Last Week Tonight With John Oliver (2014) s12e29 Episode Script
Felony Murder
Welcome to "Last Week Tonight".
I'm John Oliver. Thank you for
joining us. It has been a busy week.
The government shutdown
became the longest in history,
FIFA announced plans
to launch a new "peace prize",
who are they
possibly going to give that to?
And at the pageant
for Miss World Chile,
one contestant took
the talent portion to a new level
by performing
with her death metal band.
Yes! Yes, yes, yes. If she lost
to someone twirling a baton,
there is no justice
in this world.
You don't expect someone
in a beauty pageant
to be good at death metal,
the same way you'd be surprised
if you found out that I have
a contemporary R&B album.
But you know what?
I do, and it is sexy as fuck.
Meanwhile, Tuesday was
Election Day in many places
and Democrats
did well across the board,
including right here in New York,
where Zohran Mamdani
decisively won the mayoral race,
and took an entirely
earned victory lap afterwards.
I wish Andrew Cuomo only
the best in private life.
But let tonight be the final time
I utter his name,
as we turn the page on a politics
that abandons the many
and answers only to the few.
Yep, pretty satisfying.
Some actually criticized that speech,
with Van Jones calling it "sharp"
and a "character switch"
from Mamdani's tone during
the campaign,
but that seems
deeply unfair to me.
He weathered one of the most
Islamophobic campaign in recent years.
"I wish Andrew Cuomo
only the best in private life"
is a frankly superhuman level
of grace to extend to a man
who has yet to pronounce
your name correctly once.
Especially given
that he could have said
"Andrew, your campaign
was terrible."
What was it
with the weird AI ads?
Especially this one that
you inexplicably released,
featuring the bill
from 'Schoolhouse Rock',
pregnant,
and with luscious, kissable lips?
Do you want to fuck the bill
from 'Schoolhouse Rock,' Andrew?
Do you? Well, great news:
now you actually can.
In your private life.
I wish you the best, you pervert.
We will talk more about New York's
mayoral race later in the show.
But for now, we're gonna dive straight
in with our main story this week,
which concerns murder,
the thing that cats
are constantly plotting.
Cats only want two things:
Fancy Feast chicken pate,
and the slow,
painful death of their enemies.
Murder is also what this singer did
to the national anthem last year
during an election debate
for third-party candidates.
I fucked it up,
can I go back, please?
We're live.
I got too nervous.
Excellent. Rest in peace
to the national anthem.
Now, was that tough to watch?
Yes, it was.
But does the fact that Jill Stein
had to stand there listening to it
make it a little better?
Abso-fucking-lutely.
Now, specifically, this story concerns
something called felony murder.
Which I know
sounds redundant,
after all, aren't all murders
technically felonies?
But it's a particular type of charge,
as this local news segment
chose to explain
with some odd framing.
Felony murder is not
the pre-planned,
made-for-TV murder
you might be thinking.
WTF is felony murder?
Felony murder allows anyone
involved in a dangerous crime
to be charged with murder
if someone is killed during that crime.
So even if the person
didn't actually kill someone,
they can still get charged.
So, let's say you're the getaway
car driver for a bank robbery
and your accomplice panics
and kills the bank teller.
You can be charged
with murder
without even stepping
into the bank building
or having a gun
or pulling the trigger.
That is honestly
a pretty good explanation,
albeit with a very distracting intro.
What is that?
You're talking
about a murder charge here,
why go with wacky graphics
and music that sound
like a circus clown's alarm clock?
Now, if you're talking about
something boring like escrow,
sure, goof it up to the max.
But not if the subject is serious.
The last thing any viewer wants
to see is that graphic
followed by a reporter saying,
"So, WTF is the age of consent?"
But to reiterate:
felony murder is basically
a felony plus a death
equals a murder charge,
even if you
didn't intend to kill anyone,
and even if you are not
the one who did the killing.
And as you'll see, these charges
can go way further
than just getaway drivers
in bank robberies.
Because you don't have to be
an active participant in a killing
to get charged
with felony murder.
You don't even have to be
anywhere near it.
Take what happened
when these four men broke into
a house in Florida to steal a safe.
When someone there tried to stop
them, one of them beat her to death.
But under felony murder, all four
were charged with her killing,
as well as this guy,
and I'll let him explain why.
I'm in prison because I loaned
my keys to my roommate.
It was 2003, the morning after
a party at his house in Pensacola.
I mean, he said, "Can I borrow
your keys to your car?"
and I said, "Sure."
He went back to sleep.
Holle says when he woke up
and his car wasn't back,
he called his roommate,
who said
they were about to break in.
If I were
to really have taken it serious,
I would have called the police.
But under
Florida's felony murder rule,
Holle was just as responsible
as the man who killed Snider.
Holle, like the other four men,
was sentenced to life without parole.
Yeah, he was sentenced to life
for a murder that took place
over a mile away,
that he didn't know
was gonna happen,
and where his involvement was limited
to lending his car for the burglary.
It's enough to make you ask,
"What the fuck?"
No, sorry, no,
I don't actually need those graphics!
I'm an adult being upset,
not a clown juggling bowling pins.
And the thing about felony murder
is it's much easier for a prosecutor
to obtain a conviction under it
than under a standard
first-degree murder charge,
where they have to prove
the defendant intended to kill.
Because under felony murder,
all they have to prove
is someone committed or aided
in a felony that led to a death.
And if you're convicted,
judges can have little discretion
on sentencing.
11 states and the federal system
mandate life without parole
for all felony murder convictions,
while these states mandate it
in at least some cases,
and around half of U.S. states
allow death sentences for unintentional
killings under felony murder laws.
In fact, since 1985, 11 people have
been executed for participating
in a felony during which
a co-defendant committed homicide.
That is 11 people executed for murder,
despite not killing anyone.
And look, I oppose the death
penalty in all cases,
but we clearly shouldn't be
executing people for murder
if they did not murder someone.
You can actually find more tips
like that in my new law textbook,
"A Practical Guide to the Most
Obvious Shit You've Ever Heard."
And while nobody keeps stats on
felony murder convictions nationwide,
in the states where they do exist,
the numbers are astonishing.
In Pennsylvania and Michigan,
one- quarter of people
serving life without parole there
were convicted of felony murder.
That's over 1,000 in each state.
And approximately half of California's
prisoners serving life without parole
were convicted of felony murder.
And while, in some of those cases,
prosecutors were using the charge
as an easier way to get a conviction
for someone who did commit murder,
in many others, they weren't.
In fact, a study in New York state
found that half of those convicted
and punished for felony murder
were not proven to have
killed anyone.
So, given all that, tonight,
let's talk about felony murder.
And let's start with its origins.
Because, like so many horrid things
in American culture,
it actually came from England.
The idea began being applied in
British courts in late 18th century,
but in 1957, England abolished
its version of felony murder
and other common law countries
like India and Canada followed suit,
except America. Instead,
it doubled down, and hard.
In fact, in its current form,
felony murder's been called
"a distinctly American innovation",
or, as the Michigan Supreme Court
described it,
"a historic survivor for which there is
no logical or practical basis"
"for existence in modern law."
And look, if we're gonna keep
weird old laws on the books,
let's at least keep the fun ones.
Like the 1971 Minnesota statute
that says, and this is true,
"No person shall operate, run,
or participate in a contest, game,
or other like activity, in which a pig,
greased, oiled, or otherwise,
is released and wherein the
object is the capture of the pig."
Those words were written
and voted on by lawmakers!
And I think my favorite part is
"a pig, greased, oiled, or otherwise."
Because they knew, if grease
and oil were off the table,
by God, someone would figure out
another way to make a pig slippery.
Now, there are some state
variations, for instance,
these limit felony murder charges to
killings by participants in the felony.
But these only require what
is called "proximate cause",
which means they allow
felony murder convictions
when non-participants in
the underlying crime do the killing.
And that can lead to cases like
what happened in Elkhart, Indiana,
when a group of five unarmed
young men, four of them teens,
broke into a house in the afternoon
to burglarize it,
"believing no one
was at home at the time."
Now, unfortunately, the homeowner
was actually asleep upstairs,
and he grabbed his handgun,
came downstairs,
and began firing his weapon,
killing one of them.
