People v. Morgan

In People v. Morgan, 197 Ill. 2d 404, 758 N.E.2d 813, 259 Ill. Dec. 405 (2001), the defendant shot his grandfather during a confrontation and shot his grandmother in the back as she was fleeing her home. He was charged with and subsequently convicted of, among other things, felony murder predicated on both aggravated battery and aggravated discharge of a firearm. Our supreme court held, "where the acts constituting forcible felonies arise from and are inherent in the act of murder itself, those acts cannot serve as predicate felonies for a charge of felony murder." Morgan, 197 Ill. 2d at 447. According to the court, the predicate offense must involve conduct with a felonious purpose other than the killing itself. Morgan, 197 Ill. 2d at 458.