Being from england I have no idea of what constitutes 1st,2nd or 3rd degree murder. I am always hearing it in films but could someone please tell me the difference?
1st degree - You killed someone with the specific intent of causing their death, “malice aforethought”.
2nd degree - You killed someone and meant to do it, but the planning stage wasn’t quite as much. This includes “crimes of passion.” It can also include deaths caused by reckless disregard for human life.
3rd degree - Also called manslaughter. You caused a death, but didn’t have the intent to do so. May have been caused by negligence, but not recklessness.
Thanks Gazoo. I suppose that you have different sentencing for each of them too then.
If I thought of killing my girlfriend and wrote in a diary 3 years or so ago, then I come home one night and find her cheating and kill her and her lover, would the fact that it could be proved that I had contemplated it beforehand affect my sentencing and which degree of murder I would be charged with, and could I be charged with two different degrees of murder in one case?
It vaies from state to state. In New York, 1st degree used to be saved for the murder of a police officer. Now its for murders with special circumstances( death penalty cases).
You learn a lot from watching ‘Law and Order’.
I might find that a little difficult seeing as though I am from England!!
Sorry for sounding stupid but what are special circumstances in a murder and what makes it a death penalty case?
careful gesh, one might think you’re planning on getting away with murder. :eek:
hehe
Gazoo, it depends on what other evidence was availible. The burden of proof seems to grow considerably from one level of murder to the next, so rather than trying to use a single diary entry to prove 1st degree murder, the prosecution would most likely take the more secure route of trying to convince the court you’re guilty of 2nd degree. If I recall, 1st degree murder always requires a unanimous decision from the jury so you’d better be really sure of being able to prove the party’s guilt, lest he walk off on that charge and it’s not like you can just try for 2nd degree murder after that.
You’re right, you couldn’t try them for 2nd degree after they’ve been found not guilty of 1st degree. That’s why the prosecution will usually charge you with both and let the jury decide.
Nobody saw me do it!You can’t prove anything!
I have often wondered if it would be possible to perform a perfect murder if you will.Does anyone else think it’s possible to conceal everything from the police rather than get away with it through error made on there behalf?
Sorry, Gazoo – I meant to address that to Gesh, not you. Still, your point holds true about trying the person with both.
I was watching a documentary about those young girls disappearing in Ireland, one cop’s view on the whole thing was, “if this is the work of one killer and he is a reasonably smart person with no conscience or ego, we may never find them.” I have since heard that a few times, the most common ways a killer, once they actually commit the crime undetected, gets caught is they brag.I don’t know if this is die-hard truth, but it sounded good to me.
If no bodies are found then that is the best way to conceal a murder I suppose. Can you get charged due to circumstantial evidence, such as a hacksaw with the missing persons blood on?
You certainly can be charged and tried for murder without a body. It is very difficult to prove “beyond a shadow of a doubt” however. The defense will inevitably try to make some noise about the possibility of the alleged victim not being dead. Theatrically the ploy involves calling the deceased as a witness and if the jury looks to the door you can say they have a doubt. (I don’t know that this has ever actually been done, but I had a professor claim it had and have seen it in one movie, and read it in two books).
In my opinion, the most unsolveable murder would be very random. Someone without any criminal record could easily kill a stranger (no witnesses), and never mention it to anyone. No matter how many strands of hair or blood droplets, etc. the cops found, they would have no reason to even suspect you then.
By leaving a hair or blood samples then you are leaving evidence behind but as you say if it was a stranger and there is nothing to place you at the scene or even make your existence known to the police then I suppose you are right.
Personally I would opt for the military style planning rather than leave it to chance that the police didn’t catch your car on a junction camera or a shop security video as you walked past or something of the like.I’d want to make sure everything was covered, but I still can’t make up my mind if it would be possible or not.
Hey, now I really do sound like I’m planning it!!!
