Any criminal lawyers out there?
Why do we make a distinction between Second Degree Murder and Premeditated or Third Degree Murder? If my lawyer can prove that I killed the person in an act of passion or rage, versus some amount of planning, it can make a big difference in my punishment. Regardless, my victim is just as dead.
Also, what constitutes Involuntary and Voluntary Manslaughter and how does manslaughter differ from Second Degree Murder?
You are correct about the victim but a lot of folks believe that a premediated murder is a more severe crime than if it wasn’t. Having degrees of murder give prosecutors and juries some flexibility in what they do to the offender.
Involuntary manslaughter might be something like a negligent accident but that is going to vary by state law and how the prosecutor choose to treat the crime. It’s a very gray area that often hinges around intent and that is usually only provably by circumstantial evidence.
A good example is former Bishop O’Brien in Phoenix. He struck and killed a man with his car while driving at night. AFAIK that fact was not subject to significant debate. The vitim was dead and unless you are Jesus or Lazarus there is only degree of dead, PDN*. What was subject to debated was what he did and for what reason. He claimed he thought he hit a dog. He left the scene of the accident. He hid his car and made inquiries about getting the windshield repaired, I think without getting his insurance company involved.
*Permanent Dirt Nap
Start first with homicide, which is, simply, the killing of a person.
Divide homicide into four types:
1a. First degree: Murder which is done in a premeditated fashion, or while committing certain crimes, usually including robbery, rape, arson, etc.
1b. Second degree: Murder which is done without premeditation, or during the commission of certain lesser crimes. In short, you intend at the time to kill the person, but you didn’t plan it out or go into the confrontation with the pre-formed concept of killing the person.
2a. Voluntary: Killing during passion without the intent to kill. In short, you are so damn mad you intend to seriously hurt the person, but the person dies.
2b. Involuntary: Killing while committing an act which wouldn’t normally be thought to lead to death. Lines here get hazy, and states have a tendency to lump all sorts of killings into this category which the common law didn’t contemplate. Some states take out of this category killing people during the commission of non-criminal acts and put such killings into the next category.
Reckless/Negligent Homicide: Killing while committing non-criminal acts without sufficient regard for the possibility of death. An example would be driving a car negligently, but without having committed a felony or misdemeanor in the process.
Legal Homicide: Killing a person for justifiable reasons, e.g.: in “self-defense.”
This is not by any means intended as an exclusive or exhaustive examination of the topic. It should be sufficient to understand the basic concepts involved in most prosecutions for the killing of a person. In general, society stratifies penalties for killings on the perception that certain behaviours are more heinous than others. For example, to address the specific question in the OP, intentionally killing someone is bad enough, but planning it out in advance is considered worse, because it isn’t the result of the moment, but shows truly depraved thinking. As another example, the current trend towards demonizing driving while under the influence has resulted in many states increasing the penalty for killing someone while engaged in that behaviour.
For one example of how a state classifies the various homicides, see Ohio’s Revised Statutes, specifically Title XXIX, Chapter 2903 et seq.
To expand upon Padeye’s comments on this - murder in a fit of rage vs. planned murder are considered to be different crimes in that the murderer’s state of mind/general character are judged. Suppose a man has been happily married to his wife for many years, and he comes home unexpectedly in the middle of the day to find her in bed with his best friend. They both laugh at him about what a fool he is and how she’s been using him for his money the whole time.
Second degree murder: In rage and despair about how his marriage, his friendship, years of his life have been nothing but a lie, he grabs a metal statue off the nightstand next to his bed and attacks the two, ending up killing one or both in the process due to blunt trauma injuries to the head.
Third degree murder: He curses at them, and leaves the house. His wife moves in with her lover. He carefully researches methods of arson that leave few traces, and buys a gun. In the middle of the night, weeks later, he sneaks into his ex-best friend’s house through a door that he knows the man usually leaves unlocked, sneaks up to the man’s bedroom, and shoots both his wife and his ex-friend. Then to cover up the crime, he sets a fire and leaves the house. The arson squad finds out it’s arson, the mattress wasn’t burned that well (the home security system hadn’t been disabled and unbeknownst to him, happened to be hooked up to the smoke alarms as well) and bullets are found, the husband becomes the prime suspect. The cops trace the gun purchase to him, etc., and his scheme is found out.
Same situation - man finds out his wife has been unfaithful for years with his best friend, and neither of them is the least bit ashamed. In the first case, he flies into a deep rage for a very short time, due to the intensity of the emotions. In the second case, he plots murder over a longer period of time, far longer than any “I just snapped” time period would last. IIRC, “fit of rage” murders are considered to be very unlikely to happen again - the perpetrator would have to experience some similar level of trauma and not have the shame of his previous action override the urge to snap again. Planned murders usually cast doubt on the very character and morality of the person in question. They spent a certain amount of time past the initial triggering event in actually plotting out a murder.
Of course, there are third degree murder cases that aren’t triggered by something like that - murder to get insurance money, etc. - but I wanted to show an example of how the same incident could produce both of those types of murder, and why they are considered to differ.
Isn’t pre-meditated murder first degree murder, not third degree murder? Is there a third degree murder?
Also pre-meditation doesn’t have to be over prolonged periods of time. To give an example, a group of men may be standing talking to each other when man X decides to pull out a gun and shoot man Y. Now the decision to kill and the action of killing are only seconds in between but there was a thought process between events and therefore is to be considered pre-meditated.
Damn, you’re probably right. The OP asked:
I missed that it should have been first degree, not third degree.
I believe some states do have third degree. Not Michigan. Here is the Homicide section of the Michigan Penal Code.
http://www.michiganlegislature.org/mileg.asp?page=getObject&objName=mcl-328-1931-XLV&highlight=
Pennsylvania apparently has third degree murder, but that is only because it used second degree to cover felony murders.
Minnesota calles depraved heart murder third degree murder.
http://www.revisor.leg.state.mn.us/stats/609/195.html