Where robbing a bank equates with murder

Two guys robbed a bank in Dillon Falls. Muskingum County deputies chase the van they were driving to Mount Sterling. One guy jumps out and fires at deputies, who shoot and kill him. The other guy gives up without any problems.

Lucky him. He gets charged with the murder of the guy deputies killed. Muskingum County Prosecutor Michael Haddox said, according to the news report, that "a person who causes the death of another as a proximate result of committing a felony can be charged with murder." (quoting the reporter)

If Haddox is accurate and this news report is accurate, then we have a problem. Not just in Zanesville, but in Ohio. We have a very bad law if a murder charge can be brought against someone other than the triggerman.

Whether it can or not, citizens, even bank robbers, deserve protection from runaway prosecutors, and that could be the problem here. There ought to be a law, if there isn't one already, to punish negligent office holders. This might be a case similar to the one involving college soccer team members getting drug through hell on earth by some irresponsible prosecutor who is grandstanding for votes or for some reason other than accurate law enforcement. This kind of prosecutor should at the very least be cast from office and we need a very bold law that says so.

I'm not saying that's the case in Zanesville. But this is too weird to be believed, knowing no more about it than the facts of one newspaper article. Maybe something else influenced the prosecutor's charge. So it bears watching; there's something wrong with the law or the way it was applied or the way it was reported. Whatever and whomever need to be corrected.