Every police officer I know, and I have met and trained many, always tells me the same thing. Most cases are solved by somebody “dropping the dime” on the criminal. This is especially true for murder and burglary. That is slowly changing due to the increase in computerization and central databases, as well as improved forensics. However, it is also getting harder because a lot of crime is between criminals, especially murder, assault and armed assault. Needless to say, finding suspects is very hard in these cases and so they simply go unsolved.
Overall, the net effect, has been that more crimes go unsolved now then they did 10 years ago. Hopefully, the technology will catch up and we will see this change.
Gazoo wrote:
I’ve seen this in a couple of fictional places, also. The best wrinkle involves the jury returning almost immediately with a guilty verdict. The defense attorney, stunned, thought he had a brilliant ploy, and asks a juror later why they voted that way. The juror explains that although everyone in the jury looked over to see if the victim would be coming through the door, the defendant did not, indicating he knew the person was dead. QED. Neat and tidy, and like you said probably bearing no relation to anything that has ever happened in real life, but a fun story nonetheless.
gesh wrote:
Yes, but as others have said, it’s very, very difficult. There was, in fact, a couple of months ago, a case meeting exactly these circumstances here in Washington State. Years ago, a woman disappeared; her boyfriend was the immediate suspect, given his violent past and witness statements, but her body was not found, and evidence remained sketchy and circumstantial. The detectives worked the case relentlessly, and became convinced the boyfriend had done it, but didn’t feel they had enough for it to stand up in court. Now, finally, years later, even though the case is cold, law enforcement and prosecutors evidently decided to take a flyer, and went ahead and charged the guy. Trial should be coming up shortly, unless I missed it.
That ties directly in with:
As a writer, I’ve thought about this also. From all of my research into police procedure, forensics, and other related fields, I would answer with a qualified yes. It is certainly possible to murder someone and never get caught, as long as (1) you are very careful, and (2) you kill a total stranger. If you kill someone known to you, you will eventually fall under suspicion. If you can avoid suspicion in the first place, i.e. have no connection whatsoever to the victim, you have a much better chance of not being caught. This, obviously, is why serial killers target prostitutes, the homeless, and other forgotten or marginalized members of society; by picking unrelated victims at random, there’s virtually no chance of tying the crime back to the killer through motive or acquaintance. Police statistics bear this out: Domestic, family, or social-circle murders are almost always solved fairly quickly; random or drug-related murders usually take forever to solve, if they ever are.
This leads to a supposedly “smart” murder strategy, one which is known in the literature. If you really want to kill someone close to you, you have to set up a pattern of random murders, and lump your actual target in with them. This was done, for example, by at least one of the “poisoned Tylenol” killers; he tampered with pills on the shelf to establish a regional problem, then poisoned his wife, hoping the police would think she was just another random victim. They did, eventually, figure it out, but it took a while. You could do the same with drive-by shootings, or home invasions, or whatever, if you carefully choose victims unknown to you in order to establish a pattern in which your ultimate intended target can be included. The problem, obviously, is that with each crime your chances of screwing up increase; plus, in order to truly throw the authorities off the trail you have to continue the pattern after your actual victim gets offed. If your wife/husband/whoever gets killed, and then nobody else dies, the police will be all over you. But as you continue the pattern, you will be under much tighter scrutiny as one of the victims’ relations. Pulling something like this off is really, really hard.
So anyway, if you really want to kill someone, you should do something like this. (Actually, “should” is the wrong word. I do not advocate murder, obviously. This is for entertainment and informational purposes only, like tarot cards, psychic hotlines, and voting.)
First set up an excuse with anyone who’s likely to care as to why you will be gone for several hours. Also, make sure you’ve got a cigarette lighter. Then:
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Leave your geographic area. No sense making it easy.
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Rent or steal a car. Forensics can get a lot from tire tracks, so you can’t use your own. Also, wear gloves so as not to leave fingerprints on the car. Note that with certain types of thin glove material (especially latex), your fingerprint ridges actually show through, and you can leave prints even with gloves on.
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Then drive the new car to a totally different area again.
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Using cash, buy two completely new sets of clothes. This will help reduce fiber evidence. Put one set in the trunk, change into the second set, and stash your original clothes in a bus terminal locker or something.
