Long story short: Discussion about laws that vary from state to state.
Me: In New York, it’s only murder one if you kill a cop.
Other: Even David Berkowitz?
I didn’t know, and now I have to find the answer, since he asked a specific question. I looked at many websites, but they barely mention the trial.
By Gadfrey, this page lists many varieties of “murder one”. The short answer, for those who don’t want to go to the page: murder of a police officer is NOT the only thing that’s called “murder in the first degree”. Murder one also includes:
[ul]
[li] Murder of a correctional employee.[/li][li] Murder of a judge.[/li][li] Murder while confined pursuant to a life sentence.[/li][li] Intentional murder while escaped from a life sentence.[/li][li] Intentional murder of a witness to prevent his testimony.[/li][li] Intentional murder of a witness in retribution for testimony.[/li][li] Murder of a witness’s family member to prevent his testimony.[/li][li] Murder of a witness’s family member in retribution for his testimony.[/li][li] Contract killing.[/li][li] Procuring a contract killing.[/li][li] Intentional murder accompanied by torture.[/li][li] Two homicides in the same criminal transaction.[/li][/ul]
And handful more. Being a nutso serial killer, though, is not murder one; murder one means being a criminal with an “abandoned heart”.
As for Berkowitz, the fact that he pled guilty is all I can find. I suppose they could have charged him with murder one, because I believe he (on at least one occasion) killed two people at once.
Thank you, Max. But are you sure that page is about New York State laws? Or is it across the board?
I had always heard first degree murder as premeditated murder. Whereas, second degree is more of the spur of the moment thing.
Well, I am making an assumption, but the page is at “www.courts.state.ny.us”, and one of the offenses lists that the offense occurred in “the state of New York” (the others just leave a blank space for the county), so I’m guessing it’s about New York law.
The phrases used to designate various degrees of murder will vary from state to state. Some states will call the very worst kinds of murders – the type that get you strapped to a gurney with a needle in your arm – as “first degree murders,” while other states will refer to such offenses as “capital murder.” The former state will usually call garden-variety murder “second-degree murder” while the latter will typically call it “first-degree murder” or simply “murder.”
New York is an example of the former. Their murder statute can be found here:
Texas is an example of the latter. Their murder statute can be found here:
http://www.capitol.state.tx.us/statutes/pe/pe001900.html#pe001.19.01
Murder basically means one of three things:
[ul]
[li]The killing of an individual with “malice aforethought” (the common-law phrase), which basically means an intentional killing. You killed the guy on purpose, and it wasn’t due to an emotional outburst or any other such thing.[/li]
[li]Depraved indifference to human life. Classic example of this is driving a car at 100 mph down a crowded pedestrian thoroughfare. Sure, you didn’t mean to kill any specific person, but your actions made the death of someone more likely than not.[/li]
[li]The felony murder rule. Basically, if someone gets killed while you are committing certain other felonies (like a bank robbery), you get nabbed for murder even if the killing would not be murder in and of itself. So when you’re robbing that bank, be sure you don’t accidentally knock anyone down the stairs. (The felony murder rule can get pretty complicated in application, and varies tremendously from state to state – in some states, if a police officer shoots at you while you are robbing the bank, and accidentally hits and kills someone else, you can be on the hook for murder under the felony murder rule.)[/li][/ul]
mongrel_8 is wrong when he says that second degree murder is a “spur of the moment thing.” The appropriate charge for sudden, uncontrollable outbursts of that type is typically going to be some degree of manslaughter, not murder.
As I’ve said, states vary in how they term things. Some states lump regular murder, depraved indifference murder, and felony murder into one big category called “murder.” Others make regular murder “murder one/two” and depraved indifference/felony murder “murder two/three.” Capital murder/murder one is almost always defined as murder plus aggravating factors (like killing a cop, or killing lots of people in succession, or killing a kid, or contract killings).
Sorry if this rambled a bit. Hope it helps.
But prosecutors can add “special circumstances” to the murder charge i.e. rape, torture, kidnapping, robbery if applicable and therefore make the murder a capital crime which is punishable by death.
Thank you, Dewey! (Cool username!) According to your first link, I wasn’t that far from the correct answer. But I should have known better than to trust an unsupported statement like the one I repeated in my OP. Now I see that it’s one of those sort-of-true-but-not-the-whole-story things like “we all swallow three spiders a year”.
Thanks all who answered!
My understnding is that the distinguishing feature between manslaughter and second degree is the intention to kill. So, someone can decide on the spur of the moment to kill someone else, which would be second degree. If it’s just a sudden fight that goes real bad, then it would be manslaughter.
As Northern Piper clarified, I had heard that 2nd degree murder was a spur of the moment thing with the intent to kill. Like if you came home and found your wife cheating with another guy and decided to shoot your wife. I also understand that that each one (1st degree, 2nd degree, and manslaughter) can be taken pretty liberally depending upon circumstances.
That is unless you are Nicolas Cage in ConAir.
Both mongrel_8 and Northern Piper are correct. I don’t practice criminal law, so I’m drawing on somewhat-hazy law school recollections. The line between manslaughter and murder can be a fuzzy one. Take the husband who comes home and kills his wife’s lover. Did he mean to kill him (murder) or beat him within an inch of his life, and went beyond that inch (manslaughter)?
Complicating matters further, some states allow a reduction in penalty for murders committed with “sudden passion.” See the Texas statute above for an example.
Damn! Italicized when I shoulda bolded…