What’s the difference between murder and manslaughter? Why is there a difference? If manslaughter is accidental, why is it something that can be prosecuted? And how is voluntary manslaughter not aka murder? What constitutes the different degrees of murder? Is manslaughter as finely defined? Is there another prosecutable category of killin’ people that I’m leaving out?
Cuz…you know. Just askin’.
IANAL. As I understand it, it has to do with pre-meditation. If you wake up and think “I’m going to kill my boss today.”, then do it, it’s murder. If you kill your boss in a rage with a rolled up pink slip, more manslaughterish. I’m sure Bricker will be along shortly to hash out the fine points.
NO! The difference is malice. “Malice aforethought,” in the most common definition of murder. Malice is simply intent, without justification, to commit a wrongful act. Malice aforethought, with respect to murder, is demonstrated by the intent to kill or cause grievous bodily harm, intent to commit a felony, or extreme reckless indifference to the value of human life. None of these require deliberation or planning, which are the hallmarks of premeditation (premeditation is often the line between first and second degree murder).
Manslaughter is simply the unlawful killing of a human being without malice aforethought. If someone dies because of your action, and none of the elements of malice apply, it’s manslaughter. If you took that action deliberately, it’s voluntary manslaughter.
If I drive to your house, ring the bell and plug you between the headlights when you answer the door, that would in my estimation be murder.
If on the other hand knowing that you can’t swim and are in poor physical condition I take you out in a boat and the boat upsets and there are none of the required safety devices on board, that could be manslaughter.
Not a lawyer, so I wonder how close I’ll be.
Hangs head in shame
You mean David Lynch’s ‘Wild at Heart’ contained a legal inaccuracy? I’ll have to speak to him about that.
There are three kinds of unlawful killings: murder, manslaughter, and negligent homicide. Generally it is the mental state of the killer that is at issue. Malice is just another way of saying “intent” – malice aforethought means I thought about it ahead of time, and I intended to do it.
There are three levels of intent: purposefully/knowingly, recklessly, and negligently. Murder is death committed purposefully or knowingly; manslaughter is death committed recklessly; and negligent homicide (perhaps unsurprisingly) is death committed negligently.
Purposefully or knowingly are just what they seem to be: on purpose, or knowing what’s going to happen.
Reckless means basically conscious disregard of the substantial risk that might result from your actions.
Negligent means basically that you should be aware of a substantial risk that might result from your actions, even if you aren’t aware of it.
Now that you have the rule down, here are the exceptions: although murder requires a mental state of purposefulness or knowingness, murder can also be committed with a mental state of recklessness, if it’s under such circumstances that demonstrate an indifference to human life. And although manslaughter can be committed recklessly, it can also be committed knowingly or purposefully, but under such immediate and immense emotional strain that provides an excuse. So a knowing or purposeful killing can be downgraded to manslaughter, and a reckless killing can be upgraded to murder.
Note that this all comes from the Model Penal Code, which is an academic exercise in laying out, well, a model penal code that state legislatures can crib from. So while these rules are generally true, they may not be specifically true.
The following is a hijack. I should point out that the OP’s question is pretty straightforward and has an actual answer. It’s not quite 2 plus 2, more like what’s the square root of 2. So while having people guess what the square root of 2 is might be entertaining, it’s not actually appropriate for GQ. It’s one of the reasons I mostly ignore legal questions in GQ.
General common law defination (and flag up traditional proviso about different jurisdictions and interpretations!)
Murder: Unlawful killing of another with malice aforethought; translation you intended to kill the person, cause them “grivieous” bodily harm, or knew that their death was a near certain consequence of your action*
Manslaughter
Doing an act or omission (usually but not always an illegal one), either knowing (or a reasonable person should have known; jurisdictions differ here) that death was a possibility*
Types of manslaughter;
Voluntary Manslaughter; the same as murder, but charge is reduced due to some mitagating circumstances. Usually what people who raise a successful defence of provocation or diminshed responsibility are ultimatly convicted of; in many common law juridictions these are just partial defences.
Involuntary Manslaughter
Most other kinds of manslaugter. These include those created by statute, which are too bloody numerous and varied to enumerate, but follow the basic outline of what I have mentioned above.
Premeditated
I am not sure if classical common law actually differentiated between premeditated and otherwise, I think these developed more as a relvance to the setencing; premeditated usually meant the death penalty. Islamic law did differentiate, and so did Civil law systems of Europe (not sure about the latter).