Shawanna Amerson and Roland Harris

Arizona’s felony murder law allows a person to be convicted of murder even when neither they nor any of their co-defendants killed anyone. Under the “proximate cause” theory--adopted in Arizona and 18 other states-- participants in a felony may be held responsible for a death caused by a third party, like a police officer. This is what happened in the case of Jacob Harris and Johnny Reed.

On January 11, 2019, a Phoenix police officer shot and killed 19-year-old Jacob Harris. While the officer was never charged with a crime, Harris’s friends who were with him at the time—including 14-year-old Johnny Reed, 19 year-old Sariah Busani, and 20-year-old Jeremiah Triplett—were convicted of felony murder based on their alleged involvement in a robbery that occurred prior to the shooting.

Mr. Roland Harris, father of Jacob Harris, and Ms. Shawanna Amerson, mother of Johnny Reed, have decided to share the stories of their two sons to call attention to the role felony murder has played in obstructing true accountability. To learn more, see the audio and video recordings below, and check out journalist Meg O’Connor’s investigation into this story.