But the four teens survived,
only to then be charged
with felony murder in the death
of their friend,
which they still
cannot quite believe.
I didn't really comprehend it.
I didn't put my mind around
what I was really
about to go through.
To me, we all should be charged
for what we done that day,
but nobody committed murder,
so why should we be charged with it?
I committed burglary.
Serious things did happen.
Denzel's gone, you know.
I'm not saying I don't deserve time.
The trial lasted just four days.
The teenagers were all found guilty
of an adult crime.
17-year-old Levi was sentenced
to 50 years in prison.
16-year-old Blake and 18-year-old
Anthony Sharp each got 55 years.
I know they started things
by trying to rob the house,
but it's a bit of a stretch to go
from that to five decades in prison
for a killing that someone else
committed.
At a certain point,
assigning an outcome to a chain
of causation no longer makes sense.
It is why, when the Oscar for best
actor was awarded last year,
it was given to Cillian Murphy,
and not to his parents whose
hot Irish sex led to his existence.
The fact is, felony murder
can be applied
in an astonishingly broad array
of circumstances.
There are stories
of people being charged with it
after doing drugs
next to friends who OD'ed,
or in the wake of a robbery
where a frightened victim died
of a heart attack afterward,
"without having been struck
or injured by the robbers."
And take what happened
to LaKeith Smith.
When he was 15, he was robbing a
house in Alabama with several friends,
and one of them got shot.
But he refused to plead guilty
to felony murder,
for a reason that, when you hear him
explain it to a reporter,
is pretty understandable.
Can you tell me why didn't
you take that plea deal?
I knew I ain't do it.
I'm not gonna cop out for no 25 years
for a murder I ain't do,
and the people who did it,
they scot-free, like.
You said, "the people who did it."
What do you mean?
The police.
They scot-free, like, the one who
pulled the trigger and killed him.
His friend was shot by a cop.
Yet, LaKeith got 65 years in prison.
Which doesn't feel like
justice, does it?
And his mom sums up the absurdity
of that situation pretty well.
He should have got the proper time
for the crime that he committed.
The burglary
and the stolen property.
So, 65 years on a young guy, 15,
who didn't kill no one?
Didn't kill no one, and didn't shoot
at no one?
Alabama. Yep.
Exactly, I honestly
couldn't say it better!
In fact, at this point, I'd argue
Alabama's official state motto
should probably just be
an entirely derogatory "yep".
But while Smith refused
a plea deal, many don't.
And that's actually one of the big,
hidden ways
this charge can send
people to prison.
Because prosecutors can use
the threat of a huge sentence
under felony murder to get people
to plead down to lesser charges.
It's one reason why felony
murder's been called
"one of those quiet drivers of mass
incarceration we never acknowledge."
And it is just incredible to find out
something most people
have never even heard of
is propelling an issue as prominent
as mass incarceration.
It's like learning
most heart attacks occur
due to people chasing
greased-up pigs for sport,
though that would at least explain
why there's a fucking law
in Minnesota against it.
And while nobody knows exactly
how many plea deals were obtained
under the threat
of a felony murder sentence,
some who've taken one have
since spoken out, like Kevin Reese.
He pled to aiding and abetting
second-degree murder
after he participated in
a robbery when he was a teenager,
and one of his accomplices
ended up killing someone.
And here he is explaining
his decision to take that plea.
I had two choices.
My choice was either go to trial,
and a trial according to felony murder
I wasn't going to win,
because the threshold
to prove someone's guilt
for felony murder is so low.
Only thing they had to prove
was that I was there, right?
And it was a known fact.
I was never saying I wasn't there.
I was saying I didn't do it.
And my other choice
was take a plea for 22 years,
and go do 15 years in Minnesota
correctional facilities.
I had to rationalize this
in my 18-year-old brain.
I had to, like, almost rationalize,
"Okay, maybe somehow I deserve this."
I had to literally say, "Well",
and rationalize taking 22 years
instead of getting life.
That is horrible.
Because normally,
when people are forced
to choose the least-bad option,
it just means
that they resign themselves
to having lunch
at a Cracker Barrel.
When you're on the highway
and the other options
are places like Sadder IHOP,
Mystery Meat Buffet,
One-Way Ticket to the Toilet
and Homophobic Wendy's,
then unfortunately, Denny's
with Confederate Vibes
is gonna be
your least-bad option.
But despite making
the pragmatic choice,
it had huge impacts on
Kevin, both practical and emotional.
All of the programs inside of
the corrections facilities,
it's about cognitive behavioral
criminality, all of that thinking.
So, you'd be in spaces
where you have to lead
with, "I am Kevin.
I'm a murderer", right?
You have to lead with that. But each
time that I had to lead with that,
where I'm a murderer,
it's really easy to get bitter.
Right, it's really easy to have
a lot of distrust and disdain
for the system in itself.
And it also feels very much
like being kidnapped.
It feels very much
like being kidnapped,
because you're like, the crime,
like, what you did,
and why you're there,
there's a disconnect.
So, each time you look
at your paperwork
and it says the big red M, murder,
on there, you cringe.
I'm really here for murder.
Like, I'm really here for murder.
Yeah,
that sounds incredibly frustrating.
If they're gonna reduce someone's
life to a big red M for "murder",
the very least they could do
is add a smaller red
"but, y'know, not literally.
It's just a weird legal quirk."
"Just Google 'felony murder'
if you wanna know the deal."
"Shit's insane."
And since felony murder involves
the U.S. criminal justice system,
you're probably already assuming
it's applied disproportionately
to non-white people.
But the thing is,
you'll be shocked to learn
that white people are actually
Just kidding, of course it's applied
disproportionately to non-white people.
In fact, even within the context
of the American justice system,
the extent to which that is true
is shocking.
In New York, in cases where people
were convicted of felony murder
as accomplices, so where they were
not charged with killing anyone,
Hispanic people were about 12 times as
likely as white people to be convicted
and Black people were more
than 34 times as likely.
In Wisconsin,
where Black individuals account
for less
than 7% of the population,
they make up 76% of those
incarcerated for felony murder.
In St. Louis, a city whose population
is slightly less than 50% Black,
every single felony-murder
conviction between 2010 and 2022,
a total of 47 people,
was of a Black person.
And very few things
are 100% Black people.
Not even, as we now know thanks
to Rachel Dolezal,
the Spokane Washington NAACP.
But there's another group on which
this law has disproportionate impacts.
Because a lot of the people
you've seen so far
were in their teens when their crimes
happened, and that is not a coincidence.
Young people are more likely
to commit crimes in groups
and are more impulsive than adults.
In fact,
felony murder's been described
as "the quintessential juvenile crime,"
"capitalizing on the developmental
vulnerabilities of adolescents."
That is why it sends a lot of people
in their teens and twenties to prison,
often for decades.
At one point, in Pennsylvania,
nearly three-quarters
of those serving life without
parole for felony murder
were 25 or younger
at the time of their offense.
And look, there are certain places
you do expect to find a teenager:
a high school,
an Olivia Rodrigo concert,
in Matt Gaetz's texting history,
but it is shocking to see so many
locked in prison for felony murder.
Just take Almeer Nance.
He was only 16
when he participated in the armed
robbery of a Tennessee Radio Shack,
during which another person
shot and killed a store employee.
Even though Nance was not
the one who pulled the trigger,
he was given a mandatory
sentence of 51 years.
And even one of the jurors
from his trial was horrified
when she learned
about his sentence.
Do you remember how you felt
when you heard
this 51-year minimum sentence?
I was stunned, shocked.
You know, a life was taken,
and that is a terrible tragedy.
A great injustice to the victim,
to his family,
to all the people who the ripples
of his life
would have gone out to
for generations.
But taking Almeer's life
when he had just started it
and wasn't even formed into who
he was going to become yet,
really, I felt horrified.
And I feel like
I followed the instructions.
But the law wasn't just,
and I regret being a participant
in that injustice.
Of course!
If you follow the instructions,
only to learn that a teenager is sent
to prison for half a century,
that has got to be the worst
jury duty experience ever,
followed closely
in a thousand-way tie
with all other
jury duty experiences.
