Homicide

Homicide (Latin homicidium, homo human being + caedere to cut, kill) refers to the act of killing another human being. It can also describe a person who has committed such an act, though this use is rare in modern English. Although homicide does not define an illegal act necessarily, some jurisdictions use the word to indicate the unlawful killing of a person. Homicide may include murder, voluntary manslaughter, and involuntary manslaughter. There are a number of defenses that make homicide justifiable or not legally "murder" in some cases.

Homicidal crimes

Criminal homicide is a malum in se crime, and every legal system contains some form of prohibition or regulation of criminal homicide.

Homicidal crimes in some criminal jurisdictions include:

• murder
  • Felony murder
  • Capital murder
• manslaughter
• Criminal Homicide
  • culpable homicide (in Scots law)
  • negligent homicide
  • Criminally negligent homicide
  • Vehicular homicide

Many forms of 'homicide' have their own term based on the person being killed.

• infanticide - Killing of an infant
• fratricide - Killing of one's brother; in a military context, killing of a friendly combatant
• sororicide - Killing of one's sister
• parricide - Killing of one's parents
• patricide - Killing of one's father
• matricide - Killing of one's mother
• mariticide - Killing of one's spouse
• uxoricide - Killing of one's wife
• filicide - Killing of one's child
• regicide - Killing of a monarch.
• genocide - Killing of a race
• suicide - Killing of oneself

Euthanasia (the "mercy killing" of a person who requests to die as painlessly as possibly) is considered a form of homicide in many jurisdictions.

Non-criminal homicide

Homicides do not always involve a crime. Sometimes the law allows homicide by allowing certain defenses to criminal charges. One of the most recognized is self-defense, which provides that a person is entitled to commit homicide to protect his or her own life from a deadly attack.

Some defenses include:

• Justifiable homicide
• Self-defense
• Insanity defense
• Duress

Homicides may also be non-criminal when conducted with the sanction of the state. The most obvious example is capital punishment, in which the state determines that a person should die, but homicides committed during war are usually not subject to criminal prosecution as well.

Some state sanctioned homicides include:

• Capital punishment
• War
• In Islamic law,
  • Rajm meaning stoning. In Islamic law stoning is prescribed as the proper punishment for married men and women who commit adultery when proof is established, or there is pregnancy, or a confession.
  • Qisas meaning retaliation based on the biblical principle of "an eye for an eye." In the case of murder, it means the right of the heirs of a murder victim to demand execution of the murderer.

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