It is usually understood as the act of taking the life of another with "malice aforethought" is it not? I believe to qualify fully as murder there must be some conditions which are met. Samuel Pillsbury says that in order to be deserving of serious punishment a person must (1) have acted to commit serious harm, (2) have acted with a blameworthy or culpable mens rea, (3) have acted without significant coercion from outside sources, and (4) have been rational at the time of the action. Arguably, conditions 3 and 4 are debatable as regards whether or not an act is truly a murder. I may be coerced, but nevertheless, if I take your life I have still murdered you, either directly or indirectly. As well, I may not be rational when I killed you, but we would still judge my act as murder.

In the USA we make a distinction between manslaughter and homicide. If I plan your death and make evident my "malice aforethought" then that is a homicide. However, if, like Herman Melville's Billy Budd, I have an eruption of anger that issues forth in a blow to the head which kills you suddenly and unintentionally, then that is manslaughter. We judge the latter to be less heinous than the former. My friends in the U.K. tell me that their courts do not use that distinction.

Bill,

Generally, soldier that kill an ennemy in a war is not consider as a murder. Such an act would qualify under (1), (2) from the point of view of the opponents, (3), (4)

In war soldiers act in the name of the state, they have a licence to kill for a good cause. The applicable laws are different. What's good or evil is of course a matter of state affairs. I wish we could eliminate this type of thinking and live in peace.

For a crime to be qualified to be branded as murder, there has to be intention or malice. Because if they can't prove intention, it's a homicide in which an action or repercussions of it cause death on one or more individual. There are other variants, but these are the most important ones.

Homicide is a legal term for any killing of a human being by another human being. Homicide itself is not necessarily a crime --some homicides are legal, such as a justifiable killing of a suspect by the police or a killing done in self-defense -- but unlawful homicides are classified as crimes like murder and manslaughter.

Murder is an intentional killing that is: unlawful (in other words, the killing isn't legally justified), and committed with "malice aforethought" (intent to harm or kill or reckless disregard for life).

Malice aforethought doesn't mean that a killer has to have acted out of spite or hate. Malice aforethought exists if a killer intends to kill a person. In addition, in most states, malice aforethought isn't limited to intentional killings. Malice aforethought can also exist if:

1- a killer intentionally inflicts very serious bodily harm that causes a victim's death, or

2- a killer's behavior, which demonstrates extreme reckless disregard for the value of human life, results in a victim's death.

Under this scheme, intent to do serious bodily harm and extreme reckless disregard become legal equivalents to intent to kill.

The above is from an article that explains the important but often subtle distinctions between murder and manslaughter and the different variations of both crime:

http://www.nolo.com/legal-encyclopedia/homicide-murder-manslaughter-32637.html

In a war zone there are situations that can surely be considered as murder/mass murder//war crimes/crimes against humanity. For example the killing of prisoners of war. Excessive use of force when it is totally unnecessay, killing civillians, the use of pilotless planes which cannot distinguish between a legitimate military target and a civillian target.. Some of these pilotless planes have the bombing power of F16! and the use of unconventional weapons in conventional war zone. We live in an evil world unfortunately.

"Murder is an intentional killing that is: unlawful (in other words, the killing isn't legally justified), and committed with "malice aforethought" (intent to harm or kill or reckless disregard for life)."

I appreciate that this is a definition of murder in some countries, but it is contradictory and logically nonsensical. "Intentional killing" must mean the subtype of killing that is intentional, an intended killing, yet we are then told murder can be unintentional killing.

As per Indian Penal Code murder is causing death by an act which is done with the intention to cause death OR by an act which is done with the intention to cause bodily injury as is likely to cause death OR by an act with the knowledge that such act is likely to cause the death Or by an act with the intention of causing the bodily injury which is sufficient to cause death in the ordinary course of nature.

No doubt "murder or killing" is serious crime.A person who kill any one in his own defense should not or not consider murder in many countries of Asia .Self defence is basic human right of one's

Emmanuela,

What is a good cause and how is it decide?

The pilot of the plane that crashed in the world trade center gave his life for a cause that his behavior is a testimony that he believed was good. Was the dropping of the bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki a good enough cause?

Good and bad are naturally relative terms. The criminal law itself is public law, it' s about the public interest. The well and the good of individuals are just secondary.

What I wanted to say ...there is a thin line between oppressive and repressive, between punishment for its own sake and corrective justice. There is an old saying about the cohabitation between justice and injustice. Any state measure does some injustice to someone to a certain extent. It implies use of coercion and intervention in the private life aiming to serve the general good of the (nation) state. People v people if you want, this is the confrontation. The people represented by the state (prosecutor) against people as private individuals. Intervention by force is nevertheless necessary most of the times, but errors and injustice also occur.

