Examples Of Justifiable Homicide

Certain forms of homicide do not automatically constitute a criminal act. Homicides fall into two categories: felonious and non-felonious. Non-felonious homicides can be excusable or justifiable. Excusable homicide is when the one who commits the homicide is at fault to some extent, but that degree of fault is not enough to constitute criminal homicide. Examples of excusable homicides are accidental death at the hands of another or death that results from self-defense. Justifiable homicide is the necessary killing of another person in fulfillment of a legal duty or legal right when the perpetrator was not at fault. An example of justifiable homicide is killing another person to prevent a serious crime such as rape or murder. Felonious …show more content…
Manslaughter has two forms, involuntary and voluntary. Involuntary manslaughter refers to a killing that is unintentional that results from recklessness or criminal negligence. An example of involuntary manslaughter is when a person in driving down the road over the speed limit and wrecks the vehicle, killing a passenger. There was no intent to kill the passenger, but the reckless driving was the cause. Voluntary manslaughter refers to killing another person without any intent during the heat of passion. The heat of passion refers to any circumstance that would cause an otherwise reasonable person to experience emotional or mental shock. For example, a husband and wife are arguing when the wife finds out her husband has been having an affair. During the argument, the wife pushes her husband down the stairs, where he hits his head and dies. This would be voluntary manslaughter because during the heat of passion, the wife pushed her husband down the stairs which led to his death. Understanding homicide, murder and manslaughter is the first step in criminal investigation. At times, these crimes are easy to solve. However, many times these crimes lead to long investigations. There can be many pieces to a very large puzzle and these pieces are referred to as physical evidence. …show more content…
Evidence may be what is left behind from either the suspect or the victim. All evidence collected is sampled and examined to determine exactly where it came from, who it belonged to, as well as answer other questions pertaining to the investigation. Physical evidence such as soil, rocks, glass, bricks, paint and plants are all useful. Even pollen can be used to determine whether a suspect was at the scene of the crime of homicide or murder. Shoe prints, footprints and tire prints can be found to answer the same question. Impressions of these types of prints can be made to find out how many suspects were on the scene. The order in which the events took place can even be determined by the prints found on scene. Other common types of physical evidence found at crime scenes are glass, fibers, cloth fragments, string, cord, rope, tape, fingerprints and paint. Glass is very common, which makes it a very important piece of evidence. Examining a piece of glass can tell investigators what type of glass it was, as well as the direction the glass was broken or shot through. Cloth fragments, string, cord and rope may be evidence at the scenes of violent crimes such as homicide and murder. Hair and blood are other examples of physical evidence that can be transferred from suspects to victims. While there are many more forms of physical evidence