- When a death occurs during a crime, prosecutors can charge everyone involved with “felony murder” — even if a person didn’t intend the death, never held a weapon, or wasn’t present when the killing occurred.
- In Michigan, a felony murder conviction carries a mandatory sentence of life without parole.
- Prosecutors decide when to bring the charge. In the words of one judge, “they can pretty much do whatever they want.”
- Michigan Public’s analysis found people convicted of felony murder in Michigan are disproportionately young and Black. Black people were convicted of felony murder at a rate about three times higher than white people imprisoned for the same types of crimes.
This story was published in collaboration with the Investigative Reporting Lab at Yale
In January 2013, Kevin Matlock was 25 years old, newly unemployed, and living at his girlfriend’s mother’s house in Detroit.
He had two daughters, both under the age of four. Whenever his oldest got fussy, usually when he changed her diaper or gave her a bath, he’d sing to her until she relaxed and began to laugh. The memories of his daughter smiling up at him, Matlock said, “are always locked in.”
Matlock was broke and struggling to find a job. He felt “a lot of pressure to do something and to get us to our own space,” he said.
So, on a plan made in less than 10 minutes, Matlock and a friend decided to rob his marijuana dealer. Matlock drove. The friend brought his gun. They thought it would be “relatively easy,” Matlock remembered. They’d take the money and go. Still, he said, he was “scared as shit.”
“I never wanted nobody to get hurt. I didn’t want to be hurt,” Matlock said from inside a Michigan prison. He thinks about that decision “pretty much every day,” he said, wishing he could go back and ask himself “what are you thinking?”
On the dealer’s front porch, Matlock and his friend were met by a young guy, carrying a gun. That’s when Matlock said he tried to call off the robbery.
“I tried to let my codefendant know, ‘Yeah, no, we straight. We ain't doing nothing,’” Matlock recalled. He said he gave his friend a ‘thumbs down’ as he walked inside. He started to pull out some cash to make a purchase and leave.
“That’s when I hear the gunshots behind me,” Matlock said. He dropped to the floor, then ran to the car. His friend returned, empty-handed, and Matlock drove away.
“I was just hoping, I was praying, that nobody died,” Matlock remembered.
Matlock’s friend had shot the dealer and, after a struggle, the person on the porch, trial testimony would later reveal. The former lost an eye. The latter, a teenager, died.
The next day, Matlock learned police were looking for him. He turned himself in and admitted his involvement in the robbery.
“I knew that I was coming to prison,” he said. “I just didn't think it was going to be for murder.”
“But they know I ain’t kill nobody”
Felony murder is a law with a simple premise: if someone commits a crime that results in a death, they can be prosecuted for murder – even if they didn’t intend the death, never held a weapon, or weren’t present when the killing occurred.
Almost every state has some form of felony murder. But Michigan’s law is among the harshest: conviction carries a mandatory sentence of life without parole, the same punishment as a premeditated killing.
Prosecutors told Michigan Public they use felony murder to hold people accountable for deaths they consider foreseeable. But opponents say the law gives prosecutors too much power to impose Michigan’s harshest penalty.
Prosecutors aren’t required to pursue felony murder charges. For each defendant, they decide what charge—robbery, manslaughter, felony murder—is appropriate.
“The prosecutor has discretion,” said retired Court of Appeals Judge Douglas Shapiro. “Which not only means we have to trust their judgment, but it means really they can pretty much do whatever they want.”
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“I deeply worry that felony murder … means that those who don't have the resources to demand equal treatment will simply have to swallow extraordinary punishments,” said Ekow Yankah, professor of law and philosophy at the University of Michigan.
“And it’s done quite out of view,” he added, “until we look up one day and see the horrific stats.”
But the state doesn’t track how prosecutors use the charge. And prosecutors, elected in each county, don’t publish those statistics either. To understand the extent of Michigan’s felony murder law, Michigan Public and the Investigative Reporting Lab at Yale compiled data from correctional records, court documents, and charging reports.
Our analysis found that the people convicted of felony murder in Michigan are disproportionately young and Black — even more so than Michigan’s prison system writ large.
Just over 70% of people convicted of the charge since 2000 are Black. (Matlock is Black, as are all the other men charged with felony murder in this story.)
Wayne County, which has the highest number of homicides in the state, accounts for as many felony murder convictions as the next eight counties combined. A spokesperson for Kym Worthy, who has served as Wayne County Prosecutor since 2004, declined an interview request and did not comment on Matlock’s case.
Just over 70% of people convicted of felony murder since 2000 are Black.
The teenager killed in Matlock’s botched robbery, Brandon Collins, was just 17 years old. His obituary described him as a superhero to his younger family members, a caregiver to his grandparents, and a jokester.
