Homicide

Question 1

What is murder?

Answer 1

Unlawful killing of a person with malice aforethought.

Question 2

Malice aforethought exists if there are no facts reducing the killing to voluntary manslaughter or excusing it and it was committed with one of the following states of mind:

Answer 2

1. intent to kill
2. intent to inflict great bodily injury
3. reckless indifference to an unjustifiably high risk to human life; or
4. intent to commit a felony (felony murder)

Question 3

A murder will be second degree unless these circumstances which make it first:

Answer 3

a. deliberate and premeditated first degree murder
b. first degree felony murder (in many states)
c. others (some statutes make killings performed in certain ways (like torture or police killing) or with certain victims first degree murder)

Question 4

Second Degree Murder

Answer 4

If a jurisdiction divides murder into degrees, second degree murder is usually classified as a depraved heart killing or any murder not classified as first degree.

Question 5

Important Felonies BARRK

Answer 5

Burglary, Arson, Rape, Robbery, Kidnapping

Question 6

Limitations on Felony Murder Liability

Answer 6

(1) defendant must have committed or attempted to commit the underlying felony
(2) felony must be distinct from the killing itself
(3) death must have been a foreseeable result of the felony
(4) death must have been caused before the defendant’s “immediate flight” from the felony ended
(5) in most jurisdictions, defendant NOT liable for felony murder when a co-felon is killed as a result of resistance from victim or police.

Question 7

What is voluntary manslaughter?

Answer 7

Killing that would be murder but for the existence of adequate provocation.

Question 8

What are the two types of involuntary manslaughter?

Answer 8

Criminal negligence manslaughter.
Unlawful act manslaughter.

Question 9

When does a person commit criminal negligence manslaughter?

Answer 9

When he causes a death by criminal negligence.

Question 10

What does criminal negligence require?

Answer 10

Requires a greater deviation from the reasonable person standard than it required for civil liability; the defendant’s behavior must be a substantial deviation from the standard of care that a reasonable person would have exercised in the same situation.