Hmm. That’s a good question; I don’t know of a legal doctrine that does that. But it’s three counts – one in the first degree, and two in the second degree.

kagis

I can’t find someone discussing this case in particular in a quick couple searches, but this does have another case — a policeman who killed a single person — who was charged with multiple counts of murder as well.

This is Illinois state law, but I’d guess that it probably works the same way elsewhere.

https://old.reddit.com/r/Ask_Lawyers/comments/1eiev8h/three_murder_charges_for_killing_one_person/

Hello,

I was reading about the murder of Sonya Massey by an Illinois police officer and saw that he’s been charged with three counts of first degree murder. I suppose what confuses me is that there was only one victim. Why do some states apply multiple murder charges when there is only one victim? Intuitively that seems odd.

It’s probably three different theories of the crime. The Illinois Murder 1 statute does have 3 theories:

Sec. 9-1. First degree murder.

(a) A person who kills an individual without lawful justification commits first degree murder if, in performing the acts which cause the death:

(1) he or she either intends to kill or do great bodily harm to that individual or another, or knows that such acts will cause death to that individual or another; or

(2) he or she knows that such acts create a strong probability of death or great bodily harm to that individual or another; or

(3) he or she, acting alone or with one or more participants, commits or attempts to commit a forcible felony other than second degree murder, and in the course of or in furtherance of such crime or flight therefrom, he or she or another participant causes the death of a person.

Each theory that the prosecutor thinks applies needs to be charged. (You can’t convict someone of something you forgot to charge them with.) They do this in case one theory ends up falling through. Maybe they think it was intentional, but if they can’t prove it was intentional, they think they can definitely prove that he knew there was a strong probability of death, and if they can’t prove either of those mental states, they think they can still prove that it happened during the commission of a felony. (I don’t know the facts of this case so I’m just speaking in generalities/hypotheticals.)

But even if he were convicted of all 3, the counts would merge and the sentence would not be 3x as long.