Knowing “a young man had lost his life,” Matlock said, “just didn’t sit well with me.” At the police station, transcripts show, he broke down in tears as he confessed to the robbery. When his girlfriend visited him in the interrogation room, he told her he needed to take responsibility for what he’d done.
Then the Wayne County prosecutor charged Matlock with felony murder. If convicted, he’d go to prison for life.
“How could they do that?” Matlock remembers asking his lawyer. “They know I ain’t kill nobody.”
The lawyer tried to explain: Matlock was on trial for the murder of Brandon Collins. But the jury wouldn’t be asked to decide whether Matlock had killed him. Instead, they’d decide whether Matlock had participated in the robbery that led to Collins’ death.
“I’m going to fight as hard as I can,” Matlock remembers his lawyer said. But “they’re probably going to find you guilty.”
“It doesn't matter who pulled the trigger”
“Kevin Matlock is responsible for everything that took place in that house,” LaDonna Logan, then an assistant prosecuting attorney for Wayne County, told jurors.
“They killed Brandon Collins during that robbery,” Logan said, according to transcripts of Matlock’s trial. “That is felony murder; and it doesn't matter who had the gun in his hand. It doesn't matter who pulled the trigger.”
The law didn’t require Logan to distinguish Matlock’s intentions from those of his codefendant, who—on the run from police—was not on trial. Nor did she have to prove that Matlock knew what his codefendant would do, which, Matlock said, he didn’t. All the law required was proof that Matlock had committed the robbery, “knowing that death or such harm would be the likely results of his actions.”
Defense lawyers and prosecutors alike say that standard is easy to overcome. Often, it’s as simple as proving they knew a codefendant was armed.
“In a felony murder case, I don't have to prove the intent,” Macomb County Prosecutor Peter Lucido explained. “They were in the commission of a felony and somebody died. That's really where you’re at.”
In 2013, when a medical student was killed during a break-in in Ann Arbor, the former Washtenaw County prosecutor acknowledged the gunshot may have been unintentional. According to court records, a detective testified the gun likely misfired. Regardless, the prosecutor charged all three robbers, two of whom were unarmed, with felony murder.
Felony murder is most useful to prosecutors “in the cases where the person's intent really doesn't look like that of a murderer,” said Yankah, the U of M scholar. And yet, he said, “the law is describing you as, in some real sense, the worst kind of killer.”
Gabi Silver, a Wayne County-based defense lawyer, said that after an unexpected death, accomplices often try to explain their limited role to police. Most defendants, Silver said, don't understand that “with that statement, they are admitting to a felony murder.”
At Matlock’s trial, the jury watched the police interview where Matlock said he was blindsided by the shooting, but responsible for planning the robbery.
“He told you better than anybody else on that three hour video,” Logan told jurors. “He said ‘I did this. I have to live with the consequences.’”
Matlock was responsible for Collins’ murder, Logan argued, as soon as he decided to “bring a gun to a drug house [knowing] there is that possibility that it can go wrong.”
During deliberations, the jury passed a note to the judge. They were deadlocked. The jurors agreed that death was a “possible result” of Matlock’s actions, but some argued it wasn’t, as legally required, “the likely result.”
The judge called them into the courtroom and read aloud a dictionary entry for the word “likely.” The definitions ranged from “destined” to “might happen.” Then, it was up to the jury to decide. If they couldn’t agree, the judge would declare a mistrial. If they believed the risk of death met their shared definition of “likely,” he would go to prison for life.
As jurors reentered the courtroom, Matlock said, he could tell by their faces that they’d found him guilty.
“In a felony murder case, I don't have to prove the intent,” Macomb County Prosecutor Peter Lucido explained.
At the sentencing hearing, Collins’ grandmother mourned the boy who “will never grow up and figure out who he is and what he wants to do with his life.”
“Somebody else decided all that for him,” she said.
Matlock, as required, was sentenced to life without parole. He had just turned 26. His oldest daughter was a month shy of four. When his mother visited him after sentencing, Matlock remembered, neither of them knew what to say. “You be strong,” she finally told him, “God gonna pull you from under this.”
Two years after Matlock's conviction, police caught his codefendant. The Wayne County prosecutor offered the codefendant a plea deal for manslaughter, and this summer, after 10 years in prison, the man was released.
“Just because you can, doesn’t mean you should”
Prosecutors in Wayne, Kent, and Macomb counties told Michigan Public they will always charge felony murder if the evidence supports conviction.
Macomb County Prosecutor Peter Lucido said prosecutors have “an affirmative duty to charge for those crimes that you believe can be made through the facts.”
