STATE OF NEW YORK
________________________________________________________________________
5353
2021-2022 Regular Sessions
IN SENATE
March 2, 2021
___________
Introduced by Sen. SEPULVEDA -- read twice and ordered printed, and when
printed to be committed to the Committee on Codes
AN ACT to amend the penal law, in relation to requiring that a defendant
must be over twenty-five years old to be guilty of felony murder
The People of the State of New York, represented in Senate and Assem-
bly, do enact as follows:
1 Section 1. The opening paragraph and paragraph (d) of subdivision 3 of
2 section 125.25 of the penal law, the opening paragraph as amended by
3 chapter 264 of the laws of 2003 and paragraph (d) as amended by chapter
4 477 of the laws of 1990, are amended to read as follows:
5 Acting either alone or with one or more other persons, [he] a defend-
6 ant being more than twenty-five years old commits or attempts to commit
7 robbery, burglary, kidnapping, arson, rape in the first degree, criminal
8 sexual act in the first degree, sexual abuse in the first degree, aggra-
9 vated sexual abuse, escape in the first degree, or escape in the second
10 degree, and, in the course of and in furtherance of such crime or of
11 immediate flight therefrom, he or she, or another participant, if there
12 be any, causes the death of a person other than one of the participants;
13 except that in any prosecution under this subdivision, in which the
14 defendant was not the only participant in the underlying crime, it is an
15 affirmative defense that the defendant:
16 (d) Had no reasonable ground to believe that any other participant
17 intended to engage in conduct likely to result in death or serious phys-
18 ical injury[; or].
19 § 2. This act shall take effect immediately.
EXPLANATION--Matter in italics (underscored) is new; matter in brackets
[ ] is old law to be omitted.
LBD09991-01-1