DataMassachusetts  

*These factors track the process--i.e. the effort and obstacles--for obtaining data from individual states under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request and appeals process. These factors do not measure the quality of the data; only the process of attempting to obtain the data.

• 47

  Massachusetts took 47 days to respond to our FOIA request

• None

  no information about the actual laws under which any of the incarcerated individuals were sentenced

Massachusetts took 47 days to respond to our FOIA request with a PDF that included no information about the actual laws under which any of the incarcerated individuals were sentenced, let alone indicate which individuals were sentenced under felony murder.

The “data” sent only included the names of individuals incarcerated. Although we attempted to use publicly available web portals to identify individuals incarcerated under felony murder, as in most other states, Massachusetts does not have a statute specifically codifying felony murder, which would make it easier to identify and isolate felony murder conviction data. Instead, as in most other states, felony murder is defined within its other murder statute and the publicly available conviction and sentence information did not distinguish felony murder from other murder convictions.

We appealed the FOIA results and asked for more specific data related to felony murder, but Massachusetts did not send over anything specific to felony murder.

In Massachusetts, felony murder is defined in the general murder statute (Mass Gen. Laws Ann. Ch. 265, § 1) as the “commission or attempted commission of a crime punishable with death or imprisonment for life” where a death occurs.

Prosecutors can charge and convict any person of murder under this law without having to prove that they intended to cause another person’s death, but do have to prove that a person exhibited at least “malice” in the commission of the underlying specific felony. Under Massachusetts law, “malice” is not necessarily synonymous with intent. Malice is defined, in part, as the intended commission or attempted commission of an act “which, in the circumstances known to the defendant, a reasonable person would have known created a plain and strong likelihood that death would result." Commonwealth v. Brown, 477 Mass. 805, 825 (2017).

A conviction for felony murder in Massachusetts carries a sentence of life without the possibility of parole.