead set against the rule, historians and commentators have concluded that the rule is of questionable origin and that the reasons for the rule no longer exist, making it an anachronistic remnant, 'a historic survivor for which there is no logical or practical basis for existence in modern law'. Moreland, Kentucky Homicide Law With Recommendations, 51 Ky L J 59, 82 (1962).
The first formal statement of the doctrine is often said to be Lord Dacres' case, Moore 86; 72 Eng Rep 458 (KB, 1535). See, e.g., Crum, Causal Relations and the Felony-Murder Rule, 1952 Wash U L Quarterly 191; Morris, The Felon's Responsibility for the Lethal Acts of Others, 105 U of Pa L Rev 50, 58 (1956). Note, Recent Extensions of Felony Murder Rule, 31 Ind L J 534, fn 3 (1956). Lord Dacres and some companions agreed to enter a park without permission to hunt, an unlawful act, and to kill anyone who might resist them. 'Le Seignor Dacres & auters ...
