Criminal Law: Common Law Murder & Manslaughter

Criminal Law Class 4 - February 13, 2025

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Class 4 Agenda: Homicide

• Topics include common law murder and manslaughter, contemporary homicide statutes, intentional and unintentional killings, and MPC and negligent homicide.

Asynch Housekeeping

• Discussion of any questions from previous Mens Rea/Causation lecture.
• Kanopy access questions.

Common Law Murder Overview

• Common Law Murder = unlawful killing of a human being with malice aforethought.
• There are 4 conceptions of Malice Aforethought:
  • Intent to Kill: Includes both intentional homicide (conscious purpose to take life) and knowing homicide (awareness that death would result).
    • Exception: Heat of Passion from Adequate Provocation leads to manslaughter
• Intent to Cause Grievous Bodily Harm includes both purposeful and knowing actions.
• Depraved-Heart Murder is unintentional homicide evidencing a depraved mind or abandoned and malignant heart, supporting presumed/implied intent to kill or injure.
  • Depraved Heart ≈ extreme recklessness regarding homicidal risk
• Felony Murder is homicide caused in the commission of a felony.
• These common law variations formed the basis for initial codification efforts.

Murder in a Common Law Jurisdiction Today

• Element 1: The defendant caused the death of the victim.
• Element 2: The defendant acted with malice aforethought, meaning they either:
  • Intended to kill the victim, or
  • Intended to cause grievous bodily harm to the victim, or
  • Intended to do an act which, in the circumstances known to the defendant, a reasonable person would have known, created a plain and strong likelihood that death would result

Introduction of Degrees of Murder

• Starting with 1794 Pennsylvania Statute:
• Murder in the First Degree entails:
  • Killing by means of poison or lying in wait or other willful, deliberate, and premeditated murder
  • Felony Murder, which is homicide committed in perpetration of arson, rape, robbery, or burglary.
• Murder in the Second Degree is all other kinds of murder.

Manslaughter at Common Law

• Manslaughter is any homicide committed without malice aforethought or justification/excuse.
• Voluntary Manslaughter = Intentional killing committed in heat of passion upon adequate provocation.
• Involuntary Manslaughter = unintentional killing where death results from an action that was unduly dangerous to life or limb or otherwise unlawful (misdemeanor manslaughter).
• Distinction between Voluntary and Involuntary had no 'grading' significance at common law.

Exploring Selected Homicide Statutes

• Ala. § 13A-6-2: A person commits murder if he/she, with intent to cause the death of another person, causes the death of that person, or under circumstances manifesting extreme indifference to human life, recklessly engages in conduct which creates a grave risk of death or commits or attempts to commit arson, burglary, kidnapping, rape, or other felony.
• Ala. 13A-6-3(a): A person commits manslaughter if he recklessly causes the death of another person, or causes the death of another person under circumstances that would constitute murder except that he causes the death due to a sudden heat of passion caused by provocation and before a reasonable time for the passion to cool.
• Unborn Victims: The term "person" can include an unborn child in utero at any stage of development, or can mean a human being who has been born and is alive.
• Suicide: N.Y. Penal Law § 125.15(3): A person is guilty of manslaughter in the second degree when he/she intentionally causes or aids another to commit suicide.
• Special Victims: Tex. § 19.03(a)(1), (4): the victim was a peace officer/fire fighter or was younger than 10 years old.
• NY Penal Law § 125.20(1): A person is guilty of manslaughter in the first degree when: with intent to cause serious physical injury, he causes the death of such person

Exploring Selected Homicide Statutes: Punishments/Sentences

• Murder in Alabama: death, life imprisonment without parole, 25 years to life, between 10 and 99 years.
• Manslaughter in Alabama: between 2 and 20 years
• Voluntary Manslaughter in CA: 3, 6, or 11 years.
• Involuntary Manslaughter in CA: 2, 3, or 4 years.
• Manslaughter in NY: Up to 25 years in prison for intent to cause serious physical injury or up to 15 years when causing or assisting suicide.

