What is homicide and what are homicidal offenses? Homicide has been defined as the taking of the life of one human being by another. Homicidal offenses vary by degrees of the offense, penalties, and manor in which the offense occurred. These offenses include: First-Degree Murder, Second-Degree Murder, Felony, Justifiable and Excusable Homicide. These are some of the main topics and can be broken down into subcategories within and amongst themselves. Some of the earliest recorded cases of murder date back to the 12th century with the King’s Bench or Queen’s Court in England; we will cover some of the earliest establishments of these laws and/or cases in history.
Many states today categorize murder into two degrees: first and second, but others have even more degrees based upon motive, intent, or time. Although England had established a set of criteria for the definition of degrees of murder, the Pennsylvania Court in the Act of Assembly of 1794 stated, “All murder which shall be perpetrated by means of poison, or by lying in wait, or by any other kind of wilful, deliberate or premeditated killing or which shall be committed in the perpetration or attempt to perpetrate any arson, rape, robbery or burglary, shall be deemed murder in the first degree; and all other kinds of murder, shall be murder in the second degree.” (Loewy, 2009, p. 20). By defining first degree murder as arson, rape, robbery, or burglary only these offenses would be punishable under the penalty of death. Second degree would not be punishable by death and only carry with it a prison sentence.
Maitland & Pollock (2012), “The word felony derived from the Latin word felo, fell, gall-the word for venom.” When it came around to “felon first appears to mean cruel,...
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...nses against the person-homicide. St. Paul, MN: West Publishing Co.
First Degree Murder. (2002). In World of Criminal Justice, Gale. Retrieved from http://proxy01.hopkinsville.kctcs.edu/login?qurl=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.credoreference.com/entry/worldcrims/first_degree_murder.
Green, T. A. "The jury and the English law of homicide, 1200-1600.". Ann Arbor, MI: Mich. L. Rev. 74 (1976): 413-499.
Dodd, Mead & Company. (1910). Relativity. In The New International Encyclopedia. (Vol. 10, pp. 173). Cambridge, USA: International Encyclopedia.
Rood, J.A. (1906). A digest of important cases: Offenses against the person. St. Louis, MO: Wahr.
Loewy, A.H. (2009). Criminal law: cases and materials: Homicide. (3th ed.). Dayton, OH: Thomas/West.
Pollock, F., & Maitland, F.W. (2012). The history of English law before the time of Edward 1: Crimes and torts. Indianapolis, IN: Liberty Fund.
Murder should include the elements of purposely, knowingly, or recklessly under circumstances showing extreme indifference to the value of human life (Brody & Acker, 2010).
Murder is the unlawful premeditated killing of one human being by another. A non-criminal homicide ruling, usually commited in self-defense or in defense of another.
"Law and Punishment - Travel Through Elizabethan England." Travel Through Elizabethan England. N.p., n.d. Web. 10 Apr. 2014.
In the sixteenth century, witchcraft accusations were more prevalent and somewhat common than they are in modern society. One of the most popular witch hunts of American History of the sixteenth century, that has received popularity amongst modern culture and scholars, was the Salem witch hunts otherwise known as the Salem witch trials of 1692. But, Salem was not the only town in New England that had witch trials in 1692. Richard Godbeer’s book, “Escaping Salem, The Other Witch Hunt of 1692,” is one of the very few books that talks about the other witch trials that took place in New England. By comparing Stamford to Salem, Godbeer argues that Stamford’s witch trials were more typical of legal witch accusations in Colonial America; Salem’s trials were an anomaly. What made Stamford typical was the local Magistrates insistence on following the letter of the law which made proving witchcraft very difficult.
1st degree murder with the intent to kill and it is premeditated. This is also not considered to be a heat of passion murder either, it is murder without concern for human life. The sentencing for this kind of crime is also pretty hefty for one person. A sentence for second degree murder is normally decided by states with a lot of determining factors.
Bowers, W, Pierce, G., and McDevitt, J.(1984), Legal Homicide: Death as Punishment in America, 1964-1982, 333
Culpable Homicide is the illegal killing of a person with or without an intention to kill. Criminal Homicide is when someone take the life of another, regardless of intent or other details surrounding the incident (Moreland, 125). Homicide is not always charged as a crime. There Justifiable Homicide, this when killings are authorized by the law, like execution. There is also Excusable Homicide, the killing in a case of self defense. Homicide ranges from involuntary manslaughter to first degree murder. Homicide and Murder differ from each other based off the force of the offender.
Murder, as the online dictionary Merriam-Webster states, is the crime of unlawfully killing a person. This is a general term for murder and is further broken down into subcategories. This is done in order to adequately distinguish the multitude of different types of murder. With names such as first degree, second degree, and voluntary manslaughter, many murders can be classified under a specific category.
To be found guilty of first degree murder, it must be proven that killed someone with malice aforethought, meaning it was planned, premeditated. First degree murder is to kill malevolence, to kill either intentionally and deliberately or recklessly with the utmost disregard for human life. Premeditation may be fashioned immediately and does not require a lengthy period of contemplation. The death penalty is recognized in Thirty-eight states. Capital first-degree murder or aggravated first-degree murder is categorized in killings viewed as deserving of capital punishment. Life imprisonment or death penalty is the punishment resulted in a conviction. States who do not recognized the death penalty, aggravated murder carries life imprisonment. When aggravated or capital murder is committed in a heinous or monstrous fashion, it is considered homicide (Lippman, 2006).
Simon, Rita James. The Jury and the Defense of Insanity. Boston: Little Brown, 1967. Print. OCC Library Catalog. Web. 10 Feb. 2014.
Third degree murder is when someone kills a person not intentionally, meaning that they didn’t physically end the person's life. This can be interpreted in many ways that many people feel is unacceptable because the person is not killing an individual with their bare hands. For example, drug dealers they sell people a whole bunch of different substances that makes a person feel good and helps them relax, but if overused the individual could overdose and it could kill him or her. Many people think that if it is the person’s decision to take the substance knowing what it could do to them then they should take the consequence for what happens. The punishment for this murder is a few years in prison and sometimes could be extended depending
Winston, Jessica "A Mirror for Magistrates and Public Political Discourse in Elizabethan England." Studies in Philology 101 (2004): 381-400. MLA International Bibliography. EBSCO. Web. 6 Nov. 2009.
When Shakespeare was born in 1564, Queen Elizabeth had taken power a mere 6 years prior, and her justice system was very different from ours. In this paper, I hope to explore some of the ways punishments were different, such as how many crimes had individual punishments, often times depending on how severe the crime was. I will also go in-depth to one of the most infamous cases of the medieval period.
As trials began in Scotland around the early 1600s, methods of torture became more severe. Once someone was accused of practicing sorcery he or she was unlikely to go on having an innocent life . If found guilty, after determination by the Church and then t...
United Kingdom is a country with a distinctive set of legal system. It is fairly different from other countries having civil law based legal systems. The legal system in the United Kingdom consists of various sources of law, where other civil law based countries rely only on a written set of law. European influences on the English Legal System came much later in near decades. This essay will aim to examine the development of the English Legal System by reviewing applications of various sources of law in the English Legal System furthermore to discuss the recent European influences on the law of England.