The full writing can be read directly from the Pulitzer website for free by simply expanding the + symbol to the right of the article name.

This writing by Sarah Stillman of The New Yorker won the 2024 Pulitzer Prize in the ‘Explanatory Reporting’ category. It talks about what I’d assume is a criminal law/topic that most average citizens most likely have heard of, but either misunderstood how it operates or are not familiar with at all: catching a felony murder charge. A felony charge is definitely something I’ve seen in films and in the news occasionally, and while I tend to understand it’s quite serious to be labeled a felony murderer, I genuinely had no clue just how hard a defendant has to fight to get this label off their record, if it is even possible at all. If a person didn’t wield the knife used to physically murder the victim, can that person still be charged with murder and get sent to life in prison with no possibility of parole? The answer is yes. Enter a felony murderer.

I’d assume it obvious that many would agree that if someone commits a crime, they must be prepared to do the time. Yet, the story with Sadik Baxter here highlights how anyone caught in a felony case can make it extremely hard to swallow that down, especially if someone didn’t actually commit the murder themselves. On the other hand, one could also argue and go down that rabbit hole of making the suggestion that if said defendant wasn’t involved in crime A in the first place of being there at that specific time and date, would the bigger and deadlier crime of crime B take place? Sarah gives several examples of such cases to think about.

One of the more gut-wrenching parts of the article goes over how a defendant labeled as a felony murderer basically forces a judge to hand out anything but a mandatory life in prison sentence. Unsurprisingly, the author dug around and discovered the majority of felony murderers are African Americans and are much more likely to catch a case than Caucasians. This is definitely a great read. A quick search confirmed that my state, out of a very, very select few, has abolished the felony murder rule.