The crime of murder is loosely defined as the unlawful killing of a human being by a person who had an intent to kill. It requires, first of all, that a living person be killed. Some jurisdictions still follow the common law rule that for a murder to exist, death must occur within a year and a day after the accused inflicted the fatal wound.<\/p>\n
The traditional definition of murder required the murderer to possess a certain intent, known as malice aforethought. No actual hatred, ill will, or spite is required. Under judicial definitions and some statutes, malice aforethought is present under any of the following conditions: <\/p>\n
(1) A person intends to kill another, without justification or excuse, and succeeds in doing so. In some jurisdictions, the intent to kill may be inferred from a person’s intentional use of a deadly weapon against another.<\/p>\n
(2) A person intends to inflict upon another a serious injury short of death, but instead brings about an unintended death. <\/p>\n
(3) A person acts in an extremely reckless way that demonstrates a “depraved heart” (moral corruption) or “callous indifference” to the value of human life and, without intending to do so, thereby causes another’s death. An example of this so-called depraved-heart murder would be if a person shot a gun into a crowd of people, killing an innocent bystander. <\/p>\n
(4) A person causes another’s death during the course of committing a felony, and the death was the foreseeable result of the felonious act. Such a killing is known as felony murder. Any accomplice in the commission of the felony might also be guilty of murder. Thus, a robber whose gun accidentally goes off during a robbery and kills the robbery victim is guilty of murder, even though the robber did not intend to kill or do serious injury and this act was not so reckless as to evince a depraved heart. The accused must be found guilty of the underlying felony (in this example, robbery) to be held accountable for the felony murder.” (1)<\/p>\n
In the book “International Incidents for Discussion in Conversation Classes”, in relation to this subject<\/a>, L. Oppenheim wrote in 1909: In 1902, in an inn on the German side of the German-French frontier, an altercation arises between Franz Heller, an Austrian subject, and a Frenchman. They leave the inn together, still quarrelling. The Frenchman hits Heller with his stick and runs away across the frontier. Heller, however, draws a revolver and shoots the Frenchman dead. The French government demands his extradition for murder.<\/p>\n Crimes Against the Person (including Murder, Manslaughter, Voluntary Manslaughter, Involuntary Manslaughter, Assault and Battery, Forcible and Statutory Rape and Kidnapping)<\/p>\n Murder, in criminal law, intentionally causing the death (homicide) of any person. Murder is distinguished from manslaughter, which means unintentional killing. In most of the U.S., criminal codes distinguish between two degrees of murder, although as many as five degrees are distinguished in some states. In general, murder in the first degree involves a deliberate, premeditated design to cause the death of the person; murder in the second degree involves the intent to cause death, but without premeditation and deliberation. Most states classify a homicide that occurs during the commission of a felony as first-degree murder, even though the element of premeditated intent is absent. In some states the commission of an act in itself imminently dangerous to others, such as throwing a bomb into a crowd and causing death, is classified as first-degree murder. Prosecution for murder is by indictment, and the maximum punishment in some states is death. In states in which the death penalty has been abolished, the maximum penalty is life imprisonment in a state penitentiary.” (1)<\/p>\n This section provides an overview of Murder <\/p>\n Criminal Law: Crimes Against the Person: MurderIntroduction to MurderThe crime of murder is loosely defined as the unlawful killing of a human being by a person who had an intent to kill. It requires, first of all, that a living person be killed. Some jurisdictions still follow the…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[760,83,5],"tags":[788,1113,88,191],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lawin.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13143"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lawin.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lawin.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lawin.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lawin.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13143"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lawin.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13143\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lawin.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13143"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lawin.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13143"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lawin.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13143"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Resources<\/h2>\n
Notes and References<\/h3>\n
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Guide to Murder<\/H3><\/p>\n
In this Section<\/h3>\n
Introduction to Murder<\/h2>\n
Resources<\/h2>\n
Notes and References<\/h3>\n
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Guide to Murder<\/H3><\/p>\n
The Legal History of Murder<\/h2>\n
Resources<\/h2>\n
See Also<\/h3>\n
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Further Reading<\/h3>\n
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