I was reading a news on BBC of a Canadian woman been convicted of killing her friend and
sentenced to seven years for manslaughter. I stopped at a word manslaughter. It
might be common for most of us but some of us might find difficult to find difference
between manslaughter, homicide and murder. So I thought to post the differences
of these terms.
HOMICIDE: Homicide is the killing of a
human being by another human being. The level of the homicide is legally
defined as a murder if the act was intentional. The term is derived from Latin
word Homo means "man" and cide from Latin cida which refers to
"killing a man". Some homicides are legal such as a justifiable
killing of a suspect by the police or a killing in self defense but unlawful
homicides are classified as crimes like murder and manslaughter.
MURDER: Murder is the deliberate and
unlawful killing of a human being. The unlawful killing of another human being
without justification or excuse. First degree murder is the most serious
criminal homicide. First degree murder is both intentional and premeditated.
Premeditated is a long time plan to kill the victim.
MANSLAUGHTER: Manslaughter is unlawful
killing of a human being without the malicious intent or premeditation. There
are two categories of manslaughter: voluntary and involuntary.
Volunatry
manslaughter is the killing of a human being in which the offender had no
prior intent to kill and acted during the heat of passion, under
circumstances that would cause a reasonable person to become emotionally or
mentally disturbed to the point that they can't reasonably control their
emotions.
Involuntary manslaughter is defined as the unintentional death of
an individual as a result of another person's negligent actions. It means
killing someone and not realizing that actions could cause death. For instance,
charges of involunatry manslaughter often come in the wake of a deadly car
crash caused by a motorist under the influence of alcohol or other drugs.
I hope this helps you.
