FIRE-RELATED MURDER CHARGE A SCARY STRETCH

That laws have been stretched to their constitutional limit by beleaguered
law enforcement personnel is a matter of record. Witness the recent Supreme
Court ruling against police use of thermal imaging of a home without a warrant.

Until now, though, murder was pretty much murder, and everyone pretty much
understood the parameters of the charge - death directly related to the act
of another and some evidence of intent to harm. Throw all that out the
window if a California murder charge is allowed to stand.

Frank Brady has been deemed responsible for starting a wildfire, the
fighting of which led to a plane crash that killed two firefighter pilots.
He has been charged with murder in their deaths despite the fact he never
knew they existed.

We suspect frustration may have led police and prosecutors to believe that
a violation of drug laws is somehow tantamount to murder. Brady is
suspected of running a drug lab at the site where the fire started. But
even if that is proved, it still makes a murder charge a real stretch of
the legal imagination, even under California's felony murder provisions.

This case offers a whole new definition of "murder" that is based on the
personalities involved, a dangerously unequal application of the law. If
you think not, ask yourself a single question.

If a Boy Scout on a camp-out had started the fire, would he, too, be
charged with murder in the death of a firefighter? Somehow, we doubt it.