Murder

   

Missing image
Chalk_Outline.jpg
Chalk_Outline.jpg

Murder is the crime of causing the death of another human being, without lawful excuse, and with intent to kill them, or with intent to cause them grievous bodily harm. When an illegal death is not caused intentionally, but is caused by recklessness or negligence (or there is some defense, such as insanity or diminished capacity), the crime committed may be referred to as manslaughter or criminally negligent homicide, which is considered to be less serious than murder. In the United States, manslaughter is often broken into two categories: involuntary manslaughter and voluntary manslaughter.

A difficult issue in defining murder is what counts as causing death. It is impossible to give a precise definition of this, but some legal principles have been developed to help. For example, many common law jurisdictions abide by the year and a day rule, which provides that one is to be held responsible for a person's death only if they die within a year and a day of the act. Thus, if you seriously injured someone, and they died from their injuries within a year and a day, you would be guilty of murder; but you would not be guilty if they died from their injuries after a year and a day had passed.

It is not murder to kill someone with lawful excuse; lawful excuses include killing enemy combatants in time of war (but not after they have surrendered), killing a person who poses an immediate threat to the lives of ones self or others (i.e., in self-defence), and executing a person in accordance with a sentence of death (in those jurisdictions which use capital punishment). Sometimes extreme provocation or duress can justify killing another as well. These cases of killing are called justifiable homicide.

Under English law (and the law of other mostly Commonwealth countries, such as Australia, which pay close heed to the decisions of British courts), it is murder to kill another human being for food, even if without doing so one would die of starvation. This originated in a case of four shipwrecked sailors cast adrift off the coast of South Africa in the 1880s; two of the sailors conspired to kill one of the other sailors (a sick cabin boy), and having killed him ate his flesh to survive: R v Dudley and Stevens (1884) 14 QBD 273. Also, most common law jurisdiction do not allow for the defense of necessity. Comparatively recent adaptions to the English law of murder include the abolition of the year and a day rule.

Most countries allow conditions that "affect the balance of the mind" to be regarded as mitigating circumstances against murder. This means that a person may be found guilty of "manslaughter on the basis of diminished responsibility" rather than murder, if it can be proved that they were suffering from a condition that affected their judgement at the time. Depression, post-traumatic stress disorder and medication side-effects are examples of conditions that may be taken into account when assessing responsibility. A somewhat different defense is insanity, which is almost exclusively used in cases of psychosis such as that caused by schizophrenia.

Also, some countries, such as Canada, Italy, the United Kingdom and Australia, allow post-partum depression, or 'baby-blues', as a defense against murder of a child by a mother, provided that a child is less than a year old.

United Kingdom

About 850 murders per year (reported in 2000) are committed in the United Kingdom. This is low compared to the United States with 12,000 per year and Colombia with 26,000.

Gun crime has been increasing slowly although violent crime has dropped. Much of police resources are being used to tackle gun crime, as recent cases in the media have increased public attention towards it.

In English law, homicide can divided into several offences, including:

  • Murder - Killing of another person whilst having either the intention to kill or to cause grievous bodily harm.
  • Manslaughter - Unintentional and unlawful killing of another person.
  • Infanticide - Intentional killing of an infant under 1-year-old by a mother suffering from post-natal depression or other post-natal disturbance.

The difference between murder and manslaughter is based on intent.

Canada

Canada has about 550 murders per year, a number that is steadily decreasing. This is equivalent to numbers in most of the western world, except the U.S. which has triple the number per capita. The main methods of murder in Canada are shootings (30%), stabbings (30%), and beatings (22%).

Canada has four types of crime that can be considered murder:

  • first degree murder
  • second degree murder
  • manslaughter
  • infanticide

For every murder in Canada there are about 1.5 attempted murders.

About one in three Canadian murders are committed by a family member. One in eight is gang related. About 80% of murderers in Canada are caught within a year.