Deliberation and Premeditation Notes

• Case Study: State v. Guthrie (W. Va. 1995)
  • Facts: D and victim were dishwashers who generally got along well, but D had psychiatric problems. D was teased by victim, who snapped him with a dishtowel, catching D on the nose. D took out a knife and stabbed victim in the neck, killing him. D was convicted of first-degree murder.
  • Issue: Did jury instruction falsely equate "willful, deliberate, and premeditated" with mere intent to kill?
    • NB: Some jurisdictions distinguish between first- and second-degree murder using deliberate premeditation

Deliberation and Premeditation Legal Issues

• The instructions at issue in the State v. Guthrie case:
  • The intention to kill doesn’t need to exist for a particular length of time prior to the actual killing; only necessary that the intention existed at the time of the killing or at any time previously, or an intent to kill need exist only for an instant to constitute a premeditated murder
  • Definition of Willful, deliberate and premeditated simply means that the killing be intentional.

Deliberation and Premeditation Further Legal Definitions

• Dodds (W. Va. 1903): “To deliberate is to reflect, with a view to make a choice. If a person reflects, though but for a moment before he acts, it is unquestionably a sufficient deliberation ...."
• Revised Instruction in Guthrie: “[M]urder in the first degree consists of an intentional, deliberate and premeditated killing which means that the killing is done after a period of time for prior consideration. The duration of that period cannot be arbitrarily fixed. The time in which to form a deliberate and premeditated design varies as the minds and temperaments of people differ, and according to the circumstances in which they may be placed. Any interval of time between the forming of the intent to kill and the execution of that intent, which is of sufficient duration for the accused to be fully conscious of what he intended, is sufficient to support a conviction for first degree murder.”
• Deliberate (adj.) [done consciously, intentionally] vs. To Deliberate (verb) [engage in careful consideration/reflect]
  • Intentional vs. Thinking Process the latter distinguishes 1st and 2nd degree murder

Deliberate Pre-Meditation Examples

• Deliberate premeditation can occur in cases such as those involving poison, lying in wait, imprisonment, starvation, strangulation, or use of a weapon.
• Assessing how deliberate pre-meditation is applicable for all methods.
• Questioning the consciousness of perpetrators.

Hot-Blooded vs. Cold-Blooded

• Morrin Instruction (from Mich.): “To premeditate is to think about beforehand; to deliberate is to measure and evaluate the major facets of a choice or problem...[P]remeditation and deliberation characterize a thought process undisturbed by hot blood. While the minimum time necessary to exercise this process is incapable of exact determination, the interval between initial thought and ultimate actions should be long enough to afford a reasonable man time to subject the nature of his response to a 'second look."
• Premeditation = Length of Reflection
• Deliberation = Quality of Reflection

Finding the Right Words: Assessing the Standards

• Assessing the effectiveness of standards for distinguishing intentional killings.
• Assessing if standards speak to moral culpability.
• Assessing if standards help identify dangerous killers.

Deliberation and Premeditation Cases

• Case Study: Midgett v. State (Ark, 1987)
  • Facts: Tragic facts based on longstanding pattern of child abuse. Victim, Ronnie Jr., was poorly nourished, under-developed 8-year-old with older bruises. The beating involved 4 blows, 2 to the stomach and 2 to the back causing blunt force trauma consistent with beating with human fist. D convicted of first-degree murder
  • Issue: Was the evidence sufficient to sustain the murder 1 conviction?
    • Holding: No evidence D killed Ronnie Jr. having premeditated and deliberated causing his death
    • Suggestion of evidence: D did not intend to kill Ronnie Jr. but to further abuse him
      • If D did intend to kill, intent developed in drunken rage in the course of discipline and was not deliberately premeditated.
    • Assessing murder analysis to heinousness/reprehensibility of the crime.
    • Posing question if deliberate premeditation is an effective proxy for moral culpability.
• Case Study: State v. Forrest (N.C. 1987)
  • Facts: D killed terminally ill father by firing a pistol to his father's temple a total of 4 times. The single-action revolver had to be cocked each time it fired. D was convicted of first-degree murder
  • D claimed insufficient evidence of premeditation and deliberation to support sending first-degree murder charge to the jury
    • Holding: evidence that killing was premeditated and deliberate not just sufficient but substantial
    • D's statements that he contemplated ending father's suffering, combined without provocation, 4 shots that had to be re-cocked each time, and using a gun he carried as truck driver but not working on his truck that day, made evidence substantial.

Critical Perspectives of Cases

• Case Studies: Midgett and Forrest
  • Questions of Morality:
    • Who was more morally blameworthy, the father who beat his son to death or the son who put his father out of his misery?
    • Who poses a greater danger to others/society?
    • Will the son in Forrest kill again?
    • Will the father in Midgett beat someone brutally again?
  • NB: MPC rejected degrees of intentional murder

Intentional Killings: Provocation

• Provocation Doctrine: Sudden heat of passion from adequate provocation can reduce an intentional killing from murder to manslaughter.
  • At common law, all grounds of adequate provocation were also crimes (including adultery); this is no longer the case.
• Voluntary Manslaughter = Intentional homicide committed in a sudden heat of passion caused by adequate provocation before a reasonable opportunity for the passion to cool.
• Not murder because of the absence of malice.

