Written by: Kimberly Brandt
Researched by: Steve Glista
Edited by: John Deininger
Managing Editor: Lauren E. Trent

Craig Buford’s problems began with a simple dispute between teenagers. When Buford went to pick up his girlfriend for lunch, a group of teenagers he’d gambled with approached and demanded their money back. Buford refused, and when he started to leave, the disgruntled gamblers shot him in the back. After driving himself to the hospital, Buford underwent extensive surgery for his injuries, and was in the hospital for several months. Though he seemed to fully recover, Buford died on December 29, 2008. The medical examiner ruled Buford’s death a homicide: multiple organ failure caused by complications from the shooting.

What’s the catch? The shooting happened thirty-five years before he died. Will anyone be held legally responsible for his death after all these years? With this question we’ll begin our look into two aspects of the laws governing murder that are under fire today–the statute of limitations for murder and the felony murder rule.

How Long Is Too Long For A Murder Prosecution?

Can a person be charged for murder thirty-five years later? Surprisingly, yes. Section 16-5-401 of the Colorado Revised Statutes (Buford was shot in Denver) states that there is no statute of limitations on murder, meaning that the Denver District Attorney’s Office can still file charges. Will they? That’s up to them. If the office is able to find evidence and witnesses to support the case, they might.

Perhaps the better question isn’t if the DA can charge Buford’s shooter with murder, but if they should at this point. Carolyn Buford, Craig Buford’s widow, doesn’t seem to think so. According to her, Buford never had any serious health problems and “had gotten over it.” While Buford may have lived a normal life in spite of his shooting, what about a victim who can’t?

In 2001, David H. Gunby of Forth Worth Texas died–thirty-five years after being shot. Unlike Buford, Gunby was wounded in his only good kidney. For the remainder of his life he suffered through constant pain, repeated kidney problems, a rejected transplant, and dialysis three times a week. Like Colorado, Texas has no statute of limitations for murder. Does the fact that modern medicine kept Gunby alive for thirty-five years negate the shooter’s actions? Many, if not most people would likely say no. But for the shooters’ actions, both Buford and Gunby would be alive today. And yet, like Carolyn Buford, there are those who prefer to “leave it in the past.”

But I Didn’t Kill Him, Officer!

Folks get heated about the statute of limitations issue – particularly the criminal defense bar. Even more hotly debated is the question of whether a person should be charged with murder if they are guilty of a lesser crime, but someone also died during the commission of that crime.  For example, John and Jane go to rob a bank.  During the course of the robbery, Jane shoots and kills a security guard.  Even though John wasn’t the one to pull the trigger, he can be charged with murder (rather than manslaughter, which carries a lesser punishment) under what is called the felony murder rule. Though felony murder laws vary from state to state, the idea is that any death occurring during the commission (or attempt to commit) certain felonies is considered first-degree murder.  The most controversial part of the felony murder rule is that it holds every participant in the felony equally responsible for the murder– regardless of their role in it.

To take a closer look at the felony murder rule and why people have strong feelings on both sides of the issue, consider a California case involving Brandon Hein. In 1995, Hein and his friends were looking for some marijuana. They went to the home of Mike McLoren, another high school teenager and a drug dealer. Hein and three of his friends got in a fistfight with McLoren and his friend, Jimmy Farris. The fight ended when Hein’s friend Jason Holland used his pocketknife to stab and kill Farris. Though Hein was unaware Holland even had a knife, he was nevertheless charged with murder. The jury in the Hein case determined that because Hein and his friends had taken a wallet earlier in the day, they had planned to rob McLoren. Thus, the felony murder rule would apply because Holland stabbed McLoren and Farris in the midst of a robbery.

Why should a kid who didn’t stab anyone, or even have a knife, be punished the same as the one who did: with a murder conviction and life without parole? Los Angeles Deputy District Attorney Mike Latin believes Hein should. According to Latin, one of the prosecutors of the case, Holland wouldn’t “have been there if he didn’t have that bravado that the accompaniment” of Hein and friends gave him. Thus, although Hein didn’t pull out the knife, if he and his other friends had not been there, Holland would not have killed Farris. Hein was instrumental in Farris’s death.

The Felony Murder Rule Under Attack

The United States’ felony murder rule actually dates back to British common law. Other countries have done away with felony murder laws, claiming that they only wish to hold “people responsible for their own acts and not the acts of others.” Even England did away with felony murder in 1957, partly because of the public’s objection to harsh punishments for people who did not mean to kill. In the U.S., opponents of felony murder laws claim that they hold people responsible for consequences that are unforeseeable or extremely unlikely.

To demonstrate the sometimes-tenuous relationship between the person and the crime, take a look at Ryan Holle. He was a mile and a half away from the crime that triggered his murder conviction. Holle leant a friend his car. The friend used it to drive to the home of a marijuana dealer and steal a safe. The burglar became a murderer when he used a shotgun to beat the drug dealer’s daughter to death. Holle’s statements seemed to indicate he knew about the planned burglary.

So why was Holle convicted of murder? As David Rimmer, a prosecutor of the case noted, “No car, no murder.” The felony murder rule is, in Holle’s case, holding everyone involved in the incident responsible for each other’s actions “if they are all participating in the same crime.”  This is precisely why proponents of felony murder statutes support such laws: to deter crime and hold people accountable for their actions.

Whether a state has no statute of limitations for murder or applies the felony murder rule, at their heart these laws appear to be about accountability. Buford died from his gunshot wound, Gunby suffered and died because of the shooting. Farris was stabbed because Hein and his friends got into a fight, and a drug dealer’s daughter was murdered because the burglar had a car. Yet something about punishing a person for his actions from thirty-five years ago, or for charging a person the same as if he had been the one to stab a victim, makes many people uncomfortable. Whether or not the law will change, or, in the case of felony murder, be abolished as it was in England, remains to be seen. In the meantime, it’s better to be safe than sorry when a friend asks to borrow your car in the middle of the night.