(All statistics are from the 2001 census)

The United States

In the United States, murder, or "homicide", is normally a crime only under state law, and a murder suspect will be arrested and held by local officials and tried in a local court on behalf of the state. For murders that are federal crimes (e.g. a killing of a federal official or on federal property), the trial would occur in a federal court.

Traditionally, and still in some states, the terms

First-degree murder (or murder in the first degree, or colloquially, murder one) refers to 
premeditated murder, or murder which occurs after some degree of reflection by the murderer. This reflection can be years or less than a second.
Second-degree murder or voluntary manslaughter refers to 
murder done without thought in the heat of the moment, or in some states after "adequate provocation", or
Third-degree murder, also known as manslaughter, 
occurs without the specific intent to kill, but usually after an act of criminal negligence or some other act resulting in a person's death.

In some other states, the definitions have been adjusted to reflect factors like perceived need for greater deterrancy, rather than those usual distinctions. For instance, the murder of a police officer, or any murder committed while serving a life sentence, is in some states a first-degree murder regardless of further circumstances.

Felony murder statutes

Many jurisdictions in the United States have also adopted felony murder statutes, according to which anyone who commits a serious crime (a felony), during which a person dies, is guilty of murder. This applies even if one does not personally cause the person's death. For example, a driver for an armed robbery can be convicted of murder if one of the robbers killed someone in the process of the robbery, even though the driver was not present at and did not expect the killing. In a few cases, some robbers have been found guilty of felony murder for the deaths of their accomplices.

Capital murder

Capital murder is murder which is punishable by death. In 38 of the United States, and the federal government itself, there are laws allowing capital punishment for this crime. Depending on the state, a murder may qualify as "capital murder" if (a) the person murdered was of a special class, such as a police officer; (b) "special circumstances" occurred in the crime, such as multiple murder, the use of poison, or "lying in wait" in order to murder the victim. Capital murder is quite rare in the United States compared to other murder convictions, but it has generated tremendous public debate. See generally capital punishment and capital punishment in the United States.

Germany

In Germany the term Mord (murder) is officially used for the killing of another person:

  1. for pleasure, satisfaction of the sex drive, greed or other "low motives",
  2. insidiously (an unsuspecting victim) or cruelly,
  3. by means dangerous to the public (for example with a bomb),
  4. to cover up or facilitate another criminal offense.

A killing which is not a murder may be either Totschlag (manslaughter) or fahrlässige Tötung (negligent killing). The penalty for Mord is lifelong imprisonment (i.e. at least fifteen years), the penalty for Totschlag is five to fifteen years imprisonment.

The Netherlands

By Dutch law, murder (moord) is punishable by a prison sentence of up to twenty years, which is the longest prison sentence the law allows. Under special circumstances, such as multiple murders or prior convictions, a life sentence may be imposed. In addition to a prison sentence, the judge may sentence the suspect to TBS, or "terbeschikkingstelling", meaning detention in a psychiatric institution. TBS is imposed for a number of years (most often in relation to the severity of the crime) and thereafter prolonged if deemed necessary by a committee of psychiatrists. This can be done indefinitely, and has therefore been criticised as being a life sentence in disguise.

In 2003, 202 murders were committed in the Netherlands.

Other uses of the word

The word "murder" is sometimes used colloquially to mean some forms of mistreatment, e.g. a bad singer "murdering" a song, or describing something difficult to handle as "absolute murder". In addition, it is used to refer to a group of crows. In addition, during sports play, sometimes an opponent may tell his rival "Im gonna murder you!", "Im gonna kill you!", "Im murdering you!" or "Im killing you!".

See also

External links

da:Mord de:Mord ja:殺人 fi:Murha sv:Mord simple:Murder he:רצח



Retrieved from "http://www.centipedia.com/articles/Murder"

This page has been accessed 4056 times. This page was last modified 15:22, 22 Nov 2004. All text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License (see Copyrights for details).