I am in agreement with Mr. Sinjab's post in that homicide is the killing of one human being by another, regardless of the legality. When a prisoner is executed as punishment for a crime, the death certificate will cite 'homicide' as the cause of death. Homicide describes the act itself without regards to legality, purpose, malice, intent, etc. Therefore, murder can be viewed as a narrower definition of homicide because it determines intent, legality, etc.

   The recent UK case of Marine A illustrates the logical absurdity of the legal system's dealings with murder.   He clearly committed what common sense and any dictionary would tell you was murder, all filmed in case there was any doubt.  He quite deliberately shot an injured enemy soldier, knowing he was contravening the Geneva Convention.  A more cast iron case of deliberate premeditation,  intentional unjustified killing, ie murder, could hardly be imagined.

    The real problem with such cases, is the ludicrous fiction that unlawful killing is a categorical offense, hence justifying a unitary inflexible punishment, life imprisonment.   Contrary to the incessant propaganda in the "Entertainment" industry favoring this categorical view, even a cursory glance at real cases show that there is an indivisible continuum of seriousness.  In this case the Court accepted that his judgement was seriously impaired by stress-induced mental illness.   (But see my RG questions noting that psychosis is rarely conceded by Courts or public opinion  to be relevant to serious crime). 

   I thought the Law was supposed to be precise, not a follower of Humpty-Dumpty who used words arbitrarily.   Surely there is a case for expunging the word Murder from the Law, and replacing it with a neutral and universally applicable word, eg homicide. 

   He was convicted of manslaughter.  Unfortunately I am in my London local library which does not possess an English Dictionary, so I have checked in Roget's Thesaurus 2004 instead:

"homicide, manslaughter; murder, premeditated murder, capital murder, first-degree murder, second-degree murder,  third-degree murder, serial killing, contract killing, contract; corporate..."

   Note the semicolons (highlighted).   He clearly committed murder.  The punishment for this should be seen as an entirely separate issue.

See Garrick Alder George V Murdered rather than Euthanized  Guardian letters Mar 30 2017 p 34:

"It was premeditated...Dawson's notes are the signed confession that puts the seal on the entire deal.  There is no such concept as euthanasia in law to this very day, and what Dawson did was unquestionably murder...In fact George's conscious last words - delivered to a nurse who was administering an injection - were 'God damn you!'  Perhaps George had some suspicion about how his treatment would conclude."

Comment

Contrary to my last contribution above, in these instances the law does recognise murder when it sees it.   Incidentally, his son King Edward VIII, was eligible for execution on two grounds, murder and treason (or three, if we include his conspiring with Hitler).   Retrospective justice is all the fashion nowadays, so why don't we try him in absentia and condemn him to death?

See this comment on Spiked on June 9 re the Met Police shooting of an innocent Brazilian due to mistaken identity: 

"eonic cornelius bonkers • 7 hours ago

How do you INTENTIONALLY kill someone without INTENTIONALLY murdering him/her ? I though INTENTIONALLY killing someone is murder by definition, except when executing by court order when it's called, for instance, "judicial hanging". The object of the operation is just as dead, though."

"John McDonnell stands by ‘murder’ claim over Grenfell Tower tragedy

The Hayes and Harlington MP insists his words were not “intemperate”.

Shadow chancellor John McDonnell refuses to retract his claim that Grenfell Tower residents were "murdered" by political decisions (Victoria Jones/PA)

 July 1 2017...

 Shadow chancellor John McDonnell has defended his claim that victims of the Grenfell Tower fire were murdered by political decisions."

Belfast Telegraph

Comment

                It is legitimate to say people can murder language, as in the above example.  However, it is ridiculous and irresponsible to assert that someone with deliberate and malicious intent killed those tower block residents.

  On the evidence presented here, it seems clear that whilst an assault was planned, it was not intended to be fatal.  In other words, it was not murder.   Judging by experience in many similar cases in many other countries, the court is likely to ignore this and hang him anyway.

"Murder of wife's ex-lover: Death penalty sought

PUBLISHED JUL 14, 2017, 5:00 AM SGT...

Selina Lum

Law Correspondent

Prosecutors yesterday urged the High Court to impose the death penalty on a 57-year-old businessman for the savage murder of his wife's former lover.

Chia Kee Chen had been found guilty in January of forcing the victim, 37-year-old material analyst Dexmon Chua Yizhi, into the back of a van and assaulting him, together with Indonesian Febri Irwansyah Djatmiko, between Dec 28 and Dec 29, 2013.