So, to recap here: felony murder is
a law almost no other country uses,
it harshly punishes people
for killings they didn't commit,
and it disproportionately impacts
the non-white and the young.
So what on Earth
is the argument for it?
Some try to argue that it works as
a deterrent against criminal behavior.
When Colorado was in the process
of amending its felony murder law,
this state senator
strongly opposed the change.
Felony murder,
just as a concept ensures
that people are not going to be
cavalier about who they hang out with
and what those people are doing.
Okay, so, a couple of things.
First, maybe back up
from your camera just a bit.
And second, while it is nice to think
felony murder could be a deterrent,
there is little evidence of that.
In fact, a task force
in Minnesota concluded
that the existence of the charge
"does not deter behavior"
and "does not reduce the risk
of re-offense."
Which does make sense,
doesn't it?
It's hard for something to be
a deterrent if no one knows about it.
Think of felony murder laws
like Apple TV shows.
Sure, there are tons
of them out there,
but most people
have no fucking idea they exist.
Now, other supporters of the charge
argue it's worth it
simply to keep would-be
criminals off the streets.
Here's the sheriff who investigated
Almeer Nance's case
defending his 50-year sentence.
What would your response
be to people who say,
this isn't really working,
locking people up?
Doesn't actually
solve any problems.
Well, for those who say
it doesn't really solve any problems
by locking these juveniles up
for a long period of time,
Almeer Nance hasn't been involved
in any more violent crimes.
What? Well, you know,
by that logic,
fuck it,
just lock everyone up forever.
And even as I said that,
I've just realized,
that is definitely now gonna be
the official theme
of the 2028 Republican
National Convention.
So what can we do here? The solution
here's actually pretty simple:
just get rid of the felony
murder charge!
Every other common law country
did that decades ago,
and we should too.
And to be fair, some states
are at least trying to limit it.
Minnesota changed its laws
so that someone can no longer
be charged with murder
"unless they intended
to cause a death"
"or were a major participant
in a murder."
And California did
something similar.
And both states
made their changes retroactive,
so people convicted of felony murder
could ask to be resentenced.
And thankfully,
after getting media attention,
some convictions
have been overturned.
The Elkhart Four had their felony
murder convictions reversed,
and the guy with the car keys
had his sentence commuted
by Florida's governor.
However, LaKeith Smith and
Almeer Nance are still in prison,
and if you are seeing a pattern here,
congratulations on noticing
extremely obvious patterns.
And look,
no one is arguing
that people who commit
a felony should go unpunished,
or that there shouldn't be
consequences when someone is killed.
But they should be punished
for the crime they committed,
and not one they did not intend,
or indeed carry out themselves.
Because as I hope
you've seen tonight,
felony murder
really doesn't address crime at all.
All it does is throw people
in prison for decades
for something
they often did not do.
All of which really begs the question,
what the fuck?
And you know what? For this
one time, I'll actually allow it.
And now, this.
And Now: C-SPAN Callers
Memorialize Dick Cheney.
Let's start with Vincent.
He's in Connecticut
on our line for Independents
on the passing of former
vice president Dick Cheney.
- Hello, sir, how are you?
- Fine, thank you, go ahead.
Well, good riddance.
Richard in Kentucky, Republican
line. You're next, good morning.
Being a Christian man, I don't
want to speak ill of the dead.
Had he not received
an undeserved heart transplant,
he probably would have
met his makers years ago.
Now, I won't celebrate his demise,
but I sure won't mourn
his passing, either. Thank you.
Any miserable warmonger
that dies is a good thing.
I have nothing good
to say about Dick Cheney.
A lot of people
are dead because of this jerk.
He was a snotty jerk
on top of that.
I want to talk about something
that no one ever talks about.
You know
that God owns the world.
He made all the children,
he loves them dearly.
It didn't matter
what color they were.
He said he would take care of us,
and he is,
but there is another thing
in the air. It's called the devil.
He does things his way. He wants
to take America and Israel down.
Caller, we're talking about the passing
of the former vice president.
Do you have anything
to add to that front?
Well, not too much.
Moving on. Before we go, a final word
about New York's mayoral race.
Because it was truly
insane from start to finish.
Just take this moment
from the first debate.
Let me ask you this,
are there any parades that don't exist,
that you think should?
Mr. Mamdani?
I haven't thought much about
parades, to be honest with you.
Mr. Cuomo?
I have not thought, I don't even know
what parade doesn't exist, frankly.
Could be for anything.
Mr. Sliwa?
Every parade has a right
to exist in New York City.
That pretty much sums up
the whole campaign.
Mamdani brushing off
a meaningless question,
Cuomo frantically trying to change
his answer enough
so it doesn't look like
he's copying Mamdani,
and Curtis Sliwa answering a question
no one even knew they could ask.
And since
no one answered it there,
if you want a parade that
doesn't exist but should,
I've actually got you covered,
a Henry Winkler birthday parade,
one for that owl in Central Park
people loved until he died,
and a Macy's Thanksgiving Day
Parade but where the floats
are filled with candy and children
hit them with sticks.
You are welcome.
Now, you may have noticed there
was one candidate missing there,
because he'd already pulled out,
and that is Mayor Eric Adams.
He dropped out
back in September,
and it does say something that this
is how local news covered that.
Mayor Eric Adams
is a son of Brooklyn,
but Brooklyn voters are not exactly
sad he's leaving the race.
In fact, many wonder
what took him so long.
I'm happy that he's gone and I'll
be voting for Zohran Mamdani.
I myself, from what I know, didn't
see a path to victory for him.
We didn't find any New Yorkers
this afternoon disappointed
about Mayor Eric Adams
leaving the race.
They couldn't find anyone!
This city has eight million people!
I'm 1,000% sure I could find
someone who would vote
for a pigeon fucking a bagel
in Central Park.
But no takers for Eric Adams?
That has got to hurt.
But given his time
as mayor is drawing to a close,
we thought we'd take
one last look at Eric Adams.
Because he's a deeply weird man.
Now, we've played this clip before,
but it is worth seeing it again,
because, as answers to questions go,
it never gets less shocking.
Mr. Mayor, we've come to the end
of what was a very eventful 2023.
So, when you look
at the totality of the year,
if you had to describe it, and
it's tough to do-in one word,
what would that word be,
and tell me why.
New York.
This is a place where every day
you wake up,
you could experience everything from
a plane crashing into our trade center
to a person who's celebrating
a new business that's open.
This is a very,
very complicated city.
And that's why this is
the greatest city on the globe.
It's incredible. Remember,
the question he was asked there
was "Describe 2023 in one word."
Just say "Barbenheimer", Eric.
It's right there. And the baffling
ride that answer took us on
is really the Eric Adams
experience in a nutshell.
He genuinely might be one
of the strangest people alive.
He received his first three
paychecks in crypto,
he thinks there's a ghost that
runs around Gracie Mansion,
he gave Diddy the key to the city,
and he once proudly showed off
a giant new police robot
to monitor subway stations,
posing for a photo with it
where he made half a heart
that the limbless robot simply
couldn't reciprocate.
And even though it doesn't have
hands or human features,
it still looks like it's thinking,
"This guy is a fucking idiot."
Also, he once said this
at a press conference.
I'll never forget
when I was talking
about a menopause-friendly
environment in Brooklyn Borough Hall
and all the women came to me
and said, you know,
"Please don't mention that,
don't talk about it."
We can talk about erectile dysfunction
but not clitoral stimulation,
something is wrong.
Something is just wrong.
And we just
have to stop doing that.
It's amazing. And remember:
there's a non-zero chance
that the question
he was answering there was,
"Can you describe 2023
in one word?"
And, by the way, kudos
to the sign language interpreter.
She did not slow down
for a moment there,
which, as I'm sure Eric Adams
would tell anyone who'll listen,
is sometimes important to do
during clitoral stimulation.
Adams also lied nonstop,
and about everything.
For instance, he claimed he was vegan,
but not only was he spotted
eating fish around the city in
a controversy dubbed "FishGate",
he then told a reporter,
"If I see a piece of chicken,
I'm gonna nibble on it."
He also claimed that, for decades,
he'd carried a wrinkled photo
of a fallen police officer friend of
his who was killed in the line of duty,
even posing with that photo,
only for it to later be reported
that his staff had found it on Google,
printed it in black and white,
and made it look old
by staining it with coffee.
