User:-sche/murder

from the entry "murder"

1. (uncountable, law) The crime of deliberate killing.

   The defendant was charged with murder.

   1. (under Canadian law) The killing (culpable homicide) of a person with intent to cause death or bodily harm which is reckless and likely to cause death, or by doing for an unlawful object any thing which (as the person knows) is likely to cause death, or by committing any act — intending to cause bodily harm and to facilitate the commission of or flight after another offence, or by administering a stupefying or overpowering thing, or by stopping a person's breathing — while committing treason, sabotage, piracy, hijacking of an aircraft, escape from a prison or lawful custody, assault on a peace officer, sexual assault, kidnapping and forcible confinement, hostage taking, robbery, breaking and entering or arson. [since 1985]
   2. (under UK law) The unlawful intentional killing, by a person of sound mind, of another person (or reasonable creature), committed under the Queen's (or King's) peace.
   3. (under US law) The unlawful intentional killing of another person (sometimes including the killing of a fetus).
      1. (under California law) The unlawful intentional killing of a human being or a fetus.
      2. (under Maine law) The intentional causing of the death of another person, including by engaging in conduct which shows depraved indifference to the value of human life, or the inducement of another person to commit suicide, while not under the influence of extreme anger or fear caused by adequate provocation.
   4. (under US law) The crime of capital murder or first- or second-degree murder, or (sometimes) of other death-causing acts.
      1. (under New Hampshire law) The crime of capital murder or first- or second-degree murder.
      2. (under Washington law) The crime of first- or second-degree murder. [since circa 1975]
      3. (under Alaska law) The crime of first- or second-degree murder, or of causing the death of an unborn child. [since circa 1978]
   5. (under German law) The killing — either committed out of a desire to kill, to satisfy sexual urges, out of greed or for other base reasons, or committed in a perfidious or savage way or in a way that endangers others, or committed to make possible or to cover up another crime — of a person. [ante 1871 to the present]
      • 1996, Tina Rosenberg, The Haunted Land: Facing Europe's Ghosts After Communism →ISBN, page 335:

        On October 26, 1993, Mielke was found guilty of murder and sentenced to six years in prison. Trying Mielke for the 1931 murders had not been the prosecutors' original idea.

      • 2008, Lavinia Stan, Transitional Justice in Eastern Europe and the Former Soviet Union →ISBN, page 26:

        On 26 October 1993, the Berlin Regional Court sentenced the 85-year-old Erich Mielke, leader of East Germany's Ministry for State Security from 1957 to 1989, to six years in prison for murder in two cases.

      • 2012, Brian Righi, Vampires Through the Ages →ISBN:

        The trial that followed became a sensation across Germany, and on December 19, 1924, Fritz Haarmann was convicted of twenty-four separate counts of murder and sentenced to death.

from the entry "first-degree murder"

1. (countable, law) An act of murder which is premeditated with malice aforethought.
2. (uncountable, law) The crime of murder which is premeditated with malice aforethought
   1. (Alaska, law) The intentional causing, by a person, of the death of another person, including the inducement of the other person to commit suicide; or, when the other person is a child under 16, the infliction with criminal negligence of serious physical injury on the child by at least two separate acts, one of which results in the death; or, the taking of an action during the actual or attempted commission of, or flight following actual or attempted commission of, criminal mischief or terroristic threatening, which results in the death of a person who was not participating in the criminal mischief. [since circa 1978]
   2. (Washington, law) The causing of the death of a person with premeditated intent or by engaging, under circumstances manifesting an extreme indifference to human life, in conduct which creates grave risk of death, or the causing of the death of a non-participant during the actual or attempted commission of or flight following the actual or attempted commission of robbery, rape, burglary, arson, or kidnapping. [since circa 1975]
   3. (under Vermont law) Murder committed by poison, ambush, or wilful, deliberate and premeditated killing, or committed during the actual or attempted commission of arson, sexual assault, robbery, or burglary.

from the entry "capital murder"

1. An act of murder of a particular quality.
2. (law) The crime of murder of a particular quality.
   1. (under New Hampshire law) The crime of (while over 18) knowingly causing the death of an law enforcement or judicial officer in the line of duty; or of another person (not including a fetus) before, after or during actual or attempted commission of kidnapping, sexual assault, burglary or certain other offenses, or after being sentenced to life imprisonment without parole, or by criminally soliciting a third person to cause the death or as a result of having been solicited by a third person.

Legal senses of "murder"

1. (New South Wales, law) The causing by a person of the death of a person, by — with reckless indifference to human life or with intent to kill or inflict grievous bodily harm, or in an attempt to commit or during or immediately after the commission if a crime — acting or failing to act. [since 1900]

1. (Austria, law) The deliberate killing by a person of another person. [since at least 1975]

1. (in Swiss law) The unscrupulous, deliberate killing by a person — for a reason, in a way, or with an aim that is especially reprehensible — of another person. [since at least 1990]

1. (France, law) The killing, committed with premeditation or by ambush, of another person.

1. (Italy, law) The causing, by acting or failing to act, of the death of a person.

Senses to verify

1. (Finland, law) The killing of a public official engaged in the enforcement of a law, or of another person in a way that is deliberate or is exceptionally brutal or cruel or significantly endangers public safety.

Additional quotations

Germany (Mannheim), 1820

• 2008, Karl-Ludwig Sand: From Celebrated Crimes, page 60:

  […] justice at Mannheim and the further consultations of the court of justice which declare the accused, Karl Sand of Wonsiedel, guilty of murder, […]

Switzerland, 1960

• 1960, Time, volume 75, page 22:

  Last week Jaccoud was taken into court in a hospital chair to stand trial for the murder of Charles Zumbach.

• 1960, Newsweek, volume 55 (issues 1-9), page 134:

  For Jaccoud was no longer practicing law now but standing trial for murder.

Notes

Danish law does not distinguish a crime of murder from the crime of manslaughter.