A second accomplice, Chua Leong Aik, drove the van but later fled.

"This was a planned and premeditated attack on an unsuspecting victim who had made a cuckold out of the accused," said Deputy Public Prosecutor Tan Wen Hsien.

She argued that Chia, who found out about his wife's extramarital affair in November 2012, clearly bore fatal grudges against the younger man.

The victim had made police reports that Chia was making threatening phone calls to him and stalking him...

Ms Tan argued that the assault was "savage" and "cruel". The victim was tied up and thrown into the back of the van and was battered so viciously that almost every bone in his face below the eyes was fractured.

She noted that Chia had carried out his attack in a calm and collected manner. On the day of the murder, he attended a wedding lunch with his family and had a nap before collecting the borrowed van to calmly lay in wait for the victim to turn up at the carpark near his Choa Chu Kang home.

After dumping the victim's body at a military live-firing area in Lim Chu Kang and cleaning the van, Chia went to Malaysia for a holiday with his family.

Ms Tan also pointed to his "utter lack of remorse". It was only 10 days after his arrest that Chia admitted he had hit the victim with a hammer-like object.

During his trial, Chia tried to downplay his role and pinned the blame on a fictional character named "Ali", she pointed out.

But Chia's lawyer, Mr Anand Nalachandran, pushed for life imprisonment, arguing that it was unsafe to hang him as there were contradictions between the accounts of Febri and Chua Leong Aik...

For instance, Febri said the trio had discussed a "murder plan" but Chua Leong Aik said it was just a plan to "attack" the victim to teach him a lesson.

The lawyer argued that there was only a plan to abduct the victim and there was no conclusive evidence that Chia had any plan to commit murder.

Justice Choo Han Teck will deliver his decision at a later date."

   There was an interesting exchange on the Andrew Marr Show on BBC 1 this morning.  AM asked J McDonnell (see July 2 post) if he still claimed Grenfell Tower residents had been murdered.  He said Yes.   When AM pointed out that murder meant an intent to kill, JM then introduced the term social murder.  JM did not object to politicians who might have had some general responsibility for the fire being described as murderers.

This is an example of the murder (a legitimate figurative usage!) of language.   Putting an adjective in front of a noun qualifies this noun, selecting a subset of its usages or qualities eg a recent murder; a cruel murder;  an unsolved murder.  The term social murder is not a subclass of murder, but a member of an opposite class where the essential feature of murder, its intention to kill, is explicitly absent.    Another example of a contradictory and hence nonsensical concept is institutional racism.  Here, the most salient feature of racism, its visceral hatred of outgroups, is explicitly discounted.

London Metro July 17th 2017 p 6 

At long last, a logical and coherent definition of murder in at least one US state:

"Laura Crimaldi and John R. Ellement Globe Staff  September 20, 2017 

 The state’s highest court on Wednesday narrowed the scope of the state’s longtime felony murder law, ruling that defendants in fatal crimes can no longer be convicted of first-degree murder unless it is proven that they set out to kill or knew their actions would likely turn fatal...

“A prosecutor is going to have satisfy a jury that there was malice,” said Rosanna Cavallaro, a professor at Suffolk University Law School. “They must convince a jury that defendants intended to kill, and not just that they had intended a robbery and had bad luck.”...

 Under Massachusetts law, defendants convicted of first-degree murder are automatically sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.

“I believe that, in the future, a defendant should not be convicted of murder without proof of one of the three prongs of malice: that he or she intended to kill or to cause grievous bodily harm, or intended to do an act which, in the circumstances known to the defendant, a reasonable person would have known created a plain and strong likelihood that death would result,” Gants wrote...

“Criminal liability for murder in the first or second degree will be predicated on proof that the defendant acted with malice or shared the intent of a joint venturer who acted with malice,’’ Gants wrote in his majority opinion...

“You’re sentencing someone to die in prison based on their intent to commit some other felony which could be as mild as unarmed robbery,” he said. “The government is supposed to prove all essential elements of an offense, and one of them is that you intended to commit the offense.”

David Mirsky, a lawyer who defended Brown, said he hoped the SJC would acquit Brown of the killings.

“I maintain my client is not guilty,” Mirsky said. “People should not be punished for matters where they lack criminal intent.”"

Here is one jurisdiction where the true meaning of murder is still understood (note added emphasis):

Ng Huiwen [Straits Times]

SINGAPORE - The Attorney-General's Chambers (AGC) on Monday (Dec 18) addressed questions raised by the public in the case of the couple who abused their 26-year-old flatmate to death and explained why murder charges were not brought against the husband and wife.

