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.

Introduction

Homicide is broadly defined as the killing of one human being by another. Homicides may be treated as crimes or as non-criminal, depending upon the situation and the jurisdiction.

Criminal homicide involves the deliberate or negligent death of another. Homicide is considered non-criminal in a number of situations, such as deaths as the result of war. Additionally, the killing of another may be legally justified under certain conditions, including various defenses.

Homicide has occurred throughout human history, recorded in the early stories of most cultures, and condemned in all religions. Passages in the Christian, Buddhist, Taoist, and Jewish scriptures may be interpreted as teaching that killing a human being is a sin under any and all circumstances. The simple "You shall not kill."(Exodus 20.13) in Judaism and Christianity implies absoluteness; and the Islamic warning that "Anyone who kills a believer intentionally will have his reward in hell, to remain there. God will be angry with him and curse him, and prepare awful torment for him." (Qur'an 4.92) and the Hindu statement, "He who commits murder must be considered as the worst offender, more wicked than a defamer, than a thief, and than he who injures with a staff." (Laws of Manu 8.345) emphasize the seriousness of the crime. Indeed, killing may well be considered the most serious crime because the harm cannot be undone.

Other scriptural passages, however, may be interpreted as restricting the definition of murder to an individual killing for selfish purposes. They permit killing in self-defense, permit killing to prevent greater crimes, sanction state enforcement of the death penalty, and support the waging of war for just cause. Nevertheless, killing in such circumstances is still viewed as evil, albeit the lesser evil. The inferior morality of killing in self-defense or in retaliation is highlighted in the two versions of the story of Cain and Abel from the Bible and the Qur'an. In the biblical story God grants Cain a mark to protect him from retaliation, and in the Qur'anic version Abel shows his righteousness by refusing to defend himself from Cain's aggression.

Criminal homicide

Criminal homicide occurs when a person purposely, knowingly, recklessly or negligently causes the death of another. Murder and manslaughter are both treated as criminal homicide.

Criminal homicide is a malum in se crime, meaning the act is "wrong in itself." This means that it is thought to be inherently wrong by nature, independent of regulations governing the conduct, and is thus distinguished from malum prohibitum, which is wrong only because it is prohibited by law. The (unauthorized) killing of human beings is universally agreed to be wrong by other human beings, regardless of whether a law exists or where the conduct occurs. Every legal system contains some form of prohibition or regulation of criminal homicide.

Homicidal crimes in various jurisdictions include:

• murder is generally defined as a homicide committed intentionally. It generally carries a sentence of life imprisonment or the death penalty, depending upon jurisdiction.
• manslaughter is the less serious offense of the taking of human life in a manner considered by law as less culpable than murder, and carries a less severe sentence than murder. Most legal systems also differentiate between voluntary and involuntary manslaughter.
• criminally negligent homicide is the killing of another person due to negligent behavior without any intent to harm or kill the person who died. Criminally negligent homicide generally only applies if a pattern of negligence resulted in the death of the individual. This offense is considered less serious than murder, such that someone guilty of this offense can expect a more lenient sentence, often with imprisonment time comparable to manslaughter.
• Vehicular homicide or Death by dangerous driving involves death that results from the negligent or dangerous operation of a vehicle. The victim may be either a person not in the car with the offender, such as a pedestrian or another motorist, or a passenger in the vehicle with the offender.

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

• neonaticide - Killing of a newborn within the first 24 hours of life
• 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 (but has become most associated with the murder of a husband by his wife, as the reverse is given the name uxoricide)
• uxoricide - Killing of one's wife
• filicide - Killing of one's child
• child murder - Killing of an unrelated 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 that are not 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 is the execution of a convicted criminal by the state as punishment for certain crimes known as "capital crimes" or "capital offenses."
• War - the killing of an enemy combatant (a person who takes a direct part in the hostilities of an armed conflict within the law of war) is not considered a criminal offense.
• In Islamic law (Sharia),
  • 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.

References

ISBN links support NWE through referral fees

• Barmash, Pamela. 2004. Homicide in the Biblical World. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0521834686
• Collins, Karen-Michelle. 2002. Negligent Homicide / Manslaughter (Involuntary) International Journal of Justice Studies Retrieved July 2, 2007.
• Schwartz, Lita Linzer, and Natalie K. Isser. 2006. Child Homicide: Parents Who Kill. CRC Press. ISBN 0849393663
• Uniacke, Suzanne. 1996. Permissible Killing: The Self-Defence Justification of Homicide. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0521564581
• Wilson, Andrew (Ed.) 1991. World Scripture: A Comparative Anthology of Sacred Texts. New York, NY: Paragon House. ISBN 0892261293

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