Criminal Homicide Essay

Homicide is the killing of a human being by another human being. In old common law, the only type of homicide recognized was murder. Today, U.S. law makes many distinctions between each type of homicide, classifying them as justifiable, excusable, or criminal, and gives varying degrees of seriousness to each type. Where criminal homicide is concerned, it can further be broken down into murder, manslaughter, and negligent homicide. Each subset of criminal homicide has several elements and characteristics that distinguish one from another. Murder is defined as the unlawful, malicious, and premeditated killing of another human being. For the purpose of law, the term ‘malice’ refers to a willful and intentional act without just cause, and ‘premeditated’ …show more content…
This simply signifies that the said crime is authorized to be punished with the death penalty. Murder only becomes in the second-degree (in most jurisdictions) when it was committed during the perpetration of a felony or when it is not classified in the statutes as first-degree. An example of this would be a robbery-gone-wrong wherein the victim does not comply with the robber’s commands and is subsequently killed. Manslaughter is the second recognized classification of criminal homicide. Manslaughter is the killing of another human being without malice. Manslaughter can be voluntary or involuntary. Voluntary manslaughter can be seen as very similar to murder except in that voluntary manslaughter does not involve premeditation nor evil motivation. Voluntary manslaughter happens in the heat of the moment after adequate provocation—that is, provocation which is likely to cause a reasonable person to lose self-control for a small period of time. Voluntary manslaughter in popular culture is sometimes called ‘crimes of passion’. Examples include a person who shoots their spouse’s lover after coming home and discovering them in the act, individuals who shoots a person immediately after