Ordinarily, the terms murder and homicide are used interchangeably, yet in a courtroom in California, this belief may be costly. Although all murders qualify as homicides, not all homicides qualify as crimes.

In California, homicide is a broad medical and legal term that is used to refer to any human-caused incident whereby one human being kills another. This includes deaths resulting from accidents, lawful self-defense, or other legally justified acts, or a person acting in justifiable self-defense. Murder is, however, a criminal subset of homicide. It is defined under Penal Code 187 and involves a crucial element, malice aforethought.

Intent, premeditation, and the circumstances under which a person commits a death determine whether one commits a justifiable homicide or first-degree murder. Understanding this distinction is not just a matter of semantics. It is the line between walking free and facing life in prison, and we explain it below.

What is Homicide?

The word homicide is a neutral classification used in law and forensic medicine, which entails any case of a human being killing another. This is more of a broad umbrella, rather than a synonym for murder, to initiate investigations and classify the mode of death, without necessarily assigning criminal liability. By classifying a death as a homicide, authorities acknowledge that human hands took the life, and further investigation is required into the intention and circumstances during the event.

This investigation separates the umbrella into two different paths:

  • Criminal homicide
  • Non-criminal homicide

Criminal Homicide

Criminal homicide occurs when a person commits an act of killing that contravenes the law. The criminality of the charge is mainly determined by the state of mind of the person who committed the crime.

The serious subset is murder. It involves malice aforethought, or a special intent to kill, or a reckless disregard for human life. Manslaughter, on the other hand, covers illegal killings which do not involve this intended malice. They include death as a consequence of a sudden heat of passion or extreme negligence, like reckless driving resulting in death.

Non-Criminal Homicide

The criminal route is concerned with punishment, whereas the non-criminal route is aware that there are cases of killing that are legal in the eyes of the law. Justifiable homicide happens when the law specially allows or orders the killing of a life under specific directives.

For example, a soldier who is in a legitimate war kills enemy troops as a personal obligation. Although this is a homicide, the state-sanctioned nature of the conflict ensures it is not a crime. The same can be applied to law enforcement officers who can use lethal force to stop an instant loss of innocent lives because it is a necessity pursuant to their legal duties and not a felony.

Outside the state-sanctioned acts, the legal system also takes into consideration the excusable homicides, whereby death is a plausible danger. These cases typically involve self-defense, where the person uses force to counter a credible threat of death or serious harm. Self-defense, as opposed to the duty of the soldier, is the result of the necessity to defend himself/herself and not of state command. Injuries that take place in the course of legal actions, like the death of a participant in an approved sporting event, also qualify as such. Furthermore, the participant must have taken reasonable precautions and observed safety measures.

These differences demonstrate that the legal gravity of a murder is purely dependent on the circumstances of the offense. The law, through the intent, duty, and necessity layers, can ensure that the broad umbrella of homicide does not wrongly punish persons of tragedies or approved acts.

What is Murder?

Penal Code 187(a) describes murder as the unlawful killing of a human being, or a human being or a fetus, as defined by statute, with malice aforethought. This legal definition forms the basis of the most serious accusations against the criminal justice system. As opposed to the general classification of homicide, which simply signifies the killing of another, a murder charge specifies explicitly that the act must be not only unlawful. This means it is not justified by the law like in the case of self-defense, but also must be carried out with a specific state of mind called malice.

As the defendant, for you to be convicted on murder charges, prosecutors must prove several distinct elements beyond a reasonable doubt, namely:

  • You should have committed the act that led to the death of another person or fetus
  • This act should have been done with malice aforethought
  • The murder should have been done without any legal reason or justification

Although the actual taking of life is quite evident in many cases, the legal fight is usually based on the second factor, your internal intent at the time of the act.

Malice aforethought is the key distinction that separates murder and other lesser homicides. In law, malice does not always mean being hateful, vindictive, or malicious to the victim, but a particular degree of intent or a state of mind about the value of human lives. The law recognises two types of malice:

  • Express
  • Implied

They are both adequate to meet the standards of PC 187, albeit explaining various approaches a defendant could use in the act of killing.