“Where does it say in the law that you’re not going to follow the rule because of sympathy?” Lucido asked.
Advocates say that approach leads to disproportionate punishment.
“We cannot treat somebody who committed a premeditated, intentional homicide exactly the same way as we treat somebody who went along with a friend to commit a robbery,” said Nazgol Ghandnoosh, research director of The Sentencing Project.
In 2007, when a robbery led to a shootout in Detroit, the Wayne County prosecutor charged three people with felony murder. One was a 16-year-old who was unarmed and had fled the scene before the killing occurred, according to court records.
Shapiro, the retired judge, said the Wayne County prosecutor could have made a different choice: charge the teen with the crime he intended to commit.
“Armed robbery is a very serious offense,” Shapiro said. But unlike felony murder, he explained, the charge allows a judge to calibrate punishment based on the individual’s actions. That’s also true of second-degree murder, which can result in a minimum sentence as low as seven years or as high as 100 years, depending on the circumstance.
“It isn't as if our defendant … would have simply walked away,” Shapiro said. “But by charging him with the murder that he wasn't present for, he gets life without parole.”
“We cannot treat somebody who committed a premeditated, intentional homicide exactly the same way as we treat somebody who went along with a friend to commit a robbery,” said Nazgol Ghandnoosh, research director of The Sentencing Project.
Houghton County Prosecutor Dan Helmer cautioned that before pursuing felony murder, prosecutors should consider whether the facts “supported ethically charging that person given their role”
“I don't think you’d ever want to charge a felony murder just because it makes things easier to get the bad guys,” said Helmer, previously an assistant prosecutor in Kent County.
First-degree murder, whether felony or premeditated, “should be reserved for the worst of the worst,” Helmer said. “Just because you can [charge it], doesn't mean you should.”
“One more tool” for prosecutors
Kent County Prosecutor Chris Becker said felony murder holds people accountable for “extremely dangerous and violent behavior.” The charge’s mandatory life sentence provides justice for victims, he said, who “don’t want to see this person getting out.”
Becker said that even when pursuing premeditated murder charges, he sometimes charges felony murder “as a backup,” to avoid jurors’ concerns about sending someone to prison for life. Although felony murder carries the same mandatory sentence, Becker said, “they don’t necessarily know that.”
Securing mandatory life, Becker said, “just seems easier when a felony is attached.”
Lucido said it’s up to state lawmakers to decide if the felony murder law is fair. But, he said, prosecuting violent crimes “may be more difficult” without it.
“Because now you're trying to peer through the eyes and the mind of the accused, and I don't want to have to do that every time.” Lucido said.
“Felony murder gives prosecutors one more tool that they can use in their arsenal to prosecute crimes,” explained Yankah, the U of M scholar.
And, he said, prosecutors can lean on the charge not only to secure life sentences, but also “to coerce a plea bargain far beyond what … the rest of society might think is really fair.”
Silver, the defense lawyer, said the Wayne County prosecutor sometimes offers plea deals in exchange for testimony, hoping an accomplice “is going to flip … just to get out from under this felony murder concept.”
“It is a very, very scary charge,” Silver said.
In a statement, a spokesperson for Wayne County Prosecutor Kym Worthy wrote that the office “follows the current law and charges accomplices with felony murder if they intended to aid in the statutory enumerated felonies, regardless of whether they intended to cause harm or death.”
Michigan Public identified dozens of people who pled to a lesser offense instead of risking life in prison, based on charging records from four of the largest counties over the last decade. (Wayne County was the only office that refused to release its charging records among a dozen to which Michigan Public sent FOIA requests.)
Many people charged with felony murder pled to second-degree murder. Their average minimum sentence was 21 years. If denied by the parole board, they could serve an average maximum of 50 years.
Becker said plea deals allow him to help victims avoid going through trial, as well as to calibrate punishment based on “who’s the most culpable.”
“If I feel maybe somebody was overcharged or deserves a break, that’s something… I can make sure to fix,” Helmer, the Houghton County Prosecutor, said. “And sometimes I'm the only person that can do that.”
Felony murder’s disparate impact
Criminal convictions are the result of a complex system, shaped by the choices of police, prosecutors, juries, and defendants. But the outcome of that process is clear:
Black people made up just over 70% of felony murder convictions since 2000, according to Michigan Public's analysis, even though they accounted for just under half of people imprisoned for the crimes that can result in felony murder charges.
Black people were about three times more likely to be convicted of felony murder, compared to white defendants imprisoned for the same types of crimes.
(Michigan Public’s findings are in line with recent analyses across several states.)
