"Race has nothing to do with it other than this was a gang of black people who thought they were going to beat up this white family."

That's the crime the defendant should be held accountable for (assuming it wasn't self-defense)

Let me understand this. Three men break into someone's home and then they can plead self-defense?

probably the reason the victim wasn't charged is because, um, hold on, bear with me here..................he's the victim? actually, this is really no different than the felony murder law you describe, except the deceased were participants in the crime, not the victims of it. same theory.

frankly, unless there is evidence showing this statute hasn't been previously invoked, in similar cases (how many like this could there possibly be?) involving white/hispanic/asian perps, than the racism claim is baseless, meant only to inflame the community.

  My client was charged with felony-murder for the death of his best friend. The allegations were that my client and two of his friends decided to rob a drug-dealer with an unloaded gun. All the participants including the drug-dealer to be robbed were black. The drug-dealer was a little guy and my clients and his friends were considerably larger. Unfortunately, the drug-dealer had a gun that was loaded and he shot and killed my client's best friend who was brandishing the unloaded gun.

  The black drug-dealer was not even charged with possession to distribute cocaine (or possession of a firearm in connection therewith)  let alone homicide even though he admitted to the police  he was selling cocaine and carrying the gun to protect himself and that he intentionally shot the deceased (in self-defense).

   Under the exact same legal theory as here  my client was charged with first degree murder under the felony-murder rule. The only significant difference was that prior to my being appointed to the case he confessed to the police that he and his friends intended to rob the drug-dealer and so did the surviving co-deferndant. The confession and his prior waiver of Miranda rights were recorded so a motion to suppress was very unlikely to succeed.

  Had we proceeded to trial on the murder count,  the prosecution would have had to prove the intent only to commit the underyling felony (robbery) not the intent to kill (or premeditation or actual malice) or for anyone to be harmed. That my client was unarmed, that the gun he knew of was unloaded, that he thought the dealer did not have a gun, that he obviously did not intend for his or want his friend to be killed or harmed was all pretty much uncontested but he likely would have been convicted under (in my experience the very commonly invoked where applicable) felony-murder rule AND armed robbery.

  Given those facts, my client decided to plead gulty to armed robbery. He was sentenced to 50 years, but because part of the agreement was that the prosecution would not make a formal  presentment of use of a firearm he was eligible for parole after 12 1/2. Had the prosecution filed a firearm presentment the parole eligibility for the robbery  would have been 16 2/3 years--- 1st degree murder carried a life sentence with eligibility for parole after 15 IF the jury made a recommendation of mercy (which was probably likely given the facts) but there was also the risk that after a trial  the court would impose some or all of the robbery sentence to be served consecutively.

  It was not an easy case and it was harsh punishment even with the plea deal. it was howver pretty standard for such cases regardless of the race of the defendant or the victim.

As for race being an issue, Edmonds didn't target them for their race, and I doubt the suspects cared about his.  If you want to claim racism on the part of the DA well fine, Hopkins is a big boy, he can handle it.  

The case seems appropriately charged to me.  These boys knew what they were planning, and in fact immediately employed brutal force upon enterin gthe house.  It seems robbery wasn't their only intent.   Fortunately the owner of the house had a gun he was to access and end the threat.

  I'd also say that under those facts  alleging racism in the decision not to seek prosecution of the homeowner seriously undermines the credibility of claims that the decision to apply the  doctrine to the accomplice is based on race.

  Hughes is entitled to a fair trial and he should be afforded opportunity to raise any legal or factual defenses he has before an impartial court and an impartial jury.

  His claim appears to be that he and his buddies decided to drive from San Francisco (it of course  being quite difficult to score weed in SF) to the boondocks in the middle of the night to purchase a small quantity of marijuana from someone he did not know and then some disagreement ensued and his friends got shot by a racist white guy when all he wanted to do was buy some weed.

   He should have every opportunity to present all the evidence he has to establish that version of events.  If the jury should find enough plausibility in that version of events to create a reasonable doubt that the deaths did not result from the knowing and intentional commission of a felony creating a high degree of risk of violence then he should be acquitted.

  Moreover, there is another legal doctrine known as intervening or superseding cause which might relieve him of of liability for murder even if the jury should find that he did knowingly and intentionally enter the house with the intent to commit a robery or larceny and even if the jury finds that he and/or his accomplices committed an assault or attempted murder. If he could establish that despite the fact that breaking into an occupied house at night to commit larceny is a dangerous undertaking for everyone involved that the danger created by that risk had abated at the time of the act causing death (the homeowner's shooting) by virtue of abandonment of the criminal undertaking that was reasonably apparent to the shooter so that the shooter's response was sufficiently attenuated from his criminal act he could be acquitted. If for example the deceased were killed after the beating had stopped and they had fled the house that defense may have merit. One is allowed to use deadly force in defense of himself or others but not to prevent attackers from escaping once the attack has ended.

  There are important questions of fact and that's what trials are for. It seems dubious, to put it mildly,  to suggest that there should not be a trial to determine the facts to which statutes and doctrines should be applied.

   He might also consider the wisdom of negotiating a plea agreement which will allow for conviction of offenses which do not  include murder and give him the chance for release some day.

According to a 2005 report of the International Centre for Prison Studies in London, the United States--with five percent of the world's population--houses 25 percent of the world's inmates. Our incarceration rate (714 per 100,000 residents) is almost 40 percent greater than those of our nearest competitors...

How did it come to this? One argument is that the massive increase in incarceration reflects the success of a rational public policy: faced with a compelling social problem, we responded by imprisoning people and succeeded in lowering crime rates. This argument is not entirely misguided. Increased incarceration does appear to have reduced crime somewhat. But by how much? Estimates of the share of the 1990s reduction in violent crime that can be attributed to the prison boom range from five percent to 25 percent. Whatever the number, analysts of all political stripes now agree that we have long ago entered the zone of diminishing returns...

A more convincing argument is that imprisonment rates have continued to rise while crime rates have fallen because we have become progressively more punitive: not because crime has continued to explode (it hasn't), not because we made a smart policy choice, but because we have made a collective decision to increase the rate of punishment...

This growth in punitiveness was accompanied by a shift in thinking about the basic purpose of criminal justice....

Despite a sharp national decline in crime, American criminal justice has become crueler and less caring than it has been at any other time in our modern history. Why?

The question has no simple answer, but the racial composition of prisons is a good place to start...

The political scientist Vesla Mae Weaver...argues--persuasively, I think--that the punitive turn represented a political response to the success of the civil-rights movement...