On Dec 1, Tan Hui Zhen, 33, was sentenced to 16½ years' jail, and her husband Pua Hak Chuan, 38, was given 14 years' jail and 14 strokes of the cane.

They had pleaded guilty to various charges for the extensive torture of Ms Annie Ee, a 26-year-old waitress who had intellectual disabilities, over eight months. The daily beatings left Ms Ee with 12 fractured ribs and seven fractured vertebrae, a ruptured stomach and a body crowded with blisters and bruises. They were initially charged with murder.

In a statement, an AGC spokesman explained that the prosecutor's duty is to only prefer a charge which is supported by evidence.

The evidence given by the forensic pathologist was that Ms Ee's death was caused by acute fat embolism. This was an unusual occurrence that would not have ordinarily resulted from the injuries inflicted by Pua and Tan, said the statement.

Ms Ee had been beaten so severely that fatty tissue below the skin had separated from the muscle and entered her bloodstream, interfering with blood getting oxygen in the lungs and leading to progressive cardiac and respiratory failure.

"As Pua and Tan did not intend to cause Annie's death, and the injuries they inflicted would not ordinarily cause death, the offences of murder and culpable homicide cannot be proved against them," the spokesman said."

More on the Ee case above. Here is a further demonstration of traditional respect for the Rule of Law, and for the English Dictionary. I feel that in the UK the battle against the moral outrage of the angry mob, most notable for its contempt for the facts in any individual case, has now been lost, especially in the popular press.

"Raffaella Nathan Charles [straitstimes Dec 20 2017]

SINGAPORE - While the death of a woman who was badly tortured has angered many Singaporeans including himself, the public should avoid putting pressure on judges to impose harsh or lenient sentences, said Minister of Home Affairs K. Shanmugam. 

In a Facebook post on Wednesday (Dec 20) morning, Mr Shanmugam said he was "troubled" by the way some people had reacted to the case of Ms Annie Ee, a 26-year-old waitress with intellectual disabilities who died after daily beatings by her flatmates.

She suffered 12 fractured ribs and seven fractured vertebrae and a ruptured stomach, among other injuries. 

"I can understand the anger that many feel. At the same time, I am troubled by how some people have expressed their views," he wrote.

He noted that an online petition seeking harsher sentences was filed and "aspersions were cast on the defence lawyers’ characters". 

Such comments prompted statements from both the Attorney-General Chambers (AGC) and Law Society, who took issue with the tenor and substance of the online criticisms, he added.

"As a society, we have to try and avoid putting public pressure on judges to impose harsh/lenient sentences. We have a well-functioning court system. We must have the confidence that our judges will do the right thing," he said.

He added: "The sentence that a defendant gets, in any particular case, must not depend on how the public react during the case." 

...They were initially charged with murder.

Evidence given by the forensic pathologist showed that Ms Ee's death was caused by acute fat embolism...

A spokesman for the AGC said on Monday that the offences of murder and culpable homicide cannot be proved against the couple as they "did not intend to cause Annie's death, and the injuries they inflicted would not ordinarily cause death"...

He concluded: "We ought to be a civilised society, observing the Rule of Law, while expressing our unhappiness and moral outrage when seeing such conduct as in this case."

As civilisations have progressed, the Rule of Law has superceded private revenge and the blindness of anger. I think this principle is in danger of being lost, and will not stand firm against Twitter storms:

Published Dec 24, 2017, 5:00 am SGT [Straitstimes]

...Everyone has the right to a proper defence, says lawyer Josephus Tan K.C. Vijayan Senior Law Correspondent 

For defending the couple who fatally abused 26-year-old Annie Ee, lawyer Josephus Tan was not only heckled online, but also questioned by friends and relatives. Mr Tan, who defended them pro bono, may be upset by the reactions, but said too that these also showed a civic-minded public who cared strongly about the tragedy... Tan and Pua were initially charged with murder, but Mr Tan's representations as their lawyer helped reduce the main charge to voluntarily causing grievous hurt...

 Mr Tan said: " Not only people on the streets, but even my family and friends asked me why I took up this case. They asked me because they themselves were hounded by others."

...The public outrage prompted the Attorney-General's Chambers to explain why it could not press murder charges. It noted that the prosecutor's duty was to prefer charges supported by evidence. And in this case, evidence showed that while Ms Ee was beaten severely, she died of fat embolism - which would not normally result from her injuries...

Mr Tan said he was upset that some people were "blinded by their anger" and he feared that this may discourage other young lawyers from doing pro bono criminal work. But he was also heartened, as the reactions also reflected how Singaporeans are a caring lot who wanted to voice their outrage against the appalling abuse."