I’ve written about this before, but I cannot for the life of me fathom the process that went into making this a law.

First, read this article on the NY Times page. You’ve seen several like it recently in the Economist, the local rag (AJC) and (if memory serves correctly) the Washington Post and tons of other magazines…making it, I suppose, the new legal issue of the year.

So, the core of the issue is this (in this case): if you lend a car to someone, who commits a felony, and during the course of said felony commits a homicide, you can be held liable for the death of the person. One could also extract from this that if you lent a kitchen knife to your neighbor, and the neighbor later stabs someone, some over zealous re-election seeking prosecutorial office could decide to charge you with murder.

Do you think I’m kidding?

I can understand charging someone with being an accessory to a robbery – in this case, Mr. Holle has stated he had knowledge that a robbery was going to take place, although later admits to being confused and uncertain whether or not a robbery would occur or whether the perpetrators, his roommates, were going out for food after attending a late night party. So he admits to knowing that a robbery was going to occur – these guys were going to the home of someone they knew, whose daughter had been at the party, to relieve he and his wife of their marijuana supply.

What he did not know, indeed, what even the actual, real thieves probably did not know was that “knock out” would entail beating her head in and killing her with what I presume was the butt of a shotgun (although that detail is not mentioned).

And also, to pick on more quotes from the article, to say that without the car lent by Mr. Holle the robbery and subsequent death would not have occurred is a spurious argument. The house where the robbery occurred was a mile and a half away. If someone wants it badly enough, a mile and a half isn’t that far to walk.

One cannot later make a presumption of guilt based on an assumption of intent!!!! And that’s the bone I have to pick with the legal system. Our desire to inflict punishment is being carried too far. This is, to my mind, akin to a child of alcoholic parents being allowed to prosecute the parents for criminal negligence during their childhood. What???? How far is this going to be allowed to go? If someone buys gas at a gas station, is the station owner liable? Can you sue the carmaker in civil court for damages, even though the car itself did not commit the crime?

Sometimes, we hamper what is right with what we think of as our best intentions. The law is not meant to be applied with such a broad brush. Not everyone is equal, and not every action is equal. Punishing Mr. Holle for having some seriously shitty friends should not have resulted in life sentence.