People v. Aaron, 299 N.W.2d 304

Case citation

Case citation is the system used in many countries to identify the decisions in past court cases, either in special series of books called reporters or law reports, or in a 'neutral' form which will identify a decision wherever it was reported...

 (1980), was a case

Legal case

A legal case is a dispute between opposing parties resolved by a court, or by some equivalent legal process. A legal case may be either civil or criminal...

 decided by the Michigan Supreme Court

Michigan Supreme Court

The Michigan Supreme Court is the highest court in the U.S. state of Michigan. It is known as Michigan's "court of last resort" and consists of seven justices who are elected to eight-year terms. Candidates are nominated by political parties and are elected on a nonpartisan ballot...

 that abandoned the felony-murder rule in that state. The court reasoned that the rule should only be used in grading a murder

Murder

Murder is the unlawful killing, with malice aforethought, of another human being, and generally this state of mind distinguishes murder from other forms of unlawful homicide...

 as either first or second degree, and that the automatic assignment of the mens rea

Mens rea

Mens rea is Latin for "guilty mind". In criminal law, it is viewed as one of the necessary elements of a crime. The standard common law test of criminal liability is usually expressed in the Latin phrase, actus non facit reum nisi mens sit rea, which means "the act does not make a person guilty...

 of the felony

Felony

A felony is a serious crime in the common law countries. The term originates from English common law where felonies were originally crimes which involved the confiscation of a convicted person's land and goods; other crimes were called misdemeanors...

as sufficient for the mens rea of first degree murder was indefensible.