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Drive again to a new area.
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Pick up someone totally at random: a prostitute, a hitchhiker, a homeless person. This cannot be someone who is likely to be reported as missing in the media, or your excuse for being gone at the time, established at the outset, might arouse suspicion.
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Again, drive somewhere else.
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Stop in a remote area, preferably wooded, near a body of water. When you leave the car, remember to take the lighter.
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Kill them outside the car using a cord to strangle them. Don’t shoot them; it’s messy, ballistics can be used to tie the weapon to you (regardless of how you got it), and powder residue provides a chemical fingerprint that lingers on your person for days. And don’t knife them; one of the most common signs of a knife killing is a deep cut on the killer’s fingers, when their hand slips off the bloodied handle and down the blade. If you use heavy leather gloves and a thick cord, you leave no physical signs on yourself. Alternatively, you can hit them in the head with a pipe or something.
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Hide the body. In the woods, scavengers will skeletonize it quickly. If you want to be thorough, bash out the teeth.
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Before returning to the car, dive into the water and take off your clothes. Put them in a plastic garbage bag and burn them using the cigarette lighter. After the fire gets going, toss in the lighter.
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Go back to the car naked and put on the second set of clothes.
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Go retrieve your original set of clothes. After you change, discard the just-worn set: the shirt in one random dumpster, the pants in another, etc.
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Ditch the car, and go home.
None of this guarantees you’ll never be caught, but it does provide pretty good insurance. You can see why most killers are apprehended; a lot of murders are committed without a lot of thought, so the evidence is fairly clear, and/or hard to eliminate. And like I said, killing someone in your circle of friends or family is almost impossible to get away with.
Sorry about the rather gruesome post. Is it obvious I’ve spent way too much time thinking about this? 
Pretty impressive, Gervaise … I hope you don’t give two strangers on a train any ideas. I’ve wondered if it would be possible to overload a scene with evidence, i.e. steal clothes from several relatives, leave trash everywhere at the scene, spill gallons of blood (animal or human), and generally try to taint every bit of evidence. Probably you’d only make the forensics team bent on finding out the answer.
Just wanted to note one more thing, if it wasn’t clear to those unfamiliar with US law – First Degree (premeditation) doesn’t necessarily mean you have a specific person you want to kill. It’s often sufficient to show that you meant to kill somone, anyone, or that you were prepared to kill.
You can also be charged even if you didn’t pull the trigger yourself. A man in Arizona(?) received the death penalty for driving the get-away car at a bank robbery, since someone ( a guard, I think) was killed during the crime. If I’m not mistaken the decision still stands, and is applicable to killings related to a felony (major crime).
panama jack
You describe two different legal theories there.
Transferred intent is when you intend to kill Person A and kill Person B instead. Since you had the intent to kill (the mens rea) and actually did kill (the actus reus) you are guilty of first degree murder.
Felony murder is when a death is caused in the commission of a felony (intent as to the death is unimportant). It is usually treatedas first degree murder.
In your example, the man who drove is also guilty because he is part of a conspiracy.
gesh
It varies from jurisdiction to jurisdiction. Most commonly, “special cicumstances” means that one of a list of legislatively-selected conditions applies. These are usually things like killing a police officer, killing while committing another crime (usually robbery), torture murders, mass murder, etc. I believe that in those jurisdictions with the barbaric death penalty, the prosecutor must specifically advise the court that s/he intends to seek the death penalty, so one may be charged with murder one without its being a capital case.
Any murder that’s unsolved could be classified as a “perfect” murder.
Gazoo
This is not the proper legal standard. The proper legal standard in a criminal case is “beyond a reasonable doubt.” “Reasonable” has a specific legal meaning, which if anyone is interested I can post.
Was the movie “From the Hip” with Judd Nelson? That’s where I saw it.
You are correct sir. I noticed my error earlier but was too lazy to correct it.
As for “reasonable” having a specific legal meaning, that’s iffy. It has court defined definitions, but when it comes down to it, “reasonable” is determined by whomever is in the jury box.