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More than 90% of people convicted of felony murder in Wayne County are Black. In Genesee County, about 83% of people convicted of felony murder are Black.
In a statement, a representative for Wayne County Prosecutor Kym Worthy wrote that “since Detroit is [the] largest city in Wayne County, has the largest number of homicides in the state, and is predominantly black the numbers are going to be higher for homicides, which includes felony murder.”
David Leyton, who has served as Genesee County Prosecutor since 2004, did not respond to requests for comment.
Nearly 60% of people convicted of felony murder in Michigan were 25 or younger at the time of the offense, Michigan Public found.
Among young people, the charge also accounts for a much higher proportion of first-degree murder convictions: the younger the defendant, the more likely it is their life sentence came from felony murder.
Ghandnoosh, of the Sentencing Project, said that young people are more likely to commit crimes in larger groups, creating more “opportunities for prosecutors to bring in a lot of accomplices.”
Michigan Public was unable to determine how many people were convicted of felony murder as accomplices. In some trial records, prosecutors never explicitly state who they believe pulled the trigger.
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Ghandnoosh, who reviewed Michigan Public’s analysis, said that socioeconomic factors are likely contributing to the racial disparity in felony murder convictions. Black Americans, she noted, are more likely to live in communities with concentrated poverty, where people are at greater risk of both committing and being victims of homicide.
But implicit bias may also play a role, Ghandnoosh—and other experts—said, especially because the decision to prosecute someone for felony murder, as opposed to a lesser crime, relies in part on an evaluation of that person’s character and the danger they present to society.
Ghandnoosh said prosecutors have a responsibility to interrogate how their attorneys make those evaluations, especially when outcomes are racially disparate.
“It's up to prosecutors to decide,” Ghandnoosh said. “Are they just going to shrug and pass along these injustices and apply them, or will they use discretion that they have to try to create some kind of remedy?”
Courts explore limits to mandatory life
Advocates have long argued that felony murder’s mandatory life sentence is disproportionate and cruel. Recently, courts have agreed.
This July, the Michigan Supreme Court struck down mandatory life without parole for a small group of people convicted of felony murder. The ruling only applied to people convicted before a 1980 court decision established the current standard of intent: that the defendant had disregarded the risk of death.
But for those people, fewer than 100, the court decided that imposing mandatory life without proving intent amounted to cruel punishment.
Earlier this year, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court struck down mandatory life without parole for all felony murder convictions on the same grounds, giving more than 1,000 people the chance at a reduced sentence.
Criminal-justice reformers—and people incarcerated for felony murder—were watching both cases closely. They argue that because Michigan’s current intent requirement is so easy to overcome, the court should strike down mandatory life for felony murder across the board.
Jessica Zimbelman, a deputy director at the State Appellate Defender’s Office, said the Michigan Supreme Court has repeatedly ruled that a defendant’s sentence must be proportional to their circumstances.
The court applied that reasoning in 2025, when it overturned mandatory life sentences for hundreds of young offenders, whose developing brains, the court said, inherently reduced their culpability.
A similar disconnect between a defendant’s culpability and their punishment, Zimbelman said, “sets apart felony murder as being ripe for challenges.”
Kyle Barry, executive director of the State Law Research Initiative, said that the Michigan court’s willingness to consider protections unrelated to age invites broader challenges to mandatory life without parole.
“Is this sentence serving any legitimate purpose?” Barry hopes the court will ask, or is it disproportionately “applied to the most vulnerable and marginalized communities in our state, and if so, are we going to tolerate that?”
Both Becker and Lucido opposed the court’s recent decisions, saying resentencing prioritized defendants’ rehabilitation at the expense of emotional pain for victims.
“Part of the criminal justice system is rehabilitation,” Becker said, “But the other half is punishment. And so you can reform, but you're still being punished.”
Living with a life sentence
Kevin Matlock speaks to his daughters at least twice a week. They’re teenagers now. Recently, before his older daughter got a nose ring, she waited to ask Matlock’s permission.
“Even though they be busy, they still pick up the phone for they dad,” Matlock said. “I actually feel pretty blessed.”
Matlock said it’s hard to get to know each other over the phone. But—at least under today’s law—that’s his only option.
When they call, Matlock peppers the girls with questions about their social lives, their schoolwork, their plans for the future. His older daughter wants to be a hairstylist, Matlock said. His younger daughter wants to be a lawyer.
“They keep me going,” Matlock said. “They just mean everything to me.”
How we reported this story
Michigan doesn't track who county prosecutors charge with felony murder. To understand how prosecutors use the charge, Michigan Public and the Investigative Reporting Lab at Yale compiled data from correctional records, court documents, and charging reports. Read more about our reporting process.