Express malice entails the intentional presence of the defendant to deprive another creature of its life. It is commonly linked to some intentional or willful actions in which killing the victim is the final intent of the action taken. On the other hand, the implied malice takes place where there is no considerable provocation, or the surrounding facts surrounding the killing indicate an “abandoned and malignant heart”. Implied malice is both intentional acts, the natural consequences of which are perilous, carried out by the actor, which are known to be dangerous to the life of another, but voluntarily carried out by the defendant in full awareness of the hazard.

The final determination of a murder is based on the co-existence of an illegal act and the existence of malice. When an individual murders another, but lacks malice, for example, killing in the heat of passion, then the offense can be downgraded to manslaughter. When the killing is lawful, like an officer who has justifiably fired, then it is not a crime at all. Therefore, Penal Code 187 penalizes only those murders where the offender was acting within a particular, unlawful state of mind that society deems most reprehensible.

The Classification of Murder (First Degree vs. Second Degree Murder)

The California statute differentiates between the degrees of murder on the grounds of the level of planning and the methods which are applied to commit the crime. Murder falls into two categories:

  • First-degree murder
  • Second-degree murder

First-Degree Murder

First-degree murder includes those that are willful, deliberate, and premeditated. To achieve this, the perpetrator should have considered the repercussions and decided to kill before committing the act. Furthermore, some ways of killing, including using deadly apparatus, explosives, destructive devices or weapons listed by statute, or poison, automatically place a killing in the first degree. This is so because the means used have the inherent effect of showing a calculated intent to kill many people, or to kill without reasonable alternatives.

The first-degree murder classification also extends to the “Felony Murder Rule” that covers the occurrence of death in the course of committing a particularly dangerous felony. In this doctrine, when an individual causes a death while attempting to commit a grave offense, like robbery, rape, carjacking, or arson, he/she can be accused of first-degree murder despite the fact he/she had no particular intent to kill the victim. This rule is a legal policy aimed at discouraging people from committing inherently violent crimes due to its strict liability in cases in which people lose their lives.

Second-Degree Murder

Where an illegal homicide includes malice but does not include either the intent of premeditation, or the presence of a qualifying dangerous felony, the crime is classified as second-degree murder. This category is usually used to describe intentional murder that happens in the spur of the moment and is not planned.

For example, an individual who suddenly decides to kill someone during a verbal altercation, acting with an intent to kill but without a period of reflection, commits second-degree murder. This level also includes the acts that reflect the implied malice where the individual acts with a conscious disregard for human life, even if the main intention was not necessarily to cause death.

The inherent distinction between the two degrees lies in the time and quality of your thinking. Although both types of degrees necessitate an element of mental state of malice, first-degree murder requires a cold and calculated method of making a decision. In contrast, second-degree murder is usually hot or impulsive. The charge may still be further lowered to manslaughter in case the killing is provoked by a situation that would cause a reasonable person to lose his/her control. However, in the absence of this legal impetus, an intentional, but unplanned murder is a second-degree murder.

These categories have considerable consequences for sentencing and the long-term legal implications for you, the accused. The justice system uses a tiered punishment strategy that reflects the perceived moral culpability of the perpetrator.

First-degree murder is the most strictly punished crime, as its punishment is either life imprisonment with or without parole or the death penalty. Second-degree murder is more lenient in the sentencing options. This hierarchy enables the law to consider the specifics of human behavior and the levels of intent in lethal confrontations.

What is Manslaughter?

Manslaughter is a particular type of criminal homicide which does not have the malice aforethought element to make a conviction of murder. Although both murder and manslaughter are crimes that involve the unlawful killing of a human being, the legal system acknowledges that there are situations or states of mind that will lower the moral blame of a culprit. Since the element of malice is what makes murder, the absence of it, whether caused by overwhelming provocation or the absence of intent to murder, makes the given behavior legally manslaughter as per the related Laws in the California Penal Code section 187, specifically PC 192.

Voluntary Manslaughter

Voluntary manslaughter under PC 192(a) happens when a person intentionally kills another, but in the process does so under conditions that make the crime less serious. This typically involves a "heat of passion" or a "sudden quarrel," where a provocation is so extreme that it would cause a reasonable person to act emotionally rather than rationally.

