Law, Justice and Society: Chapter Five

I have always been a guru on watching criminal investigation television shows. Sadly to say, I have always been into the crime which occurs, but I never understood what the defendant was charged with. I would hear the attorney and lawyers say “First Degree Murder” or “Involuntary manslaughter.” Ever since we have gone over this specific chapter, I have now been able to understand the diversity between all of the different types of homicide charges.
First degree murder is a killing which is intentional, but not planned out or premeditated. There are different ways individuals define premeditated, but to me I believe it to be a careful and well thought out design for carrying out a crime. Others may say that it is premeditated the minute the killing is formed. In this day and age a crime which is instantly thought of and then carried out can often have worse results than one which is planned out for a certain period of time. Second degree murder is pretty much the same as first degree, only it is not premeditated at all and it is just deliberate. An example of this would be if a criminal had the sudden urge to kidnap a child and rap and then finally kill them. There is no prior plan; they were just consumed in the sheer bloodlust of it all.
Manslaughter is pretty interesting. There are two different categories which are voluntary and involuntary. Voluntary manslaughter is what you would call a “heat of passion” killing. A good example which helps me remember it is thinking about a husband and a cheating wife. The husband comes home one day to find his lovely wife cheating on him and in the “heat of passion” the husband kills the man whom his wife is sleeping with. There is no plan to this kind of killing which makes it the complete opposite of being a deliberate crime. Involuntary manslaughter is when an unintentional killing or death happens in the result of a very reckless act. A possible case for this kind of manslaughter could be a person driving down a road at 180MPH and ends up killing someone. It was an “accident” that someone died, but you had no right going to the speed you were going.
Lastly, there is negligent homicide which is similar to involuntary manslaughter, because it is also an unintentional killing. However, in this certain type of crime the person committing the offense was not aware that they created a situation in which someone was killed. Anything to do with murder and killings are fascinating to me. I could watch shows all day about different crimes committed. If you are as interested as I am I would recommend checking out http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/homicide/homtrnd.htm if you would like to learn more and read about some neat articles.