Chicago Tribune

Dahleen Glanton: Five Chicago teenagers are charged with a murder police know they did not commit. In Illinois, it's legal

Two tragedies happened in suburban Chicago the other day. A 14-year-old boy was shot and killed for allegedly trying to steal a car from a driveway and the five teenagers who were with him were charged with a murder they did not commit.

That's because of an obscure Illinois law that allows authorities to charge people with murder if someone dies during the commission of a serious crime, whether they personally inflicted the injury or not. In this case, the crime was burglary.

This provision, known as the felony

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