And he once said this at an
event for Dominican New Yorkers.
I may have been born in Alabama,
but I'm Dominican, baby!
Eric Adams
was born in Brooklyn.
But that is still not all.
He also relentlessly pandered,
from wearing this appalling
"all lives matter" of baseball caps
to holding over 90 flag-raising
ceremonies for countries,
where he'd say some version of
"New York is the blank of America",
filling it in with whatever that
country's biggest city was,
while shoehorning in this line
about what makes that
country's immigrants unique.
You believe in families.
You believe in business.
You believe in public safety.
I know how
you believe in business,
how you believe in family,
how you believe in public safety.
You believe in family, you believe
in business, in public safety.
You believe in family, you believe
in business, in public safety.
We thank the Croatian people here.
You believe in family,
you believe in business
and you believe in public safety.
Adams really went out of his way
to make each nationality feel special.
I'd say it was like a New York
mayoral Groundhog Day,
but that will always refer to
when Bill de Blasio dropped
a groundhog named Charlotte,
who then died a week later.
Which is a shame, but at least we now
know what Eric Adams would have said
at Charlotte's funeral.
"She was a groundhog who believed
in family, business and public safety."
Amazingly, Adams was once seen
as a promising political figure.
Early in his term,
he had a 63% approval rating,
and there were rumors he was
eyeing a White House run.
But less than two years
into his term,
he plummeted
to a 28% approval rating,
the lowest for a New York mayor since
Quinnipiac University began polling,
only to drop
another eight points after that.
Now, to be fair,
he had some successes.
He introduced a rezoning plan
that some say amounts
to the most significant effort
to address the city's housing crisis,
and he launched
a major citywide campaign
to strengthen
literacy in public schools.
But, his administration
also had some notable failures.
He vetoed a bill banning
solitary confinement,
misconduct complaints
against NYPD officers
increased under his administration.
And while he'd said
that Rikers should close,
its population not only increased,
he also got baptized there
by Al Sharpton
for some fucking reason.
And I have not seen a politician
so flagrantly deliver
what no one asked for
since Nancy Pelosi took a knee
while dressed like an African history
studies professor at graduation.
The true hallmark of the Adams
administration was its scandals.
He himself was charged
with five counts of conspiracy,
wire fraud, bribery and soliciting
illegal campaign contributions
from foreign nationals.
And throughout his tenure,
his efforts to deny wrongdoing
tended to raise more questions
than they answered.
I am clear that we follow the rules.
I cannot tell you how much I start
the day with telling my team,
"We've got to follow the law,
got to follow the law,"
and almost to the point
that I'm annoying.
But that is such a red flag. If every
morning, I called a meeting to say,
"Three things guys:
work hard, respect each other,"
"and don't participate in
the illegal exotic animal trade",
you'd wonder what the fuck
was going on in our workplace,
and I would direct your
questions to our office pangolin.
Now, the charges against Adams
were dropped earlier this year,
after the Trump administration
intervened.
But his behavior only got weirder.
And I'm not talking about
his first press conference
after the charges were dropped,
when he wore this T-shirt with
the phrase "In God We Trust".
Or indeed when he later wore
a different version of that same shirt,
which he said was in Spanish to honor
the victims of a nightclub collapse
in the Dominican Republic, even
though it was, in fact, in Italian.
No. Instead, I'm talking about
when Adams suddenly announced
he was gonna restore ICE's access
to Rikers,
which had been blocked since 2014,
and in the wake of that,
he appeared on Fox News
with Tom Homan,
who seemed to come right out
and say there'd been a quid pro quo.
If he doesn't come through,
I'll be back in New York City,
and we won't be sitting on the couch.
I'll be in his office, up his butt
saying, "Where the hell is
the agreement we came to?"
Wait,
"I'll be in his office up his butt"?
I mean, that certainly
sounds like a threat.
I guess it technically also sounds
like two puppets having an affair
in the workplace, but mainly,
it sounds like a threat to me.
But it's not just Adams himself.
The scandals surrounding his
administration were also relentless.
Here is a partial list:
his police commissioner resigned
after federal agents raided his home
and seized his cell phone
as part of an investigation
into corruption allegations,
his police chief resigned
and had his home raided in response
to allegations of sexual
misconduct and abuse of overtime,
Adams' girlfriend,
a senior education official,
retired amid an investigation into
accusations she didn't show up for work
and failed to disclose luxury travel,
his buildings commissioner resigned
before being indicted on felony counts
as part of an alleged bribery scheme
involving towing contracts
and illegal gambling,
his chief advisor resigned
before being indicted on bribery
and conspiracy charges, including
that she traded political favors
for an appearance on the TV show
"The Godfather of Harlem",
his first deputy mayor resigned
after the FBI raided her home
and seized her devices as part
of a corruption investigation,
and her brother-in-law,
also a deputy mayor,
resigned after the FBI raided his home
as part of that same investigation,
writing a letter
that just consisted of,
"I resign effective immediately.
Thank you."
Which is pretty abrupt. All it's really
missing is, "Sent from my iPhone."
Then there is Winnie Greco,
Adams' special adviser,
who resigned after the FBI
raided her homes
as part of a conspiracy, fraud, and
foreign influence investigation.
And even after her resignation,
she was still volunteering with Adams'
reelection campaign,
until this happened.
A former adviser to Mayor Adams
has been removed as a volunteer
from his reelection campaign
after allegedly giving a reporter
a wad of cash stuffed
inside of a potato chip bag.
Yeah, that happened,
and in a Herr's sour
cream and onion bag, no less!
If you are gonna slip someone 300
dollars, spring for a better chip.
Go with Ruffles cheddar,
or Cape Cod barbecue,
or, needless to say,
Flamin' Hot Cheeto Puffs.
Have some fucking respect
for the person that
you are trying to snack bribe.
I have to tell you, all those
officials deny wrongdoing,
and only these two have
actually been charged with a crime,
and they've both pled not guilty.
But that is still a lot!
This has been
a truly wild four years.
And honestly,
it seems kind of fitting that,
when reporters caught up with Adams
after he cast his vote on Tuesday,
this was his message to the city.
The only message I can give
to New Yorkers is,
as I go
to the next leg of my journey,
I'm leaving you a good city,
don't fuck it up.
You're taking a lot of credit there,
especially given
they literally couldn't find
a single person in New York
who'd miss you on the news.
But you are right,
this is a great city.
Though, that is not because of you
and sometimes it's in spite of you.
If I could sum up Eric Adams'
mayoralty in one word,
it'd probably be, "New York".
Because this is a place where
every day you wake up,
you could experience everything
from a plane
crashing into our trade center,
to a fake vegan non-Alabaman,
leaving a ghost-filled Gracie Mansion
to lecture all of us on family,
business, public safety,
and of course, clitoral stimulation.
Goodbye Eric Adams,
you deeply weird man.
And now, this.
A Look Back At The Soundbite Bonanza
That Was Sliwa's Mayoral Campaign.
I was born in New York.
They tried to kill me in New York.
The Gottis and Gambinos
shot me five times
with hollow-point bullets.
Should I do the rest
of this segment with the beret?
Should I take off my beret?
Put animal abusers in jail.
That resonates with a lot of people.
And you're gonna have
cats kill the rats.
Cats kill the rats, I like that.
The rats, the mice will smell them,
and it will be like they're on patrol.
Consider them
like Batman and Robin.
With Eric Adams, the only way
to get him in the district
was to open up a nightclub,
have him cut the ribbon,
and he'd be there
'til the break of dawn.
I almost feel like,
after I hear "Andrew Cuomo"
I gotta take a hot shower.
The guy who killed 15.000 elderly
people with his executive order
in the middle of Covid.
Because if you're under 30,
Cuomo's always flirty.
Andrew Cuomo is a creep,
slapping fannies and killing grannies.
I exude confidence, strength, fight,
fight, fight, like Braveheart.
And at the end of Braveheart,
remember they capture him,
they got him on the gurney,
the executioner says,
"You will bow
to the King of England."
And he looks at the executioner
and he says, "Do your job."
And they impale him,
they gut him out.
That's me, Braveheart.
Think of me, Braveheart.
