Malice Aforethought
Bouvier's Law Dictionary and Concise Encyclopedia · John Bouvier; revised by Francis Rawle · 1914
Bouvier's Law Dictionary and Concise Encyclopedia
A technical phrase employed in indictments, which with the word murder must be used to distinguish the felonious killing called murder from what is called manslaughter.
Yelv. 2(X); 1 Chitty, Cr. L. 242; 1 Bish. Cr. L. § 429.
In the description of murder the words do not imply deliberation, or the lapse of considerable time between the malicious intent to take life and the actual execution of that intent, but rather denote purpose and design in contradistinction to accident and mischance; Com. v. Webster, 5 Cush. (Mass.) 300, 52 Am. Dec. 711; and the intent necessary to constitute malice aforethought need not have existed for any particular time before the act of killing, but it may spring up at the instant and may be inferred from the fact of killing; Allen V. U. 8., 104 U. 8.
492, 17 8up. Ct. 154.
41 L. Ed. 528; but premeditation may be an element showing malice when otherwise it would not sufliciently appear; 2 Bish. Cr. L. 8 677.
See 8 C. & P. 616; U. S. v. Cornell, 2 Mas. 60, Fed. Cas. No. 14,867; 1 D. & B.