Per the legal dictionary homicide is defined as the killing of one human being by another human being. Homicide can be justified or excused, but criminal homicide is neither. Homicide is not always a crime, but criminal homicide takes places when you have elements of an act or omission, that death of another human being, and with criminally culpable men’s rea without lawful justification or excuse. A person is guilty of criminal homicide when it can proven that the person intentionally, knowingly, recklessly, or with negligence caused the death of another person. Most motives behind someone committing criminal homicides are revenge, financial gain, jealousy, and revenge.
Criminal homicide can be broken down into three categories; murder, manslaughter, and criminal negligence homicide. Murder is the most serious form of criminal homicide. It is the premeditated killing that can be broken into capital or first degree and second degree. Capital murder also known as first degree is the most serious of the two and it is when someone is accused of planning beforehand to kill someone and actually go through with it. First degree murder when convicted can come with the
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Manslaughter is defined as unlawful killing without malice beforehand. Manslaughter itself can be broken into voluntary and involuntary. Voluntary manslaughter involves a crime of passion or a sudden impulse with no premediated intent or when the person believed that they were acting in self-defense that was unreasonable. Involuntary manslaughter unintentional killing of another person. One scenarios involves two people playing with a gun. One playfully pointed the gun at the other, the gun fired and killed the other. Even though the person that was playing with the gun claimed he did not know it was loaded, his negligence caused the death of someone