That's our show, thanks for watching,
we'll see you next week, good night!
I'm John Oliver. Thank you for
joining us. It has been a busy week.
The government shutdown
became the longest in history,
FIFA announced plans
to launch a new "peace prize",
who are they
possibly going to give that to?
And at the pageant
for Miss World Chile,
one contestant took
the talent portion to a new level
by performing
with her death metal band.
Yes! Yes, yes, yes. If she lost
to someone twirling a baton,
there is no justice
in this world.
You don't expect someone
in a beauty pageant
to be good at death metal,
the same way you'd be surprised
if you found out that I have
a contemporary R&B album.
But you know what?
I do, and it is sexy as fuck.
Meanwhile, Tuesday was
Election Day in many places
and Democrats
did well across the board,
including right here in New York,
where Zohran Mamdani
decisively won the mayoral race,
and took an entirely
earned victory lap afterwards.
I wish Andrew Cuomo only
the best in private life.
But let tonight be the final time
I utter his name,
as we turn the page on a politics
that abandons the many
and answers only to the few.
Yep, pretty satisfying.
Some actually criticized that speech,
with Van Jones calling it "sharp"
and a "character switch"
from Mamdani's tone during
the campaign,
but that seems
deeply unfair to me.
He weathered one of the most
Islamophobic campaign in recent years.
"I wish Andrew Cuomo
only the best in private life"
is a frankly superhuman level
of grace to extend to a man
who has yet to pronounce
your name correctly once.
Especially given
that he could have said
"Andrew, your campaign
was terrible."
What was it
with the weird AI ads?
Especially this one that
you inexplicably released,
featuring the bill
from 'Schoolhouse Rock',
pregnant,
and with luscious, kissable lips?
Do you want to fuck the bill
from 'Schoolhouse Rock,' Andrew?
Do you? Well, great news:
now you actually can.
In your private life.
I wish you the best, you pervert.
We will talk more about New York's
mayoral race later in the show.
But for now, we're gonna dive straight
in with our main story this week,
which concerns murder,
the thing that cats
are constantly plotting.
Cats only want two things:
Fancy Feast chicken pate,
and the slow,
painful death of their enemies.
Murder is also what this singer did
to the national anthem last year
during an election debate
for third-party candidates.
I fucked it up,
can I go back, please?
We're live.
I got too nervous.
Excellent. Rest in peace
to the national anthem.
Now, was that tough to watch?
Yes, it was.
But does the fact that Jill Stein
had to stand there listening to it
make it a little better?
Abso-fucking-lutely.
Now, specifically, this story concerns
something called felony murder.
Which I know
sounds redundant,
after all, aren't all murders
technically felonies?
But it's a particular type of charge,
as this local news segment
chose to explain
with some odd framing.
Felony murder is not
the pre-planned,
made-for-TV murder
you might be thinking.
WTF is felony murder?
Felony murder allows anyone
involved in a dangerous crime
to be charged with murder
if someone is killed during that crime.
So even if the person
didn't actually kill someone,
they can still get charged.
So, let's say you're the getaway
car driver for a bank robbery
and your accomplice panics
and kills the bank teller.
You can be charged
with murder
without even stepping
into the bank building
or having a gun
or pulling the trigger.
That is honestly
a pretty good explanation,
albeit with a very distracting intro.
What is that?
You're talking
about a murder charge here,
why go with wacky graphics
and music that sound
like a circus clown's alarm clock?
Now, if you're talking about
something boring like escrow,
sure, goof it up to the max.
But not if the subject is serious.
The last thing any viewer wants
to see is that graphic
followed by a reporter saying,
"So, WTF is the age of consent?"
But to reiterate:
felony murder is basically
a felony plus a death
equals a murder charge,
even if you
didn't intend to kill anyone,
and even if you are not
the one who did the killing.
And as you'll see, these charges
can go way further
than just getaway drivers
in bank robberies.
Because you don't have to be
an active participant in a killing
to get charged
with felony murder.
You don't even have to be
anywhere near it.
Take what happened
when these four men broke into
a house in Florida to steal a safe.
When someone there tried to stop
them, one of them beat her to death.
But under felony murder, all four
were charged with her killing,
as well as this guy,
and I'll let him explain why.
I'm in prison because I loaned
my keys to my roommate.
It was 2003, the morning after
a party at his house in Pensacola.
I mean, he said, "Can I borrow
your keys to your car?"
and I said, "Sure."
He went back to sleep.
Holle says when he woke up
and his car wasn't back,
he called his roommate,
who said
they were about to break in.
If I were
to really have taken it serious,
I would have called the police.
But under
Florida's felony murder rule,
Holle was just as responsible
as the man who killed Snider.
Holle, like the other four men,
was sentenced to life without parole.
Yeah, he was sentenced to life
for a murder that took place
over a mile away,
that he didn't know
was gonna happen,
and where his involvement was limited
to lending his car for the burglary.
It's enough to make you ask,
"What the fuck?"
No, sorry, no,
I don't actually need those graphics!
I'm an adult being upset,
not a clown juggling bowling pins.
And the thing about felony murder
is it's much easier for a prosecutor
to obtain a conviction under it
than under a standard
first-degree murder charge,
where they have to prove
the defendant intended to kill.
Because under felony murder,
all they have to prove
is someone committed or aided
in a felony that led to a death.
And if you're convicted,
judges can have little discretion
on sentencing.
11 states and the federal system
mandate life without parole
for all felony murder convictions,
while these states mandate it
in at least some cases,
and around half of U.S. states
allow death sentences for unintentional
killings under felony murder laws.
In fact, since 1985, 11 people have
been executed for participating
in a felony during which
a co-defendant committed homicide.
That is 11 people executed for murder,
despite not killing anyone.
And look, I oppose the death
penalty in all cases,
but we clearly shouldn't be
executing people for murder
if they did not murder someone.
You can actually find more tips
like that in my new law textbook,
"A Practical Guide to the Most
Obvious Shit You've Ever Heard."
And while nobody keeps stats on
felony murder convictions nationwide,
in the states where they do exist,
the numbers are astonishing.
In Pennsylvania and Michigan,
one- quarter of people
serving life without parole there
were convicted of felony murder.
That's over 1,000 in each state.
And approximately half of California's
prisoners serving life without parole
were convicted of felony murder.
And while, in some of those cases,
prosecutors were using the charge
as an easier way to get a conviction
for someone who did commit murder,
in many others, they weren't.
In fact, a study in New York state
found that half of those convicted
and punished for felony murder
were not proven to have
killed anyone.
So, given all that, tonight,
let's talk about felony murder.
And let's start with its origins.
Because, like so many horrid things
in American culture,
it actually came from England.
The idea began being applied in
British courts in late 18th century,
but in 1957, England abolished
its version of felony murder
and other common law countries
like India and Canada followed suit,
except America. Instead,
it doubled down, and hard.
In fact, in its current form,
felony murder's been called
"a distinctly American innovation",
or, as the Michigan Supreme Court
described it,
"a historic survivor for which there is
no logical or practical basis"
"for existence in modern law."
And look, if we're gonna keep
weird old laws on the books,
let's at least keep the fun ones.
Like the 1971 Minnesota statute
that says, and this is true,
"No person shall operate, run,
or participate in a contest, game,
or other like activity, in which a pig,
greased, oiled, or otherwise,
is released and wherein the
object is the capture of the pig."
Those words were written
and voted on by lawmakers!
And I think my favorite part is
"a pig, greased, oiled, or otherwise."
Because they knew, if grease
and oil were off the table,
by God, someone would figure out
another way to make a pig slippery.
Now, there are some state
variations, for instance,
these limit felony murder charges to
killings by participants in the felony.
But these only require what
is called "proximate cause",
which means they allow
felony murder convictions
when non-participants in
the underlying crime do the killing.
And that can lead to cases like
what happened in Elkhart, Indiana,
when a group of five unarmed
young men, four of them teens,
broke into a house in the afternoon
to burglarize it,
"believing no one
was at home at the time."
Now, unfortunately, the homeowner
was actually asleep upstairs,
and he grabbed his handgun,
came downstairs,
and began firing his weapon,
killing one of them.
