Two alleged muggers were arraigned yesterday on charges of murder and robbery in the death of an 84-year-old nun in Harlem last month. But some legal experts think the DA's case will test the limits of a state law that lets prosecutors charge suspects with murder if someone gets killed while they're committing a separate felony. In this case, police had already handcuffed William Robbins after police pulled over his minivan in Harlem; it was his alleged partner in crime who then sped off, ultimately causing a car crash that killed Sister Mary Celine Graham and injured four others.

Police had pulled over the minivan because it matched the description of a vehicle that had been used in a series of gunpoint muggings earlier that morning. Robbins’s lawyer, Mark Heller, says his client complied with police and was on the ground getting handcuffed when alleged accomplice Dyson Williams jumped behind the wheel. "He’s in police custody 20 minutes before this tragic death took place. He was no longer acting in concert with Williams and should not have been charged with homicide," Heller tells the Post.

The indictment against Robbins and Williams blames both, because they were in the midst of a robbery spree and killed Sister Graham "in furtherance of such crime and of immediate flight therefrom." Both men pleaded not guilty at their arraignment yesterday. Robbins's lawyer tells the News, "This case will no doubt become a landmark case defining the parameters of felony murder."