Heat of Passion/Provocation Manslaughter at Common Law

• Case Study: Girouard v. State (Md. 1991)
  • Facts: Military husband and wife married after knowing each other only 3 months. After 2 months into tense marriage, wife declared she doesn't love husband, that it was a mistake to marry him, and she had a bad performance in bed (had also filed charges against him for abuse). Enraged, husband leaves bedroom w/pillow, goes to kitchen, gets knife, hides knife behind pillow, lunging at victim and stabbing her 19 times.
    • D convicted of second-degree murder after "court trial," sentenced to 22 years (10 suspended)
    • Issue: Are words alone adequate provocation to mitigate murder to voluntary manslaughter?
  • Defense Argument: Argued this should be manslaughter (a homicide without malice). Further, provocation categories should be expanded here to capture victim's actions.
  • Prosecution Argument: No finite list of provocations, but common law and society do not accept words alone as adequate provocation, no matter how abusive or taunting.
    • Slippery Slope: Many killings (particularly in DV cases) stem from verbal disputes and shouldn't be mitigated to manslaughter.

Rule of Provocation: Common Law

• Rule of Provocation:

1. Adequate provocation must exist
2. The killing must have been in the heat of passion
3. Killing must following the provocation before a reasonable opportunity for the passion to cool
4. A causal connection must occur between provocation, the passion, and the fatal act.

• To be adequate, provocation must be calculated to inflame the passion of a reasonable person and cause them to act from passion rather than reason.

Traditional Provocations

• Traditional Provocations at Common Law:

1. extreme assault or battery on the defendant
2. mutual combat
3. D's illegal arrest
4. injury or serious abuse of D's close relative
5. sudden discovery of D's spouse's adultery

• These external circumstances must create passion such that D acted from passion rather than reason and the resulting homicide is not considered the product of free will.
• This mitigates murder to manslaughter because of the lack of "malice".

Girouard v. State Continued

• Holding: Provocation here was not enough to cause a reasonable person to stab his provoker 19 times
  • At common law, words alone are not adequate provocation
• Social Necessity: domestic arguments easily escalate, the law should not reward those who end the fight by simply killing their partner!
• Questions on ruling/culpability:
  • Is Girouard more/less blameworthy than son in Forrest? father in Midgett?
  • Is he more or less dangerous?
• Assessing if this is about the reasonableness of the passionate response or the killing.
• Killing is still a crim

Voluntary Manslaughter Today

• Common law bases for provocation were all themselves crimes.
  • Anomalies: consider that a married person who kills on sight of adultery commits manslaughter, but unmarried partner who kills for infidelity commits murder...
  • Does the fact of marriage alter level of passion/anger from witnessing unfaithfulness?
• MPC and some states modified "words alone" rule to include recognition of "informational words".
• Law has evolved from fixed categories of conduct to allowing juries to decide both: whether there has been adequate provocation and whether the defendant had a reasonable opportunity for resulting passion to cool

Model Penal Code (EED)

• Case Study: People v. Casassa (N.Y. 1980)
  • Facts: D and victim lived in apt building and dated casually until the victim said she was not falling in love with him. D = devastated. D breaks into apt below victim's to eavesdrop and also breaks into victim's apt while she's out, laying naked on her bed and carrying a knife. On fateful day, D shows up at victim's apt w/gifts of wine and liquor. When the victim rejects the offering, D takes out steak knife, stabbing her throat multiple times and submerges body in bathtub. D convicted of second-degree murder
  • Issue: Did D establish affirmative defense of Extreme Emotional Disturbance (EED) to reduce second-degree murder to manslaughter?
    • N.Y. Penal Law §125.25: an affirmative defense where D "acted under the influence of extreme emotional disturbance for which there was a reasonable explanation or excuse"
    • EED is not a complete defense, but mitigates murder to manslaughter (less severe punishment for intentional killing)
    • Derived from Heat of Passion, EED can develop over time and is not negated by a "cooling off" period.