But the four teens survived,
only to then be charged
with felony murder in the death
of their friend,
which they still
cannot quite believe.
I didn't really comprehend it.
I didn't put my mind around
what I was really
about to go through.
To me, we all should be charged
for what we done that day,
but nobody committed murder,
so why should we be charged with it?
I committed burglary.
Serious things did happen.
Denzel's gone, you know.
I'm not saying I don't deserve time.
The trial lasted just four days.
The teenagers were all found guilty
of an adult crime.
17-year-old Levi was sentenced
to 50 years in prison.
16-year-old Blake and 18-year-old
Anthony Sharp each got 55 years.
I know they started things
by trying to rob the house,
but it's a bit of a stretch to go
from that to five decades in prison
for a killing that someone else
committed.
At a certain point,
assigning an outcome to a chain
of causation no longer makes sense.
It is why, when the Oscar for best
actor was awarded last year,
it was given to Cillian Murphy,
and not to his parents whose
hot Irish sex led to his existence.
The fact is, felony murder
can be applied
in an astonishingly broad array
of circumstances.
There are stories
of people being charged with it
after doing drugs
next to friends who OD'ed,
or in the wake of a robbery
where a frightened victim died
of a heart attack afterward,
"without having been struck
or injured by the robbers."
And take what happened
to LaKeith Smith.
When he was 15, he was robbing a
house in Alabama with several friends,
and one of them got shot.
But he refused to plead guilty
to felony murder,
for a reason that, when you hear him
explain it to a reporter,
is pretty understandable.
Can you tell me why didn't
you take that plea deal?
I knew I ain't do it.
I'm not gonna cop out for no 25 years
for a murder I ain't do,
and the people who did it,
they scot-free, like.
You said, "the people who did it."
What do you mean?
The police.
They scot-free, like, the one who
pulled the trigger and killed him.
His friend was shot by a cop.
Yet, LaKeith got 65 years in prison.
Which doesn't feel like
justice, does it?
And his mom sums up the absurdity
of that situation pretty well.
He should have got the proper time
for the crime that he committed.
The burglary
and the stolen property.
So, 65 years on a young guy, 15,
who didn't kill no one?
Didn't kill no one, and didn't shoot
at no one?
Alabama. Yep.
Exactly, I honestly
couldn't say it better!
In fact, at this point, I'd argue
Alabama's official state motto
should probably just be
an entirely derogatory "yep".
But while Smith refused
a plea deal, many don't.
And that's actually one of the big,
hidden ways
this charge can send
people to prison.
Because prosecutors can use
the threat of a huge sentence
under felony murder to get people
to plead down to lesser charges.
It's one reason why felony
murder's been called
"one of those quiet drivers of mass
incarceration we never acknowledge."
And it is just incredible to find out
something most people
have never even heard of
is propelling an issue as prominent
as mass incarceration.
It's like learning
most heart attacks occur
due to people chasing
greased-up pigs for sport,
though that would at least explain
why there's a fucking law
in Minnesota against it.
And while nobody knows exactly
how many plea deals were obtained
under the threat
of a felony murder sentence,
some who've taken one have
since spoken out, like Kevin Reese.
He pled to aiding and abetting
second-degree murder
after he participated in
a robbery when he was a teenager,
and one of his accomplices
ended up killing someone.
And here he is explaining
his decision to take that plea.
I had two choices.
My choice was either go to trial,
and a trial according to felony murder
I wasn't going to win,
because the threshold
to prove someone's guilt
for felony murder is so low.
Only thing they had to prove
was that I was there, right?
And it was a known fact.
I was never saying I wasn't there.
I was saying I didn't do it.
And my other choice
was take a plea for 22 years,
and go do 15 years in Minnesota
correctional facilities.
I had to rationalize this
in my 18-year-old brain.
I had to, like, almost rationalize,
"Okay, maybe somehow I deserve this."
I had to literally say, "Well",
and rationalize taking 22 years
instead of getting life.
That is horrible.
Because normally,
when people are forced
to choose the least-bad option,
it just means
that they resign themselves
to having lunch
at a Cracker Barrel.
When you're on the highway
and the other options
are places like Sadder IHOP,
Mystery Meat Buffet,
One-Way Ticket to the Toilet
and Homophobic Wendy's,
then unfortunately, Denny's
with Confederate Vibes
is gonna be
your least-bad option.
But despite making
the pragmatic choice,
it had huge impacts on
Kevin, both practical and emotional.
All of the programs inside of
the corrections facilities,
it's about cognitive behavioral
criminality, all of that thinking.
So, you'd be in spaces
where you have to lead
with, "I am Kevin.
I'm a murderer", right?
You have to lead with that. But each
time that I had to lead with that,
where I'm a murderer,
it's really easy to get bitter.
Right, it's really easy to have
a lot of distrust and disdain
for the system in itself.
And it also feels very much
like being kidnapped.
It feels very much
like being kidnapped,
because you're like, the crime,
like, what you did,
and why you're there,
there's a disconnect.
So, each time you look
at your paperwork
and it says the big red M, murder,
on there, you cringe.
I'm really here for murder.
Like, I'm really here for murder.
Yeah,
that sounds incredibly frustrating.
If they're gonna reduce someone's
life to a big red M for "murder",
the very least they could do
is add a smaller red
"but, y'know, not literally.
It's just a weird legal quirk."
"Just Google 'felony murder'
if you wanna know the deal."
"Shit's insane."
And since felony murder involves
the U.S. criminal justice system,
you're probably already assuming
it's applied disproportionately
to non-white people.
But the thing is,
you'll be shocked to learn
that white people are actually
Just kidding, of course it's applied
disproportionately to non-white people.
In fact, even within the context
of the American justice system,
the extent to which that is true
is shocking.
In New York, in cases where people
were convicted of felony murder
as accomplices, so where they were
not charged with killing anyone,
Hispanic people were about 12 times as
likely as white people to be convicted
and Black people were more
than 34 times as likely.
In Wisconsin,
where Black individuals account
for less
than 7% of the population,
they make up 76% of those
incarcerated for felony murder.
In St. Louis, a city whose population
is slightly less than 50% Black,
every single felony-murder
conviction between 2010 and 2022,
a total of 47 people,
was of a Black person.
And very few things
are 100% Black people.
Not even, as we now know thanks
to Rachel Dolezal,
the Spokane Washington NAACP.
But there's another group on which
this law has disproportionate impacts.
Because a lot of the people
you've seen so far
were in their teens when their crimes
happened, and that is not a coincidence.
Young people are more likely
to commit crimes in groups
and are more impulsive than adults.
In fact,
felony murder's been described
as "the quintessential juvenile crime,"
"capitalizing on the developmental
vulnerabilities of adolescents."
That is why it sends a lot of people
in their teens and twenties to prison,
often for decades.
At one point, in Pennsylvania,
nearly three-quarters
of those serving life without
parole for felony murder
were 25 or younger
at the time of their offense.
And look, there are certain places
you do expect to find a teenager:
a high school,
an Olivia Rodrigo concert,
in Matt Gaetz's texting history,
but it is shocking to see so many
locked in prison for felony murder.
Just take Almeer Nance.
He was only 16
when he participated in the armed
robbery of a Tennessee Radio Shack,
during which another person
shot and killed a store employee.
Even though Nance was not
the one who pulled the trigger,
he was given a mandatory
sentence of 51 years.
And even one of the jurors
from his trial was horrified
when she learned
about his sentence.
Do you remember how you felt
when you heard
this 51-year minimum sentence?
I was stunned, shocked.
You know, a life was taken,
and that is a terrible tragedy.
A great injustice to the victim,
to his family,
to all the people who the ripples
of his life
would have gone out to
for generations.
But taking Almeer's life
when he had just started it
and wasn't even formed into who
he was going to become yet,
really, I felt horrified.
And I feel like
I followed the instructions.
But the law wasn't just,
and I regret being a participant
in that injustice.
Of course!
If you follow the instructions,
only to learn that a teenager is sent
to prison for half a century,
that has got to be the worst
jury duty experience ever,
followed closely
in a thousand-way tie
with all other
jury duty experiences.
So, to recap here: felony murder is
a law almost no other country uses,
it harshly punishes people
for killings they didn't commit,
and it disproportionately impacts
the non-white and the young.
