I've had several questions recently about the merger doctrine as it applies to felony murder. It's a complicated area, made even more confusing because there are two different doctrines that share the name "merger." I'm not going to address the merger doctrine that requires the court to arrest judgment on the underlying felony when a defendant is convicted of first-degree murder only on the basis of felony murder. See, e.g., State v. Millsaps, 356 N.C. 556, 560 (2002) ("When a defendant is convicted of felony murder only, the underlying felony constitutes an element of first-degree murder and merges into the murder conviction."). The law in that area is clear. Instead, I'm going to discuss the merger doctrine that prevents certain assaults from serving as the underlying felony for felony murder. In order to give this rule a unique name, and because the rule applies when an assault is an integral part of a homicide, I'll sometimes refer to it as the "part-and-parcel assault rule." The basic rule was expressed in State v. Jones, 353 N.C. 159, 170 n.3 (2000): In "cases involving a single assault victim who dies of his injuries . . . the assault on the victim cannot be used as an underlying felony for purposes of the felony murder rule. Otherwise, virtually all felonious assaults . . . that result in . . . death would be first-degree murders via felony murder, thereby negating lesser homicide charges such as second-degree murder and manslaughter." So it is clear that [...]
Faculty Coordinators
