Now, I am really confused...........I am not an attorney, but pretty good with statutes, but the difference in these confuse me. I am going to have to take your word on these.
I am going to ask my brother to explain it a little more in depth where I can understand it. Why would they charge her with both if they do not intend to prosecute both? If the premeditated does not work then will the aggravated child abuse kick in?
I am sure I am just over complicating this, but I am interested in how it works.
Premeditated is when a person cold-bloodedly plans a killing and then does it. A murder like murder via aggravated child abuse would be that the death was not intended but is a result of a certain kind of abuse. The jury can only find casey guilty of one because they are two separate, different paths to guilt. They can present one to the jury and in reality, casey has been charged with only the first. However, if I understood correctly, Nancy Botwin cited a Florida case that show that if they also charge her with aggravated child abuse, which they have done, (and which she can be found guilty of at the same time she is found guilty of premeditated murder), then, the jury can, if they do not find enough evidence for premeditated murder in the prosecution's case, find her guilty of murder one via aggravated child abuse, even though that is a spearate charge she has not been charged with. It's a slick little loophole/technique. It allows the prosecution to present a case of premeditated murder, but to have jury insturctions which allow the jury to find casey guilty of that OR, if they do not find that the evidence fits such a charge, then they an find her guilty of the unintended death of her daughter via aggravated child abuse, which is also a first degree murder charge.
I think what Wudge is talking about is that when someone commits a felony, such as bank robbery (or here, perhaps, aggravated child abuse by chloroforming a kid to get her to sleep), and, in the course of the commission of that felony, someone dies, then the person who committed the felony, like the bank robbery, is guilty of the felony AND first degree murder. The thought behind it is if a person takes the risk of committing a serious crime and someone dies in the course of it, even though the criminal did not intend for that to happen, the criminal is charged in a way as oif they did intend for it to hppen. It's supposed to be a deterrent to crime.
However, Wudge keeps calling such a charge "felony murder" which can be confusing to some people because ALL murders are felonies.
But, I will not presume to speak for Wudge. He's smart enough to do that for himself!