Baxter v. Secretary, Florida Department of Corrections

Appellant Sadik Baxter and his co- defendant rummaged through someone else's vehicle. The owner saw them, at which point Mr. Baxter started walking away. Police quickly arrested him. Mr. Baxter saw his co- defendant driving by and pointed him out to the police so they could arrest him as well. The co- defendant fled at a very high speed, hit another vehicle, then veered into an intersection and fatally struck two bicyclists. Despite Mr. Baxter's lacking "a significant involvement" in the bicyclists' deaths (in the words of his sentencing court), Florida charged him with two counts of felony murder. He was convicted and given a mandatory sentence of life imprisonment without the possibility of parole. A state appellate court affirmed his conviction and later affirmed the denial of his state motion for post- conviction relief. Then, a U.S. district court denied Mr. Baxter habeas relief, even while noting that his sentence was "harsh." Cato filed an amicus brief asking the Eleventh Circuit to reverse that decision. American law has always wedded criminal punishment to mens rea, or the existence of a guilty mind. By convicting Mr. Baxter of felony murder based on strict liability, Florida ignored the core principle of culpability. Liability for felony murder should be limited to circumstances where a defendant willfully set in motion a dangerous chain of events. Mr. Baxter should not suffer the second- harshest penalty known to law for his co- defendant's unforeseeable crimes.