Another common application is imperfect self-defense. This occurs when a person commits homicide because he/she has an honest but not reasonable belief that he/she is in immediate danger. The law in these cases recognizes the motive to kill but eliminates the aspect of malice since the decision-making process was undermined by real fear or loss of emotion.

Involuntary Manslaughter

Unlike voluntary acts, PC 192(b) voluntary manslaughter entails murders where no individual intended to kill anybody at all. The charge is used in instances where a death is caused through:

  • An illegal act that is not equivalent to a felony
  • A legal act that is done in an unlawful manner, or without reasonable care

Criminal negligence is the standard that is applied in involuntary manslaughter cases. Criminal negligence refers to an act that is so careless that it results in a high risk of death or great bodily injury.

Involuntary manslaughter, unlike murder, involves a failure to perceive a substantial risk. However, instead, it is directed towards the inability to identify a risk that an ordinary person would have been aware of.

Vehicular Manslaughter

Vehicular manslaughter is a special form of this crime that deals with all kinds of death resulting from the use of a motor vehicle. This classification often bridges the gap between negligence and recklessness, depending on whether the driver was under the influence of alcohol or simply violating traffic laws. Because vehicles are inherently dangerous instruments, the legal system applies specific scrutiny to these incidents. They often determine the severity of the charge based on the level of "gross negligence" displayed by the driver at the time of the collision.

Manslaughter is the legal grey area between unintended death and premeditated murder. It establishes that although all murders are homicides, it is not a murder since the offender did not commit it with an abandoned and malignant heart. These categorized levels of classification enable the justice system to rightly punish unlawful killings based on the nuance of human behavior. This is to ensure that there is a commensurate punishment for an impulsive response to a life-changing provocation or a tragic failure of judgment.

When is Killing Legal?

When a scenario arises involving loss of life, the legal system distinguishes between a crime and a reasonable act, based on the motive and the need to do so. Justifiable homicide comes about when you confess that you have killed someone but show that you are working within the law. Instead of thinking of you as an offender, California Penal Code 197 acknowledges you as a person who was engaged in the severe conditions that the state considers legal. This shifts the legal focus from the act of killing to the specific conditions that forced your hand.

Self Defence and the Castle Doctrine

You have a fundamental legal right to protect your life by the use of lethal force on the reasonable belief that you are under a lawful sporting activity conducted with reasonable safety precautions. This protection applies when you are within your home. It gives rise to a legal inference that you have a reasonable fear of serious bodily injury should an intruder forcefully enter your home.

To have your actions be justifiable, you have to prove that your fear was objectively reasonable, that is, someone in your specific position would have responded in the same way. However, the force that was employed should be equal to the threat.

State Authority and Legal Mandates

The law also accepts the fact that you might be obliged to kill in case you are acting as an agent of the state in an official role. When you are a commissioned official executing a legal death warrant or a peace officer compelled to employ lethal force, you would be covered under the umbrella of state-approved justifiable homicide.

In these professional situations, you have to comply with the standard of the objectively reasonable. You must have used lethal force because you believed it necessary to protect yourself or the population against immediate and life-threatening harm.

Excusable Homicide

On one hand, you can use force in self-defense purposefully, but on the other hand, you can be present in a situation where a death is a mere accident. This could be due to excusable homicide, as per Penal Code Section 195. This statute protects you when you are involved in a legal activity, and you took due care, but unfortunately, a death resulted.

For example, when you are driving directly and abiding by all the traffic rules, when a pedestrian unexpectedly creates an unavoidable collision, the law excuses your involvement since you did not intend to commit a criminal act, nor were you negligent.

Find a Criminal Defense Attorney Near Me

Knowing the difference between homicide and murder is not merely a semantic exercise but a critical legal distinction between a warranted action and a tragic accident, and a substantial felony conviction. Although homicide (killing one human being by another) is the general term used to describe any killing, murder is a particular crime charge, which is defined as malice aforethought.

These complexities cannot be solved with a dictionary alone. A complex legal approach is required. You can not entrust your future to fate in case you or a loved one is facing these serious charges. Call The LA Criminal Defense Law Firm to get an aggressive and strategic defense. Contact us today at 310-935-1675 for a confidential consultation.