felony murder rule
felony murder rule noun: a legal doctrine according to which, regardless of intent, when someone is killed in the commission of a felony, the offender as well as his accomplices and/or co-conspirators are guilty of murder.
Noun
felony murder rule (uncountable)
- A legal doctrine according to which, regardless of intent, when someone is killed in the commission of a felony, the offender as well as his accomplices and/or co-conspirators are guilty of murder.
- The Commonwealth of Kentucky abolished its felony murder rule decades ago, but many other states still have theirs on the books.
Forms of felony murder rule
| alternative form | rule of felony murder |
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Questions about felony murder rule
- What does felony murder rule mean?
- Felony murder rule means a legal doctrine according to which, regardless of intent, when someone is killed in the commission of a felony, the offender as well as his accomplices and/or co-conspirators are guilty of murder.
- What part of speech is felony murder rule?
- Felony murder rule is a noun.
Words near felony murder rule in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: felony murder rule (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
Last updated:
Cite this entry: “felony murder rule.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/felony_murder_rule. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.
