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Homicide, murder, and manslaughter all describe killings. Homicide is the umbrella term that includes any sort of killing of human beings, both legal and illegal. Murder is the crime of intentionally killing, whereas manslaughter is the crime of killing committed by a person who did not intend to kill, or cannot be held responsible for his or her actions.
murder
homicide
manslaughter
More information on the words discussed in the video, including sound files, examples of usage, common mistakes and encyclopaedic information, can be found in TransLegal's Legal English Dictionary.
Hi, I'm Robin, welcome to TransLegal's lesson of the week. Today I'm going to try to kill the confusion between the similar words homicide, murder and manslaughter.
We'll start with homicide which as you see is the umbrella term for these other kinds of killings. Homicide only means killing. It describes various different killings, whether they are illegal or not.
You're probably familiar with some of the words that end in cide, like suicide killing yourself, patricide killing your father like the mythical Oedipus did, and infanticide which means killing small infants. Often homicide is committed in a completely legal way, for instance the State of Texas which has a death penalty. When they carry out this death penalty it is a homicide although it is completely in accordance with the law.
So let's start with the first crime here which is murder. Murder is always intentional and the kind of intention which is required by the law is called malice aforethought in legalese. It is the most serious of all of the killing crimes and there are several levels of murder. First there is murder in the first degree and that is committed when you kill a police officer or you commit the killing in an extremely cruel way where there's a lot of torture involved. Murder in the first degree can be punished by the death penalty in the states where they have that, otherwise by long, long prison sentences. Then we have murder in the second degree and that's just sort of the normal degree of killing. When you've just killed somebody but not in a terribly terrible way. And that has a lighter punishment. Usually you don't receive the death penalty for that and you don't have to spend your entire life in prison.
Then we come to manslaughter which is a lesser killing crime. To commit manslaughter you usually need an intent but not an intent to kill. So for instance, you can just intend to cause somebody physical harm. Let's say you stab them intending just to hurt them but they happen to die. You will be convicted of manslaughter. Similarly, if you have a reckless state of mind. For instance, you have a gun, you shoot it into a crowd, not really aiming at anybody, but the bullet hits somebody and that person happens to die. You can be convicted of manslaughter for that reckless act. There are also several fairly new kinds of crimes that are considered to be manslaughter, for instance vehicular manslaughter which occurs when you drive drunk and hit somebody and that person dies. You'd never had the intent to kill or to hurt anybody, but that just happened. You can be convicted of vehicular manslaughter. Similarly, assisted suicide when you are helping somebody to kill themselves. That is sometimes punished as manslaughter.
So, anyway, I hope that I've managed to kill some of the confusion and that you're not completely dead after listening to this. So if you have any questions please feel free to put them in the comments section. We'd love to have your feedback. We'll get back to you as soon as possible. Thanks.
Thanks alot for this wonderful video tape
i found the lesson very benefitial . thanks alot to translegal.com
Thank you very much!!! Excellent explanation!!!!!
Excellent video about homicides, very clear. Good idea to include transcript .
Many thanks.
Excellent video. I’ve memorized more of it than reading the same content.
Thanks! Very informative and beneficial.
Illustrations needed such as film segments.thanks
Interesting, useful and I agree the transcription is a good idea. Thanks.
Why is it you are awaiting moderation? don´t understand
Ana, That’s simply an automated response to let you know that your comment will be approved once it has been reviewed and determined not to contain spam.
Thank you,
your explanation is absolutely superb
Gian Pietro
Can you give practical examples such as the names of important people in history?
e.g: How would you classify Hitler?
What sorts of examples do you have in mind, Marta? Historic figures who would be deemed murderers, etc.?
TransLegal & Co!
Lovely lesson, lovely explained. I have a lot to learn…
Thank you.
Best regards
Charlotte
Thanks, Charlotte! Stop by for a visit.
Well! It was very interesting your explanation, my name is Ingrid and I´m a lawyer, I live in Bolivia and now I´m a english student, for this moment my level is intermediate but I would like to learn legal terms but now I have a question for you is not specific to this topic. Do you think that I can learn legal terms with my level? or I need to finish my course and get a good level?
Thanks for your help.
Ingrid
That’s difficult to tell in the abstract, Ingrid. You can try one of our online tests to determine your current level: http://www.translegal.com/testing
Alternatively, you can enroll in PLEAD (http://www.translegal.com/online-courses/plead) or the basic Legal English 500 course (http://www.translegal.com/online-courses/legal-english-500) before deciding whether to move on to the courses directed to specific subject matters.
Please let us know if you have any questions.
Yes, that’s it Peter!!!. Historic names well known of course….
Tks!
Marta, check out Wikipedia’s entry for murder and also allserialkillers.com.
Thanks to reply me and for your advice. I think that your help is very important in my professional life. Thanks again<
OK
Thank you very much. I have more questions relating to homicide. Could you please give me some explanation.
1. Are there any different meaning between mass murder and serial killing?
2. Does homicide include killing as self-defense and euthanasia?
Thanks for your questions, Hoa. A mass murder is when many people are murdered at once. A serial killing is when the same killer kills several different people at different times and has some sort of modus operandi (pattern). Homicide is a broad term, meaning the killing of a person, that includes self-defence and euthanasia. The killing may be justifiable or excusable and therefore not criminally punishable, but it is still considered to be homicide. I hopes this answers your questions.
Your explanation is quite useful. Thank you once again!
thanks a lot, I think that this website is more useful. thank you once again
Thaks for this great explanation!
and my question to you:
Do you think that assisted suicide shold be classified as a manslaugter,or not?
Thanks for the question, Sergei. I’m afraid that is a complicated political and philosophical question and I don’t have a clear opinion. What I can tell you is that there are four jurisdictions that allow some sort of assisted suicide (also called euthanasia). They are Switzerland, Belgium, the Netherlands, and the US state of Oregon. In most cases, doctors must be involved.
Thank you for the GREAT tutorial!!!
I have a little question connected with the topic. Is there any difference between the terms “crime” and “offence”? Can you list some other offences against the Person or maybe talk about them in your future lessons?
The major difference between the words “crime” and “offence” (British English)/”offense” (American English) is that a crime is a more serious wrong than an offence. For instance, robbery is a crime, and parking your car illegally is an offence.
Thanks, Tsetsy, for your suggestion that I talk about more offences against the person. There is a lesson coming up soon about robbery, which is such an offence, comparing and contrasting it to burglary and larceny. So keep watching.
Thank you for the explanation. That is very helpful.
I will keep watching and asking.
Excellent demonstration of using a picture of an umbrella … keep it up, it makes it easier grasp the concept and the meaning
great explanation. thank you
I’m so glad that you appreciated this, Mira. Keep watching and listening; there are lots of good lessons coming up. If you are particularly interested in criminal law, check out the lesson about robbery, burglary, larceny and theft which is already posted.