How the law sorts one act into murder, manslaughter or no crime at all
Legally, homicide means only that one person caused another's death, whether by an act or a failure to act. No intent is required, so an accident can qualify. What happens next depends on the killer's state of mind, a distinction some trace to the Athenian lawmaker Draco in the seventh century BC.
Criminal homicide splits into murder and manslaughter according to intent. Murder, the gravest charge, usually comes in two degrees: first degree is intentional and premeditated, second degree intentional but unplanned. In the United States the felony murder rule can make someone guilty of murder if a death results from a dangerous crime they commit, even without intending it. Some legal systems also recognise preterintentional killing, where an act meant only to hurt causes death.
Manslaughter carries lighter penalties. Voluntary manslaughter is an intentional but unplanned killing in the heat of passion or a disturbed state of mind. Involuntary manslaughter involves recklessness or foreseeable negligence, even when the underlying act, like a push in anger, was deliberate. Certain jurisdictions add constructive manslaughter for deaths caused by breaking an important safety law.
Other homicides are no crime at all or carry defences. Self-defence, including defending others, is widely recognised. A defendant may argue that mental disorder removes criminal responsibility, and young children fall below the age of criminal responsibility, though older minors accused of homicide are sometimes tried as adults. Killing enemy combatants in lawful war counts as justifiable, as does lethal force by police protecting lives.
Globally, the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime estimated 468,000 homicides in 2010 and 437,000 in 2012, when the world average rate was 6.2 per 100,000 people. In 2010 men made up 82 percent of victims. Southern Africa and Central America ran at about four times the world rate, while Western and Northern Europe, Oceania and much of Asia were lowest. Only 43 percent of intentional homicides led to a conviction in 2012. A 2019 report found about 464,000 people died by homicide in 2017, far above the 89,000 killed in armed conflicts that year, and the agency links high rates to inequality, low human development and weak rule of law.
Source: Homicide