So what on Earth
is the argument for it?
Some try to argue that it works as
a deterrent against criminal behavior.
When Colorado was in the process
of amending its felony murder law,
this state senator
strongly opposed the change.
Felony murder,
just as a concept ensures
that people are not going to be
cavalier about who they hang out with
and what those people are doing.
Okay, so, a couple of things.
First, maybe back up
from your camera just a bit.
And second, while it is nice to think
felony murder could be a deterrent,
there is little evidence of that.
In fact, a task force
in Minnesota concluded
that the existence of the charge
"does not deter behavior"
and "does not reduce the risk
of re-offense."
Which does make sense,
doesn't it?
It's hard for something to be
a deterrent if no one knows about it.
Think of felony murder laws
like Apple TV shows.
Sure, there are tons
of them out there,
but most people
have no fucking idea they exist.
Now, other supporters of the charge
argue it's worth it
simply to keep would-be
criminals off the streets.
Here's the sheriff who investigated
Almeer Nance's case
defending his 50-year sentence.
What would your response
be to people who say,
this isn't really working,
locking people up?
Doesn't actually
solve any problems.
Well, for those who say
it doesn't really solve any problems
by locking these juveniles up
for a long period of time,
Almeer Nance hasn't been involved
in any more violent crimes.
What? Well, you know,
by that logic,
fuck it,
just lock everyone up forever.
And even as I said that,
I've just realized,
that is definitely now gonna be
the official theme
of the 2028 Republican
National Convention.
So what can we do here? The solution
here's actually pretty simple:
just get rid of the felony
murder charge!
Every other common law country
did that decades ago,
and we should too.
And to be fair, some states
are at least trying to limit it.
Minnesota changed its laws
so that someone can no longer
be charged with murder
"unless they intended
to cause a death"
"or were a major participant
in a murder."
And California did
something similar.
And both states
made their changes retroactive,
so people convicted of felony murder
could ask to be resentenced.
And thankfully,
after getting media attention,
some convictions
have been overturned.
The Elkhart Four had their felony
murder convictions reversed,
and the guy with the car keys
had his sentence commuted
by Florida's governor.
However, LaKeith Smith and
Almeer Nance are still in prison,
and if you are seeing a pattern here,
congratulations on noticing
extremely obvious patterns.
And look,
no one is arguing
that people who commit
a felony should go unpunished,
or that there shouldn't be
consequences when someone is killed.
But they should be punished
for the crime they committed,
and not one they did not intend,
or indeed carry out themselves.
Because as I hope
you've seen tonight,
felony murder
really doesn't address crime at all.
All it does is throw people
in prison for decades
for something
they often did not do.
All of which really begs the question,
what the fuck?
And you know what? For this
one time, I'll actually allow it.
And now, this.
And Now: C-SPAN Callers
Memorialize Dick Cheney.
Let's start with Vincent.
He's in Connecticut
on our line for Independents
on the passing of former
vice president Dick Cheney.
- Hello, sir, how are you?
- Fine, thank you, go ahead.
Well, good riddance.
Richard in Kentucky, Republican
line. You're next, good morning.
Being a Christian man, I don't
want to speak ill of the dead.
Had he not received
an undeserved heart transplant,
he probably would have
met his makers years ago.
Now, I won't celebrate his demise,
but I sure won't mourn
his passing, either. Thank you.
Any miserable warmonger
that dies is a good thing.
I have nothing good
to say about Dick Cheney.
A lot of people
are dead because of this jerk.
He was a snotty jerk
on top of that.
I want to talk about something
that no one ever talks about.
You know
that God owns the world.
He made all the children,
he loves them dearly.
It didn't matter
what color they were.
He said he would take care of us,
and he is,
but there is another thing
in the air. It's called the devil.
He does things his way. He wants
to take America and Israel down.
Caller, we're talking about the passing
of the former vice president.
Do you have anything
to add to that front?
Well, not too much.
Moving on. Before we go, a final word
about New York's mayoral race.
Because it was truly
insane from start to finish.
Just take this moment
from the first debate.
Let me ask you this,
are there any parades that don't exist,
that you think should?
Mr. Mamdani?
I haven't thought much about
parades, to be honest with you.
Mr. Cuomo?
I have not thought, I don't even know
what parade doesn't exist, frankly.
Could be for anything.
Mr. Sliwa?
Every parade has a right
to exist in New York City.
That pretty much sums up
the whole campaign.
Mamdani brushing off
a meaningless question,
Cuomo frantically trying to change
his answer enough
so it doesn't look like
he's copying Mamdani,
and Curtis Sliwa answering a question
no one even knew they could ask.
And since
no one answered it there,
if you want a parade that
doesn't exist but should,
I've actually got you covered,
a Henry Winkler birthday parade,
one for that owl in Central Park
people loved until he died,
and a Macy's Thanksgiving Day
Parade but where the floats
are filled with candy and children
hit them with sticks.
You are welcome.
Now, you may have noticed there
was one candidate missing there,
because he'd already pulled out,
and that is Mayor Eric Adams.
He dropped out
back in September,
and it does say something that this
is how local news covered that.
Mayor Eric Adams
is a son of Brooklyn,
but Brooklyn voters are not exactly
sad he's leaving the race.
In fact, many wonder
what took him so long.
I'm happy that he's gone and I'll
be voting for Zohran Mamdani.
I myself, from what I know, didn't
see a path to victory for him.
We didn't find any New Yorkers
this afternoon disappointed
about Mayor Eric Adams
leaving the race.
They couldn't find anyone!
This city has eight million people!
I'm 1,000% sure I could find
someone who would vote
for a pigeon fucking a bagel
in Central Park.
But no takers for Eric Adams?
That has got to hurt.
But given his time
as mayor is drawing to a close,
we thought we'd take
one last look at Eric Adams.
Because he's a deeply weird man.
Now, we've played this clip before,
but it is worth seeing it again,
because, as answers to questions go,
it never gets less shocking.
Mr. Mayor, we've come to the end
of what was a very eventful 2023.
So, when you look
at the totality of the year,
if you had to describe it, and
it's tough to do-in one word,
what would that word be,
and tell me why.
New York.
This is a place where every day
you wake up,
you could experience everything from
a plane crashing into our trade center
to a person who's celebrating
a new business that's open.
This is a very,
very complicated city.
And that's why this is
the greatest city on the globe.
It's incredible. Remember,
the question he was asked there
was "Describe 2023 in one word."
Just say "Barbenheimer", Eric.
It's right there. And the baffling
ride that answer took us on
is really the Eric Adams
experience in a nutshell.
He genuinely might be one
of the strangest people alive.
He received his first three
paychecks in crypto,
he thinks there's a ghost that
runs around Gracie Mansion,
he gave Diddy the key to the city,
and he once proudly showed off
a giant new police robot
to monitor subway stations,
posing for a photo with it
where he made half a heart
that the limbless robot simply
couldn't reciprocate.
And even though it doesn't have
hands or human features,
it still looks like it's thinking,
"This guy is a fucking idiot."
Also, he once said this
at a press conference.
I'll never forget
when I was talking
about a menopause-friendly
environment in Brooklyn Borough Hall
and all the women came to me
and said, you know,
"Please don't mention that,
don't talk about it."
We can talk about erectile dysfunction
but not clitoral stimulation,
something is wrong.
Something is just wrong.
And we just
have to stop doing that.
It's amazing. And remember:
there's a non-zero chance
that the question
he was answering there was,
"Can you describe 2023
in one word?"
And, by the way, kudos
to the sign language interpreter.
She did not slow down
for a moment there,
which, as I'm sure Eric Adams
would tell anyone who'll listen,
is sometimes important to do
during clitoral stimulation.
Adams also lied nonstop,
and about everything.
For instance, he claimed he was vegan,
but not only was he spotted
eating fish around the city in
a controversy dubbed "FishGate",
he then told a reporter,
"If I see a piece of chicken,
I'm gonna nibble on it."
He also claimed that, for decades,
he'd carried a wrinkled photo
of a fallen police officer friend of
his who was killed in the line of duty,
even posing with that photo,
only for it to later be reported
that his staff had found it on Google,
printed it in black and white,
and made it look old
by staining it with coffee.
