Here’s Why Michigan May Be on the Verge of a Sentencing Reckoning.
Quick Facts
Felony murder allows a person to be convicted of murder if a death occurs during the commission of a felony, even if that person did not kill, intend to kill, or foresee the killing.
Whether mandatory life-without-parole sentences for felony murder violate Michigan’s constitutional ban on “cruel or unusual punishment.”
If the Court rules these sentences unconstitutional, Michigan could become the first state to require resentencing for people serving life without parole based solely on felony murder liability.
Potentially hundreds of people, many of them elderly, who have already served 40 or more years in prison without any individualized sentencing review.
The Case at the Center: People v. Langston
The Michigan Supreme Court is currently weighing a challenge that strikes at the core of one of the harshest sentencing practices still embedded in state law: mandatory life-without-parole sentences imposed under the felony murder doctrine.
In People v. Langston, the Court is being asked to decide whether imposing the harshest possible punishment on someone who did not pull the trigger, and may not have intended or foreseen a killing at all, is compatible with Michigan’s constitutional protections against cruel or unusual punishment.
Unlike the federal Constitution, Michigan’s Constitution uses the phrase “cruel or unusual,” a distinction the Court has repeatedly interpreted as offering broader protections than the Eighth Amendment. That language matters here.
This is not a technical sentencing dispute. It is a moral and constitutional one.
How Felony Murder Works in Practice
Felony murder laws collapse vastly different levels of culpability into a single outcome. A person can receive the same mandatory life-without-parole sentence whether they planned and carried out a killing, or whether they were a peripheral participant in a felony that spiraled beyond their control.
Classic examples include:
- A getaway driver who never enters the building
- A co-defendant who leaves before violence occurs
- A participant who explicitly opposed the use of weapons
Under mandatory sentencing schemes, judges are barred from considering:
- Age at the time of the offense
- Degree of participation
- Intent or foreseeability
- Rehabilitation over decades of incarceration
The punishment is fixed, regardless of the individual.
Why Michigan Is Uniquely Positioned to Act
Michigan has already taken steps that signal discomfort with mandatory life-without-parole sentencing.
Over the past decade, the state has:
- Eliminated mandatory LWOP for juveniles
- Required individualized sentencing hearings in youth homicide cases
- Acknowledged evolving standards of decency and neurological science
The felony murder challenge builds directly on this trajectory.
The question now before the Court is whether mandatory LWOP for adults who did not kill is similarly incompatible with proportional punishment and constitutional limits.
The Resentencing Ripple Effect
If the Court rules that mandatory life-without-parole sentences for felony murder are unconstitutional, the impact will be immediate and far-reaching.
Michigan would likely face:
- A wave of resentencing hearings across the state
- Judicial review for prisoners who have served 40, 50, or even 60 years
- A shift from automatic punishment to individualized assessment
Many of those affected are now elderly. Some entered prison in the 1970s or 1980s. Their cases were decided in an era that prioritized retribution over rehabilitation, often without meaningful appellate review.
This would not guarantee release. It would finally guarantee long-denied due process.
Prosecutorial Discretion Under a Microscope
A ruling in Langston would also force a long-overdue reckoning with how felony murder charges are used.
For Michigan Prosecutors, felony murder has historically functioned as a leverage tool:
- Inflating exposure to force plea deals
- Collapsing factual nuance into maximum punishment
- Shifting moral blame away from individual conduct
Requiring resentencing would reintroduce accountability into charging decisions. It would also require prosecutors to justify continued incarceration based on current risk and conduct, not just decades-old theories of liability.
A System Already Under Strain
This challenge arrives at a moment when prosecutors across Michigan are already whining grappling with the long shadow of past charging decisions.
For decades, offices relied heavily on overcharging, mandatory sentencing schemes, and theories of liability that collapsed nuance in favor of efficiency. The fallout from unconstitutional juvenile life-without-parole sentences has already forced resentencing hearings, record reviews, and uncomfortable acknowledgments that many people were condemned under frameworks that no longer pass constitutional muster.
Rather than fully correcting those errors, many prosecutors have instead focused on minimizing disruption to their offices. In practice, that has meant intense procedural resistance, narrow interpretations of court rulings, and repeated attempts to delay or limit resentencing obligations. The goal has often been docket management, not justice.
The felony murder challenge threatens to reopen all of those unresolved wounds. A ruling requiring individualized resentencing would expand an already growing category of cases prosecutors hoped were settled for good. For prosecutorial offices stretched thin, the temptation to “kick the can down the road” is very real, even when doing so perpetuates sentences imposed under legally and morally defective frameworks.
This moment exposes a deeper institutional problem. When correcting constitutional violations is treated as an administrative burden rather than a legal obligation, accountability becomes optional. The Court’s decision will signal whether efficiency can continue to outweigh correction, or whether the system must finally confront the cumulative cost of decades of unchecked charging power.
Why This Case Matters
This case asks a simple but uncomfortable question:
Should the harshest punishment our system allows be mandatory for someone who did not kill?
Michigan has an opportunity to answer that question differently than any state before it.
A ruling in favor of resentencing would not erase accountability. It would restore proportionality, judicial discretion, and constitutional meaning to a sentencing scheme that has long operated on autopilot.
Justice is not measured only by who we punish, but by whether the punishment still makes sense decades later.
Sources and Further Reading
- Michigan Constitution, Article 1, Section 16
- Michigan Supreme Court briefing in People v. Langston
- Sentencing Project, Felony Murder and Accountability
- American Law Institute, Model Penal Code: Sentencing Revisions
