05/11/2026
Caitlin Glass teaches at Boston University School of Law, where she
directs the Racial Justice and Movement Lawyering Clinic.
This spring, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court ruled that mandatory
life-without-parole sentences for people convicted of felony murder
constitute cruel punishment and therefore violate the state
constitution. This groundbreaking opinion signals state courts’
willingness to grapple with longstanding yet long-critiqued doctrines
that extend the legal system’s harshest punishments to broad swaths of
people without any inquiry into their individual actions and
intentions.
The accomplice liability doctrine — or joint venture, as it’s known in
Massachusetts — means that the prosecution does not have to show that
the accused person caused a death, whereas the felony murder doctrine
relieves the prosecution of its burden to prove intent to cause death.
The result is that a person who was present at a homicide — standing
nearby, coerced to join an abusive partner, or doing anything that
prosecutors later frame as assistance — can be charged and punished
the same as a person who intentionally killed.
Take the case of Roberto Lopez-Ortiz. In 2013, Lopez-Ortiz and others
agreed to a scheme where they would set up a fake drug buy in order to
steal narcotics and cash. Lopez-Ortiz testified that he told his
friends he wouldn’t participate in the arrangement if there was a gun.
When someone did bring one, Lopez-Ortiz yelled that he didn’t sign up
for this and pushed the gunman away. He ran, but the gunman remained
And killed someone.
The jury believed that Lopez-Ortiz wasn’t armed and didn’t shoot
anyone. It acquitted him of murder, armed home invasion, and armed
assault. But it convicted him of unarmed assault with intent to rob,
which in turn required it to convict him of murder. Under the law,
Lopez-Ortiz was just as responsible for murder as the gunman. He would
receive the same mandatory sentence of life imprisonment. Several
jurors submitted letters to the judge asking for leniency, but the law
left no discretion to grant it.
While the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court narrowed felony murder
liability shortly after Lopez-Ortiz’s conviction, the changes were
neither comprehensive nor retroactive — meaning that Lopez-Ortiz is
still condemned to die in prison and others who never killed anyone
are still being convicted of murder.
The joint venture and felony murder doctrines contradict some of
society’s most basic instincts about the relationship between criminal
liability and moral culpability. Jurors often experience confusion and
moral distress about imposing a murder conviction in cases where the
accused never killed anyone.
These doctrines also invite error, allowing guilt to be inferred from
presence, association, or ambiguous circumstances. Research shows that
Black and brown people are more likely to be viewed as acting
together, which can lead to inferences of collective culpability based
on stereotypes rather than evidence. There is a stark
overrepresentation of people of color among those serving life without
parole for felony murder (82 percent) versus other forms of
first-degree murder (56 percent).
The Massachusetts Legislature has advanced a reform that would
separate murder from accomplice murder, aligning the law with moral
intuitions that distinguish between these categories. Instead of
mandatory life imprisonment, accomplice murder would be punishable by
up to 25 years, allowing for individualized assessments of culpability
and punishment. These changes would be retroactive, giving people like
Lopez-Ortiz a path to seek relief.
This kind of policy change is popular because it aligns with basic
instincts about accountability. A recent poll of Massachusetts voters
from across the political spectrum showed that 79 percent of
respondents expressed support for distinguishing accomplice murder as
its own offense carrying a sentence of up to 25 years in prison.
Likewise, 84 percent of respondents indicated that a punishment should
be based on an individual’s actions and level of responsibility rather
than the acts of another.
Massachusetts and Pennsylvania are not alone in rethinking felony
murder and accomplice liability. California, Minnesota, and Colorado
have all enacted reforms. California saved between $94 million and
$1.2 billion in prison costs over the first three years.
While some may argue that these reforms pose a risk to public safety,
such claims rest on fear, not evidence. Recidivism rates among those
released under California’s bill were “notably low,” and study after
study have shown that extreme sentences don’t make people safer.
Rather than addressing the root causes of harm, joint venture and
felony murder laws only perpetuate cycles of violence through wide
nets of liability and draconian sentences that disrupt communities.
The proposed legislation in Massachusetts does not excuse harm or
eliminate accountability. Indeed, several men who are currently
serving life sentences under the joint venture theory have testified
that they want to be held accountable. They’re only asking to be held
accountable for what they’ve done.
Massachusetts has a chance to lead the nation by bringing the law into
greater alignment with our moral judgments. It should.