And he once said this at an
event for Dominican New Yorkers.
I may have been born in Alabama,
but I'm Dominican, baby!
Eric Adams
was born in Brooklyn.
But that is still not all.
He also relentlessly pandered,
from wearing this appalling
"all lives matter" of baseball caps
to holding over 90 flag-raising
ceremonies for countries,
where he'd say some version of
"New York is the blank of America",
filling it in with whatever that
country's biggest city was,
while shoehorning in this line
about what makes that
country's immigrants unique.
You believe in families.
You believe in business.
You believe in public safety.
I know how
you believe in business,
how you believe in family,
how you believe in public safety.
You believe in family, you believe
in business, in public safety.
You believe in family, you believe
in business, in public safety.
We thank the Croatian people here.
You believe in family,
you believe in business
and you believe in public safety.
Adams really went out of his way
to make each nationality feel special.
I'd say it was like a New York
mayoral Groundhog Day,
but that will always refer to
when Bill de Blasio dropped
a groundhog named Charlotte,
who then died a week later.
Which is a shame, but at least we now
know what Eric Adams would have said
at Charlotte's funeral.
"She was a groundhog who believed
in family, business and public safety."
Amazingly, Adams was once seen
as a promising political figure.
Early in his term,
he had a 63% approval rating,
and there were rumors he was
eyeing a White House run.
But less than two years
into his term,
he plummeted
to a 28% approval rating,
the lowest for a New York mayor since
Quinnipiac University began polling,
only to drop
another eight points after that.
Now, to be fair,
he had some successes.
He introduced a rezoning plan
that some say amounts
to the most significant effort
to address the city's housing crisis,
and he launched
a major citywide campaign
to strengthen
literacy in public schools.
But, his administration
also had some notable failures.
He vetoed a bill banning
solitary confinement,
misconduct complaints
against NYPD officers
increased under his administration.
And while he'd said
that Rikers should close,
its population not only increased,
he also got baptized there
by Al Sharpton
for some fucking reason.
And I have not seen a politician
so flagrantly deliver
what no one asked for
since Nancy Pelosi took a knee
while dressed like an African history
studies professor at graduation.
The true hallmark of the Adams
administration was its scandals.
He himself was charged
with five counts of conspiracy,
wire fraud, bribery and soliciting
illegal campaign contributions
from foreign nationals.
And throughout his tenure,
his efforts to deny wrongdoing
tended to raise more questions
than they answered.
I am clear that we follow the rules.
I cannot tell you how much I start
the day with telling my team,
"We've got to follow the law,
got to follow the law,"
and almost to the point
that I'm annoying.
But that is such a red flag. If every
morning, I called a meeting to say,
"Three things guys:
work hard, respect each other,"
"and don't participate in
the illegal exotic animal trade",
you'd wonder what the fuck
was going on in our workplace,
and I would direct your
questions to our office pangolin.
Now, the charges against Adams
were dropped earlier this year,
after the Trump administration
intervened.
But his behavior only got weirder.
And I'm not talking about
his first press conference
after the charges were dropped,
when he wore this T-shirt with
the phrase "In God We Trust".
Or indeed when he later wore
a different version of that same shirt,
which he said was in Spanish to honor
the victims of a nightclub collapse
in the Dominican Republic, even
though it was, in fact, in Italian.
No. Instead, I'm talking about
when Adams suddenly announced
he was gonna restore ICE's access
to Rikers,
which had been blocked since 2014,
and in the wake of that,
he appeared on Fox News
with Tom Homan,
who seemed to come right out
and say there'd been a quid pro quo.
If he doesn't come through,
I'll be back in New York City,
and we won't be sitting on the couch.
I'll be in his office, up his butt
saying, "Where the hell is
the agreement we came to?"
Wait,
"I'll be in his office up his butt"?
I mean, that certainly
sounds like a threat.
I guess it technically also sounds
like two puppets having an affair
in the workplace, but mainly,
it sounds like a threat to me.
But it's not just Adams himself.
The scandals surrounding his
administration were also relentless.
Here is a partial list:
his police commissioner resigned
after federal agents raided his home
and seized his cell phone
as part of an investigation
into corruption allegations,
his police chief resigned
and had his home raided in response
to allegations of sexual
misconduct and abuse of overtime,
Adams' girlfriend,
a senior education official,
retired amid an investigation into
accusations she didn't show up for work
and failed to disclose luxury travel,
his buildings commissioner resigned
before being indicted on felony counts
as part of an alleged bribery scheme
involving towing contracts
and illegal gambling,
his chief advisor resigned
before being indicted on bribery
and conspiracy charges, including
that she traded political favors
for an appearance on the TV show
"The Godfather of Harlem",
his first deputy mayor resigned
after the FBI raided her home
and seized her devices as part
of a corruption investigation,
and her brother-in-law,
also a deputy mayor,
resigned after the FBI raided his home
as part of that same investigation,
writing a letter
that just consisted of,
"I resign effective immediately.
Thank you."
Which is pretty abrupt. All it's really
missing is, "Sent from my iPhone."
Then there is Winnie Greco,
Adams' special adviser,
who resigned after the FBI
raided her homes
as part of a conspiracy, fraud, and
foreign influence investigation.
And even after her resignation,
she was still volunteering with Adams'
reelection campaign,
until this happened.
A former adviser to Mayor Adams
has been removed as a volunteer
from his reelection campaign
after allegedly giving a reporter
a wad of cash stuffed
inside of a potato chip bag.
Yeah, that happened,
and in a Herr's sour
cream and onion bag, no less!
If you are gonna slip someone 300
dollars, spring for a better chip.
Go with Ruffles cheddar,
or Cape Cod barbecue,
or, needless to say,
Flamin' Hot Cheeto Puffs.
Have some fucking respect
for the person that
you are trying to snack bribe.
I have to tell you, all those
officials deny wrongdoing,
and only these two have
actually been charged with a crime,
and they've both pled not guilty.
But that is still a lot!
This has been
a truly wild four years.
And honestly,
it seems kind of fitting that,
when reporters caught up with Adams
after he cast his vote on Tuesday,
this was his message to the city.
The only message I can give
to New Yorkers is,
as I go
to the next leg of my journey,
I'm leaving you a good city,
don't fuck it up.
You're taking a lot of credit there,
especially given
they literally couldn't find
a single person in New York
who'd miss you on the news.
But you are right,
this is a great city.
Though, that is not because of you
and sometimes it's in spite of you.
If I could sum up Eric Adams'
mayoralty in one word,
it'd probably be, "New York".
Because this is a place where
every day you wake up,
you could experience everything
from a plane
crashing into our trade center,
to a fake vegan non-Alabaman,
leaving a ghost-filled Gracie Mansion
to lecture all of us on family,
business, public safety,
and of course, clitoral stimulation.
Goodbye Eric Adams,
you deeply weird man.
And now, this.
A Look Back At The Soundbite Bonanza
That Was Sliwa's Mayoral Campaign.
I was born in New York.
They tried to kill me in New York.
The Gottis and Gambinos
shot me five times
with hollow-point bullets.
Should I do the rest
of this segment with the beret?
Should I take off my beret?
Put animal abusers in jail.
That resonates with a lot of people.
And you're gonna have
cats kill the rats.
Cats kill the rats, I like that.
The rats, the mice will smell them,
and it will be like they're on patrol.
Consider them
like Batman and Robin.
With Eric Adams, the only way
to get him in the district
was to open up a nightclub,
have him cut the ribbon,
and he'd be there
'til the break of dawn.
I almost feel like,
after I hear "Andrew Cuomo"
I gotta take a hot shower.
The guy who killed 15.000 elderly
people with his executive order
in the middle of Covid.
Because if you're under 30,
Cuomo's always flirty.
Andrew Cuomo is a creep,
slapping fannies and killing grannies.
I exude confidence, strength, fight,
fight, fight, like Braveheart.
And at the end of Braveheart,
remember they capture him,
they got him on the gurney,
the executioner says,
"You will bow
to the King of England."
And he looks at the executioner
and he says, "Do your job."
And they impale him,
they gut him out.
That's me, Braveheart.
Think of me, Braveheart.
That's our show, thanks for watching,
we'll see you next week, good night!