A more thorough explanation:

The felony murder rule is a law that allows someone who is accused of committing a violent felony to be charged with murder if the commission of that felony results in the death of someone. This means that if someone is involved in a violent crime, like robbery or kidnapping, and someone dies during the commission of that crime, they can be charged with murder even if they didn't intend for anyone to die.

For example, if two people attempt to rob a store and one of them accidentally kills an employee, both people could be charged with murder under the felony murder rule, even if the other person didn't kill anyone and didn't intend for anyone to die.

Some states apply the felony murder rule to all felonies, while others only apply it to certain violent felonies like burglary, robbery, arson, rape, and kidnapping. However, there are exceptions to the rule depending on the jurisdiction. For example, some states do not apply the felony murder rule to co-felons if they did not intend or know that someone was likely to be killed.

States differ on what class of murder a felony murder falls under and what punishments follow. In some states, a person can even face the death penalty for felony murder. However, the Supreme Court has interpreted the Eighth Amendment to prevent the death penalty for co-conspirators who did not intend for anyone to be killed during the commission of the felony.

One example of the felony murder rule in action is the 2009 California State case, People v. Sarun Chun. In this case, the felony murder doctrine was disallowed because the underlying felony, a drive-by shooting, was assaultive in nature. This means that the felony murder rule cannot apply when the felony may constitute the elements of murder, like assault.

Another example is if two people rob a store and the store owner kills one of the robbers. In this case, the exception to the felony murder rule would prevent the application of the rule to the other robber because the person who died was a co-felon.