Homicide Flashcards
Homicide
one person’s act of killing another, whether lawfully or not.
CL murder
1) the unlawful killing of (2) a living person (3) with malice aforethought.
CL Unlawful Killing
An unlawful killing is one committed without a legal privilege to use deadly force. The defendant’s act must be the actual and proximate cause of the victim’s death.
CL living person
In early CL, a person was considered to be alive from the moment of birth. Thus, the killing of an unborn child was not homicide.
Many states now criminalize the unlawful killing of a fetus either as part of their regular homicide statutes or by creation of separate statutes.
CL Malice Aforethought
Intent to kill, to cause serious bodily harm, or reckless indifference to the value of human life. Also satisfied by felony murder.
CL Express Malice
Malice aforethought exists if the defendant subjectively intends to kill the victim or acts with substantial certainty that the victim will die due to his conduct.
CL Implied Malice
MA exists if the defendant subjectively intends to cause the victim serious bodily harm or acts with substantial certainty that his conduct will cause serious bodily harm. OR MA exists if the defendant acts with reckless indifference to the value of human life. Sometimes called depraved heart murder. OR felony murder
CL Depraved Heart Murder
MA exists if the defendant acts with reckless indifference to the value of human life. Sometimes called depraved heart murder.
Reckless indifference is recklessness in the extreme. It means that the defendant knowingly subjects others to a high probability or grave risk of death or serious bodily harm and does not care whether the death or harm occur
Phillip’s Test
Reckless indifference requires subjective awareness of the risk coupled with indifference. See Knoller
Knoller
Killer dogs
CL Manslaughter
the unlawful killing of another human being without malice.
Modern Statutory Schemes for Homicide
Some states continue to apply the CL approach while others now distinguish by degree. The Pennsylvania model distinguished between first and second degree murder, then voluntary and involuntary manslaughter. The modified degrees approach moves felony murder to second degree, and all other to third.
SS First Degree Murder
(1) a willful, deliberate, and premeditated killing; (2) a killing by enumerated means; OR (3) a killing in the commission of a felony are murders in the first degree.
Premeditated
Premeditation means that the defendant fully forms the specific intent to kill the victim an appreciable if very brief time before committing the act.
Deliberation
Deliberation means that the defendant reaches the decision to kill after reflecting on the nature of the act and its likely consequences.
Guthrie
Towel whip case.
To deliberate is to reflect, with a view to make a choice. To premeditate is to think of a matter before it is executed. Premeditated is more than deliberated.
Willful, deliberated, and premeditated means that the killing is done after a period of time for prior consideration. Any interval of time between the forming of the intent to kill and the execution of that intent, which is of sufficient duration for the accused to be fully conscious of what he intended, is sufficient to support a conviction for first degree murder.
Midgett
Child abuse homicide case.
The father hit the child with the purpose of causing serious physical injury, but the child died from a hemorrhage from blunt force trauma to the stomach, so it was not premeditated.
Ark. Legislature amended its first-degree statute to account for a situation like this.
Forrest Factors
To prove premeditation and deliberation by circumstantial evidence:
1) Want of provocation on part of the deceased
2) The conduct and statements of the defendant before and after the killing
3) Threats and declarations of the defendant before and during the course of the occurrence giving rise to the death
4) Ill-will or previously difficulty between the parties
5) The dealing of lethal blows after the deceased has been felled
6) Evidence that the killing was done in brutal manner
Sometimes considered: The nature and number of the victims wounds
Second Degree Murder
Second-degree murder is usually defined as any killing with malice aforethought that does not qualify as first-degree murder. (usually depraved heart)
Felony Murder
A defendant may be convicted of felony murder via imputed malice if the killing occurs during the commission or attempted commission of a felony (usually inherently dangerous felony).
Most jurisdictions require that the death occur (1) during the course of the underlying felony, (2) in the furtherance of the felony, or (3) while the felon is fleeing the scene.
Merger doctrine provides that the underlying felony must be distinct from the killing itself. This means that if a felony by definition requires bodily harm or imminent threat of bodily harm to another person, it cannot support felony-murder liability.
CL and SS Voluntary Manslaughter
Voluntary manslaughter, or heat of passion manslaughter is defined as (1) the intentional killing of a human being, (2) in the heat of a sudden and intense emotional state, (3) caused by (4) an adequate provocation, (5) if the killing occurs before a reasonable cooling-off period.
