Murder

The crime committed where a person of sound mind and discretion (that is, of sufficient age to form and execute a criminal design and not legally "insane") kills any human creature in being (excluding quick but unborn children) and in the peaco of the state or nation (including all persons except the military forces of the public enemy in time of war or battle) without any warrant, justification or excuse in law, with malice aforethought, express or implied, that ls, with a deliberate purpose or a design or determination distinctly formed in the .mind before the commission of the act, provided that death results from the injury inflicted within one year and a day after its infliction.

See Kilpatrick v. Com., 31 Pa. 198; Hotema v. U. S., 186 U. S. 413, 22 Sup. Ch 895, 46 L. Ed. 1225; Guiteau's Case (D. Ct) 10 Fed. 161; Clarke v. State, 117 Ala. 1, 23 South. 671, 67 Am. St. Rep. 157; Pcople v. Enoch, 13 Wend. (N. Y.) 167, 27 Am. Dec. 197; Kent v. People, 8 Colo. 563, 9 Pac. 852; Com. v. Webster, 5 Cush. (Mass.) 295, 52 Am. Dec. 711; Armstrong v. State, 30 Fla. 170, 11 South. 618, 17 L. R. A. 484 ; U. S. v. Lewis (C. C.) Ill Fed. 632; Nye v. People, 35 Mich. 16.

For the distinction between murder and manslaughter and other forms of homicide, see Homicide; Manslaughter.

Common-law definitions

The willful killing of any subject wbatever, with malice aforethought, whether the person slain shall be an Englishman or a foreigner. Hawk. P. C. b.

1, c. 13, § 3.

The killing of any person under the king's peace, with malice prepense or aforethought, either express, or implied by law.

1 Russ. Crimes, 421; Co.m. v. Webster, 5 Cush. (Mass.) 304, 52 Am. Dec. 711.

When a person of sound mind and discretion unlawfully killeth any reasonable creature in being, and under the king's peace, with malice aforethought, either express or implied.

3 Inst. 47.

Statutory definitions

Murder is the unlawful killing of a human being with malice aforethought Pen. Code Cal. § 187. Whoever kills any human being with malice aforethought, either express or implied, is guilty of murder. Rev. Code Iowa 1880, § 3848 Murder is the unlawful killing of a human being, in the peace of the state, by a person of sound memory and discretion, with malice aforethought, either express or implied.

Code Ga. 1882, § 4820.

The killing of a human being, without the authority of law, by any means, or in any manner, shall be murder in the following cases: When done with deliberate design to effect the death of the person killed, or of any human being; when done in the commission of an act eminently dangerous to others, and evincing a depraved heart, regardless of human life, although without any premeditated design to effect the death of any particular individual; when done without any design to effect death, by any person engaged in the commission of the crime of rape, burglary, arson, or robbery, or in any attempt to commit such felonies.

Rev. Code Miss. 1880, § 2875.

— Every homicide, perpetrated by poison, lying in wait, or any other kind of willful, deliberate, malicious, and premeditated killing;

— or committed in the perpetration of, or the attempt to perpetrate, any arson, rape, robbery, or burglary ;

— or perpetrated from a premeditated design unlawfully and maliciously to effect the death of any human being other than him who is killed;

— or perpetrated by any act greatly dangerous to the lives of others, and evidencing a depraved mind, regardless of human life, although without any preconceived purpose to deprive any particular person of life,—is murder in the first degree ; and every other homicide committed nnder such circumstances as would have constituted murder at common law is mnrder in the second degree.

Code Ain. 1886, § 3725.

Degrees of murder. These were unknown at common law, but have been introduced in many states by statutes, the terms of which are too variant to be here discussed in detail. In general, however, it may he said that most states only divide the crime into "murder in the first degree" and "murder in the second degree," though in a few there are as many as five degrees ; and that the general purport of these statutes is to confine murder in the first degree to homicide committed by poison, lying in wait, and other killings committed in pursuance of a deliberate and premeditated design, and to those which accompany the commission of some of the more atrocious felonies, such as burglary, arson, and rape; while murder in the second degree occurs where there is no such deliberately formed design to take life or to perpetrate one of the enumerated felonies as is required for the first degree, but where, nevertheless, there was a purpose to kill (or at least a purpose to inflict the particular injury without caring whether it caused death or not) formed instantaneously in the mind, and where the killing was without justification or excuse, and without any such provocation as wonid reduce the crime to the rade of manslaughter. In a few states, there is a crime of "murder in the third degree," which is defined as the killing of a human being without any design to effect death by a person who is engaged in the commission of a felony. The fourth and fifth degrees (in New Mexico) correspond to certain classifications of manslaughter elsewhere.