Homicide Flashcards
CL Murder
The unlawful killing of a human being with malice aforethought.
Malie Aforethought
Malice aforethought exists if there are no facts reducing the killing to voluntary manslaughter or excusing it (giving rise to a defense) and it was committed with one of the following states of mind:
- intent to kill
- Intent to inflict great bodily injury
- Reckless indifference to an unjustifiably high risk to human life (abandoned and malignant heart or depraved heart), or
- Intent to commit a felony (felony murder).
First Degree Murder - CL Classification
First Degree Murder if:
- Deliberate and Premeditated First Degree Murder - D made the decision to kill in a cool and dispassionate manner and actually reflected on the idea of killing, even if only for a brief period. D must have acted with intent or knowledge that their conduct would cause death.
- First Degree Felony Murder - a killing committed during the commission of an enumerated felony is felony murder and called first degree murder. Felonies commonly listed are burglary, arson, rape, robbery, and kidnapping.
- Others - Killings performed in certain ways (ex - torture) or with certain victims (police officers) are first degree murder.
D must know the victim is a police officer and the officer must be actin in the line of duty.
Second Degree Murder - CL Classification
Usually classified as a depraved heart killing (a killing done with a reckless indifference to an unjustifiably high risk to human life) or any murder that is not classified as a first degree murder.
Felony Murder
Any death - even an accidental death - caused in the commission of, or in an attempt to commit, a felony is murder.
Malice is implied from the intent to commit the underlying felony.
Felonies included - BAARK: burglary, arson, rape, robbery, kidnapping.
Felony Murder Limitations on Liability
- D must have committed or attempted to commit the underlying felony; a defense that negates an element of the underlying offense will also be a defense to felony murder.
- the felony must be distinct from the killing itself
- Death must have been a foreseeable result of the felony.
- The death must have been caused before the D’s immediate flight from the felony ended
- The D is not liable for felony murder when a co-felon is killed as a result of resistance from the felony victim or the police.
Felony Murder - proximate cause theory
Minority view - felons are liable for the deaths of innocent victims caused by someone other than a co-felon.
Felony Murder - Agency Theory
Majority View - the killing must be committed by a felon or their “agent” (that is, accomplice) with limited exceptions in cases in which the victim was used as a shield or otherwise forced by the felon to occupy a dangerous place.
Voluntary Manslaughter
A killing that would be murder but for the existence of adequate provocation. Provocation is adequate only if:
- sudden and intense passion in the mind of an ordinary person, causing them to lose self-control (ex - threat of deadly force, spouse in bed with another, being victim of serious battery).
- The D was in fact provoked
- There was not sufficient time between provocation and the killing for passions of a reasonable person to cool; and
- D in fact did not cool off between the provocation and the killing.
NOTE: Heat of passion is not a defense to killing but it may lessen/reduce the killing down to manslaughter.
Imperfect Self Defense
Imperfect Self Defense Doctrine - murder may be reduced to manslaughter even though 1) the D was at fault in starting the altercation, or 2) the D unreasonably but honestly believed int eh necessity of responding with deadly force.
Not recognized in all states.
Involuntary Manslaughter
A killing is involuntary manslaughter if it was committed:
- With criminal negligence (or by recklessness under MPC), or
- during the commission of an unlawful act (misdemeanor or felony not included within felony murder rule [BAARK]). Foreseeability of death also may be a requirement.
Involuntary Manslaughter v. Abandoned and Malignant Heart Murder
Abandoned and malignant heart murder at CL involves a high risk of death while involuntary manslaughter based on recklessness requires only a substantial risk.
Causation
D’s conduct must be both the cause-in-fact and the proximate cause of the victim’s death.
Cause-in-Fact
A D’s conduct is the cause in fact of the result if the result would not have occurred but-for the D’s conduct.
Proximate Cuasation
D’s conduct was the proximate cause of the result if the result is a natural and probable consequence of the conduct, even if the D did not anticipate the precise manner in which the result occurred.
Superseding factors break the chain of proximate causation.
Roles of Causation
An act that hastens an inevitable result is still the legal cause of that result.
Simultaneous acts of two or more persons may be independently sufficient causes of a single result.
A victim’s preexisting weakness or fragility, even if unforeseeable, does not break the chain of causation.
Limitations of Causation
Year and a Day Rule (majority abolished) - the death of the victim must occur within one year and one day from infliction of the injury or wound.
Intervening Acts - an intervening act shields the defendant from liability if the act is a coincidence or is outside the foreseeable sphere of risk created by the defendant. Note - a 3P’s negligent medical care and the victim’s refusal of medical treatment for religious reasons are both foreseeable risks, so the D would be liable.
