http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/28917619/?gt1=43001

1/30/2009 8:21:56 AM

1/30/2009 8:24:48 AM

when the old lady died, I bet the robber was like "FUUUUUUCK, THIS IS SOME OF THAT OLD BULLSHIT!"

1/30/2009 8:27:23 AM

This is like that bullshit when a cop wrecks on one side of town and they charge the guy running with murder.

1/30/2009 8:59:22 AM

Wasn't there some shit a few years ago where some helicopters were tracking a dude and they wrecked and killed everyone inside and the dude they were chasing got charged ?

I wanna say it was in Arizona and that mytwocents knew one of the pilots...I could be way off tho

1/30/2009 9:12:12 AM

Quote :

"his rookie attempt at robbing a bank thwarted by a set of locked doors, "

HAHAHHAHAHAHHAHA

1/30/2009 9:15:09 AM

yeah, that's how these incidents usually go. if cops are chasing you, and they fuck up, you're held accountable for damages.
reason being (from their perspective), you shouldn't have been resisting arrest.

1/30/2009 9:27:12 AM

1st degree murder... really? I mean, I get what he was doing was wrong, but involuntary manslaughter or something along those lines fit here. I don't know.

1/30/2009 9:40:36 AM

Quote :

"Now Whitfield, a 20-year-old with no prior criminal record, is charged with first-degree murder, a rare defendant accused of literally scaring a person to death."

That really sucks for him.


Also, how much would it suck if she was going to have a heart attack right then anyway. Well I guess it's good for her family that he was there, cause if he wasn't then they'd probably only go to see where she was when the house started to smell and they'd find a 3 week old dead body slumped over in front of the tv watching wheel of fortune and with a crossword puzzel in her lap.

[Edited on January 30, 2009 at 9:46 AM. Reason : ]

1/30/2009 9:44:09 AM

Quote :

""If you're committing any of those offenses and a person dies, that's first-degree murder," said Locke Bell, Gaston County's district attorney and the prosecutor in Whitfield's case."

lol and here i thought first degree murder was coldly pre-meditated killing.

1/30/2009 10:21:46 AM

Bitch nigga scared to death act foolio

1/30/2009 10:23:53 AM

poor old lady, but that is not first degree murder. At least, involuntary manslaughter.

and she was probably going to have a heart attack soon anyways:

Quote :

"Parnell's autopsy report said she had an enlarged heart, was overweight and had advanced liver disease, kidney disease, hypertension, heart disease and was a diabetic, all of which were decided to be secondary factors."

[Edited on January 30, 2009 at 10:27 AM. Reason : added]

1/30/2009 10:24:44 AM

she was all like

1/30/2009 10:27:53 AM

I think he should get off with manslaughter

1/30/2009 2:20:10 PM

is manslaughter really "getting off"? that's what he should've been charged with in the first place

1/30/2009 2:56:02 PM

this is definately bullshit.

1st degree murder is clearly pre-meditated killing. he had no intent to kill this woman, nor did he, and they can't prove that, therefore the charges are bullshit.

1/30/2009 3:12:36 PM

If a death occurs during the commission of a felony (i.e. "evading arrest"), that is defined as murder.

1/30/2009 3:13:29 PM

fine, second degree then, but not first, that shit is ridiculous.

1/30/2009 3:45:01 PM

I'm not gonna pretend like I really know, but I *think* the idea is to stick him with the higher charge so that when he plea bargains he'll get sentence worth what he did and save the state a lot of money at the same time.

Admittedly, that's just speculation on my part.

1/30/2009 4:29:00 PM

No sympathy. This is why you don't rob houses, especially with people inside them. Boohoo he is charged with murder, and who is to say what he would have done to the woman if she hadn't of had a heart attack?

1/30/2009 4:43:38 PM

I don't think he was trying to rob the house. He was running after attempting to rob a bank, not that that's much better. He only went into the house to hide.

1/30/2009 5:26:04 PM

it's been quoted already but lol

Quote :

"Larry Whitfield was on foot, his getaway car wrecked, his rookie attempt at robbing a bank thwarted by a set of locked doors, according to detectives."

they are like calling out the guy, like "dude couldn't even rob the bank"

1/30/2009 5:41:03 PM

Quote :

""He could've avoided all this by turning himself in, and life would've went on for Mrs. Parnell,""

can they prove that?

1/30/2009 5:46:47 PM

I would think that they could reasonably prove it. If adrenaline levels were much above normal in her blood, for instance, could show that an enormous strain was being put on her heart from the excitement. There could be other tell-tale signs, I'm not a doctor (I just watch a lot of HOUSE). You could play the devils advocate all day, but if you put all the evidence together and it makes sense...