Adequate Provocation
Must be both objective and subjective. The provocation must be one that would arouse the passions of a reasonable person beyond her ability to control and the defendant must actually be provoked.
Words alone are generally insufficient.
Examples: severe battery, mutual combat, discovering a spouse in the act of adultery, injury to D’s relatives, and resisting arrest
Cooling Off
occurs if intense passion has subsided, allowing for reasoned deliberation and reflection.
Voluntary manslaughter does not apply if the defendant acts after either… A reasonable person in the defendant’s position would have cooled off Or the defendant has actually cooled off.
Length of the period is question of fact for the jury
Cassassa
man killed ex-girlfriend who spurned him. He was subjectively acting under a provocation but objectively, that would not have provoked the response. MPC
Girouard
Wife taunted husband and had the present ability to hurt him, but words alone are not adequate provocation
However, informational words may sometimes constitute provocation: “I just killed your wife”
Carr
Man hurt by rejection from a woman, kills other lesbian.
No Misdirected Retaliation: the provocation must come from the person who was killed
Involuntary Manslaughter
two main types of SS involuntary manslaughter: criminal negligence and unlawful act
SS Criminal Negligence Manslaughter
A defendant commits criminal negligence manslaughter by actually and proximately causing another’s death without MA but under circumstances manifesting a grossly unreasonable disregard of a foreseeable and unreasonable probability of death to another.
Required culpability is significantly higher, more akin to recklessness. The defendant must know of un unreasonable and high risk of death and consciously disregard it.
Williams
Washington used to use the ordinary negligence standard for involuntary manslaughter so these parents were guilty for not taking baby to hospital and baby died from infection.
SS Unlawful Act Manslaughter
Death resulting from the defendant’s commission of an unlawful act that is not necessarily inherently dangerous or a felony.
Jdx variation, but the unlawful act may be a misdemeanor, a felony that does not trigger felony-murder, or even a civil wrong.
Causation: applies only if the death was a reasonably foreseeable consequence of the unlawful act.
MPC Approach to Homicide
The MPC modifies the common-law definitions of the homicide crimes by defining them in terms of the MPC’s four mental states. See MPC § 210.2(1)
MPC Murder
Murder is a criminal homicide committed (1) purposefully, (2) knowingly, or (3) recklessly and under circumstances manifesting extreme indifference to the value of human life.
MPC extreme indifference
Requires more than mere recklessness.
It implicates a callous or shocking disregard of a grave risk of death, indicating that the actor does not care that whether her conduct causes death.
Includes felony murder because it presumes recklessness + extreme indifference if the death occurred in the course of committing, attempting, or fleeing after inherently dangerous felony.
MPC Manslaughter
Manslaughter is a criminal homicide committed (1) recklessly but without circumstances manifesting extreme indifference to the value of human life or (2) under the influence of extreme mental or emotional disturbance if there is a reasonable explanation for the disturbance.
MPC Manslaughter Reasonable Explanation or Excuse
The reasonableness of the explanation or excuse is evaluated from the perspective of someone in the actor’s position under the circumstances the actor believes to exist.
The term includes circumstances constituting adequate provocation for the purposes of voluntary manslaughter.
The explanation or excuse must be set of circumstances that would arouse sufficient sympathy and understanding to mitigate the conviction from murder to manslaughter in the mind of the reasonable observer considering the situation from the defendant’s perspective.
MPC Extreme Mental or Emotional Disturbance (EED)
Some unusual and overwhelming stress or trauma that arouses intense emotion and thus significantly compromises the defendant’s ability to control her actions.
As long as the defendant acted under the influence of the disturbance, manslaughter is appropriate even if substantial time elapses between the cause of the disturbance and the killing
Or if the killing is the product of some long-held mental disease or trauma that suddenly and unexpectedly manifests
MPC EED Test
i. Was he acting under the EED? (subjective)
ii. There must be a reasonable explanation or excuse (objective) for the situation as the defendant believed it to be (subjective).
MPC Negligent Homicide
negligent homicide occurs if (1) the defendant fails to perceive a substantial and unjustifiable risk that someone will die due to her conduct, and (2) the failure is a gross deviation from the standard of care that a reasonable person would observe in the same situation.
The failure to exercise reasonable care must be an actual and proximate cause of the victim’s death.