Principal Components of EED

• MPCs Principal Components of EED includes the influence of extreme emotional disturbance and a reasonable reaction to circumstances as the defendant believed them to be.
• Assessing subjective standards and objective test of law in concluding D's mitigation. The court found it subjective and peculiar to the defendant.

Understanding MPC's Extreme Mental or Emotional Disturbance

• The MPC provision applies to extreme mental or emotional disturbance that won't qualify as "insanity" but is still supported as mitigation
  • It's about loss of self-control.
  • The the extreme emotional disturbance must be reasonable as they were perceived
    • The killing in never viewed as reasonable. -MPC allows the issue as a question for jury, though gives not guarantee that the jury will find the disturbance as reasonable.

EED and Mistake of Fact

• EED and Mistake of Fact: Can be an actual mistake that support EED mitigation where an emotionally charged but honestly erroneous belief led to disturbed reaction resulting in a crime
  • Only an accepted justification if understandable reactions were to mistaken facts without "mistake" about right or wrong, idiosyncratic moral value.
  • Like heat of passion/provocation, MPC EED is about understandable loss of self-control
  • It emphasizes homicides which in themselves are unjustifiable but can stem from understandable emotional disturbance.

Seque to Unintentional Killings

• Assessing "Malice Aforethought
  • At common law, some intentional killings involved "Malice Aforethought, and some do not
  • Likwise at Common Law, certain intentional killings with 'Malice Aforethought'
    • "Depraved Heart Murder - Abandoned and Malignant Heart Murder" with intention killing (implied malice)
    • Involuntary Manslaughter =unintentional killing with/ with/no malice aforethought.
• The MPC recognizes distcitions between all well negligent homidice for the following laws and exceptions

Implied Malice and Abandoned and Malignant Heart Murder

• Case Study: People v. Knoller (Cal 2007)
  • Facts: The victim lived in D's building, and D's dog mauled her to death with extensive horrific injuries. D receives warnings from previous owner and present for attack, not calling 911 on victim. D was charged with 2nd degree murder
    • Question on the issue to proper standard assessing implied malice to proper standard.
    • It emphasizes a show an abandoned and malignant as proper circumstances Malice is implied because of abandoned Malignant Heart
• A conscious disregard a show an test towards generally human value with intent to another - Its about specific conduct towards human to those life and it can overlap w/ evidence, brushing off, not calling 911.

Implied Malice and Abandoned and Malignant Standards

• Formulations of Depraved Heart Murder as utter callousness toward the value of human life combined with complete and total indifference reflecting wickndess and cruelty in action Examples the dangerous action opening line for the purpose and lack values to others and society

MPC: Murder and Manslaughter

• Common Law vs Model Penal Code:
  • MPC builds off Common Law murder and Manslaughter, adding mental states and another crime: " Negligent-Homicide" Remember Prupulsory, Knowledgeab, reckless,Negliegnetly Article 210, 1 Homicide (10), 60) (1)A person is guilty w crimnal homidice if he Purplsely, K, R, Ng (2) Criman L Homidice is MR Nh
• Under the Model Penal Code: Section 20.2m Murder (1) Criminal homidice constitutes murder (a) it is committed purpose or knowledge, and (d) it is committed recklessly

MPC Notes Cont.

• MPC: Murder and Manslaughter

  • Section 20. 3 Manslaughter (1) Criminal homidice consitues Manslawher

       (a) it is committed reckless,
    

(d) it is committed a homidce, otherwise under the intfluence with reason or excuses Section 20.4 Negligent Homicide(1) -Crimnal contistue with

Distinguishing Between Intentional and Reckless

• To Distinguish (a) to the value between reckless (b) (3s) Reckless Mansluahter -Question of Degree of Juries
• Jury Instruction That can can fairly assimilated too Knowledge or purpose should be punished with to punishaed -S.o what happens too cause Malice Bodily
  • For the like of jurt to jury reckless and manslaughter.

MPC Recklessness

• But Reckless Manslaughter Vs Ngly differ in kid Not Digree Ngli Homie the risk
• Keeping in Mine the defination (of)
• Ngliyly The shoudl be mindfu substand the will sub of act
• Rekless: Conisous sub and and unjustifable risk w element exis

Negligent Homicide

• Case Study:State v. Williams
• Facts: husband and wife taking good care of son -17 months. Noticed child Was ill w th tooth ache and didntt know how sick the were. Gave to help -feared welfare- doc, but thought would. Chils dies with seconding to toot, and could eat for week, and say infection last more the 45 and had the affection to victoms