1/31/2009 10:46:28 PM

Quote :

"she was all like "

10/10 lolllllllllllllllll

1/31/2009 10:52:02 PM

It's that felony murder son...just as bad as first degree. Any death caused while in the process of committing a felony gets the automatic felony murder.

Shit sucks...but those are the consequences.

1/31/2009 10:55:04 PM

Yup, Felony Murder....if someone inadvertently dies do to something as a direct result of a felony you are committing......its murder.

1/31/2009 11:01:20 PM

This law is unjust and should be amended to cover circumstances like this, imo.

Should he have attempted to rob a bank? No. Should he have broken into a private residence? No. Does the poor mofo deserve to be charged with first-degree murder because he was unlucky enough to break into the house of some old lady who dropped dead as soon as she saw him? No, not by any moral standard I'd subscribe to.

1/31/2009 11:06:45 PM

well the felony is the home invasion/kidnapping not the bank robbery, so its even more closely tied to the death

1/31/2009 11:09:39 PM

True, but I'm not arguing about legality, just the raw justice of the case

1/31/2009 11:15:22 PM

well one could easily argue that she would still be alive if he had not done that, thus making him responsible

1/31/2009 11:19:46 PM

And if I hadn't gone through that green light, the drunk driver who ran the red light and t-boned me would still be alive. That doesn't mean I'm responsible for his death.

It's a different situation, but this "if you hadn't done that, this wouldn't have happened, therefore it's your fault" business doesn't fly, logically.

I guess he is responsible, but it's more bad luck than intent. There've been cases where a little-leaguer whacks a line drive, the ball hits the shortstop in the chest, and the shortstop falls down dead. But it's not really fair to blame the batter, because he could in no way have expected that to happen.

I'm not saying the guy's blameless, I'm just saying he doesn't deserve to be charged with 1st degree murder.


[Edited on January 31, 2009 at 11:34 PM. Reason : /]

1/31/2009 11:22:02 PM

someone dying because someone's actions unrelated to the person caused an impending health issue to occur.

is not the same thing as

using a deadly weapon to inflict pain & damage on someone causing their HP to fall to 0 resulting in death.

[Edited on January 31, 2009 at 11:39 PM. Reason : .]

1/31/2009 11:38:35 PM

Pub18:

"well one could easily argue that she would still be alive if he had not done that, thus making him responsible"

one could also reasonably argue that she would have had a heart attack anyway with all of her medical conditions

and JeffreyBSG:

i know that you said the situation was a little different, but im pretty sure that driving through a red light is not a felony.....its like comparing apples and oranges, sure they are a fruit, but they are still completely different.

1/31/2009 11:41:27 PM

Quote :

"This law is unjust and should be amended to cover circumstances like this, imo."

Good luck drawing that line.

People are always like, "this law sucks, they should change it to do/allow this." But they don't realize how difficult it would be to word a law to allow/prevent certain things.

1/31/2009 11:44:55 PM

Scared to death

[Edited on January 31, 2009 at 11:54 PM. Reason : drunk]

1/31/2009 11:53:50 PM

^^
meh, I guess you are right

2/1/2009 1:11:24 AM

i do agree though that he should not be charged with murder.

that is a little extreme, cause he did tell her that he wasnt gonna hurt her or rob her so she needn't have gotten so excited

2/1/2009 1:13:46 AM

Quote :

"lol and here i thought first degree murder was coldly pre-meditated killing."

Me too!

Quote :

"OH NO! THWARTED AGAIN! DOH!"

And seriously, the woman that died should have died 10 years ago. I mean she seriously had the Mr. Burns symptoms... Might as throw in cancer to the list.

2/1/2009 4:46:14 AM

I can only imagine how hard this will be to get to stick.

Proving that he caused the heart attack is damn near impossible. Technically, they have to prove that she would not have had the heart attack if he hadn't entered her house, which is tough with all of her health conditions that are contributing factors to having a heart attack.

Also, the woman was not in Raleigh. The report is from Raleigh. The woman was in Gaston County.

[Edited on February 1, 2009 at 4:53 AM. Reason : ...]

2/1/2009 4:51:49 AM

What happens if the house was hit by a meteorite right when he enters the house, killing everyone inside but him? What's the charge?

2/1/2009 4:54:04 AM

^nothing, since everyone int he house would have died regardless of whether he was there or not.









but the prosecutors would still try to pin it on him.

2/1/2009 5:15:42 AM