The felony murder rule is a legal doctrine that expands the definition of murder and makes criminal accomplices (including a lookout or getaway driver) as responsible for a death that occurs in the course of a dangerous felony crime as the person who directly caused the death by pulling the trigger of a gun, stabbing the victim with a knife, strangling the victim, or otherwise causing the victim’s death. Examples of dangerous felony crimes that implicate the felony murder rule include robbery, burglary, rape, aggravated kidnapping, carjacking, and arson.

When the felony murder rule applies, it may make a criminal accomplice liable for murder even if the criminals had agreed that no one would be killed in the course of the crime, and even if it is a fellow criminal who is killed in the course of the crime—such as when a police officer or security guard shoots a bank robber—which may result in all other accomplices to the crime being charged with murder.

In many states the felony murder rule—and any distinctions between the culpability of accomplices and principals to a crime—are located in the state’s statutes—often in the penal or criminal code.

In New Jersey, the felony murder rule is codified under N.J.S.A. 2C:11-3(a)(3), which states that a person is guilty of murder if they commit or attempt to commit certain felonies, and in the course of such crime or of immediate flight therefrom, any person causes death, regardless of the intent to cause death. The felonies that trigger the felony murder rule include robbery, sexual assault, arson, burglary, kidnapping, carjacking, and criminal escape. This means that if a death occurs during or immediately after the commission of one of these felonies, all participants in the felony can be charged with murder, even if they did not directly cause the death or did not intend for anyone to be killed. This includes situations where an accomplice or even a co-felon is killed, for example, by law enforcement during the commission of the crime. The rule is intended to hold all participants in certain dangerous felonies responsible for any resulting deaths, reflecting the policy that these felonies are so inherently dangerous that death is a foreseeable consequence.