Homicides Case Study

For our sixth week Portfolio Milestone I am choosing to explore Option # 1: If I were the Prosecutor, with what form of homicide would I charge Richard? Types and characteristics of Homicides There are four types of homicide;
1. Justifiable homicide, which relates to self-defense, defense of others, defense of home. Police use of deadly force.
2. Excusable homicide, which denotes insanity, diminished capacity, or by infants.
3. Murder, which is neither justifiable or excusable.
4. Manslaughter, all homicides without malice aforethought that are committed without justification or excuse. (Lippman, 2012, pg. 310).
A prosecutor must base their case on that which is provable. This is one reason why there is plea bargaining. Another reason probably is the expense to the state of trials, and also probably the backlog within the court system. Prosecutors prosecute the slam dunk cases or at the minimum the ones which have enough solid evidence to obtain a conviction. The last thing a District Attorney wants is to take a case with borderline evidence to court and lose. In Richard’s case he admits killing his mother and disposing of the …show more content…
Their original intent in Colorado at least was aimed at stemming the crime and violence associated with hardened gang members, much the same as Rico laws and three strike laws, repeat offenders who commit many and varied types of crime on a continuing basis. Not every child who is mal-adjusted or commits a heinous act once. Author Gardner further states in her article, Direct Fail, “Less than 5 percent of direct file cases since 1999 have gone to jury. In other words, in 95 percent of direct file cases, the Das choose the charge, venue, and-thanks to mandatory sentencing-the punishment. And all this “due process” is without the input of a judge or jury. (Gardner, N.,