Pensacola man gets life in prison for loaning his car and then going off to bed...

http://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/lending-friend-your-car-can-get-you-life-sentence?page=0%2C0&paging=off&current_page=1#bookmark

Several years ago I read a piece in The New York Times by Adam Liptak about Ryan Holle. Ryan, who had no prior record, is serving a life sentence with no chance of parole in Florida. He was convicted of pre-meditated murder, even though no one, including the prosecutor, disputes that Ryan was asleep in his bed at home at the time of the crime. This could only happen in America, because we are the only country that retains the Felony Murder Rule. What the Felony Murder Rule essentially says is if anyone has anything to do with a felony in which a murder takes place, such as a robbery, that person is as guilty as the person who has committed the murder. Every other country including England, India and Canada has gotten rid of it because of its unintended consequences. In America, Michigan, Kentucky and Hawaii no longer have the law. The Canadian Supreme Court ruled, when they discarded the Felony Murder Rule, that a person should be held responsible for his own actions not the actions of others.

Taint right, I tell you.

There must be more to the story, like knowledge that the car was going to be used in a crime.

I'd like to know how they proved he had knowledge a crime was going to be committed? Even having knowledge is not the same as committing the crime.

I have a friend that simply drove a friend somewhere, supposedly not knowing what the friend was up to. Apparently, the friend was delivering cocaine (part of the Sandshaker bust that was in the news a few years ago).

My old surfing buddy, who is a successful realtor, did hard time in a Florida prison. To this day, he swears he knew nothing about the cocaine.

I don't think that kind of prosecution is right. He must have had a very bad lawyer.