Tweet
For an action to be murder, it has to be:
- Killing somebody with the intention of doing so
- An attempt to cause grievous bodily harm or death to any person that results in the death of any person. This doesn't include attempts at actual bodily harm or wounding.
- Knowing that an action carries with it a reasonable chance of causing grievous bodily harm or death to a person, but doing it anyway - even if you have no intention of hurting any person and would rather nobody did get hurt.
- In many common law jurisdictions, there is "felony murder" with strict liability as murder for any act that kills someone while you're in the process of carrying out a crime that carries a maximum penalty of (eg) 25 years or more. No mens rea required.
It's also possible for them to be reduced to voluntary manslaughter. By the way, this is only regarding common law jurisdictions - I have no idea about how it all works in civil law systems.
So if you intentionally shot somebody in the leg, and they later died, that's murder since a non-fatal leg shot (what you had mens rea for) is almost certainly GBH and not wounding.
- Killing somebody with the intention of doing so
- An attempt to cause grievous bodily harm or death to any person that results in the death of any person. This doesn't include attempts at actual bodily harm or wounding.
- Knowing that an action carries with it a reasonable chance of causing grievous bodily harm or death to a person, but doing it anyway - even if you have no intention of hurting any person and would rather nobody did get hurt.
- In many common law jurisdictions, there is "felony murder" with strict liability as murder for any act that kills someone while you're in the process of carrying out a crime that carries a maximum penalty of (eg) 25 years or more. No mens rea required.
It's also possible for them to be reduced to voluntary manslaughter. By the way, this is only regarding common law jurisdictions - I have no idea about how it all works in civil law systems.
So if you intentionally shot somebody in the leg, and they later died, that's murder since a non-fatal leg shot (what you had mens rea for) is almost certainly GBH and not wounding.
.
Comment