Murder - Law Dictionary Search Results
Home Dictionary Name: murder Page: 3Patricide or Parricide
Patricide or Parricide, the murder, or murderer, of a father. As to the punishment of that offence by the Roman Law, see Sand. Just.; 4 Bl. Com. 202. Our laws, unlike the ancient laws, distinguish in no respect between parricide, killing a husband, wife, or master, and simple murder....
Manslaughter
Manslaughter, the unlawful killing of another without malice express or implied. It is either--(a) Voluntary, upon a sudden heat; or,(b) Involuntary, upon the commission of some other unlawful act, or by culpable negligence.Both are felony, and punished, at the discretion of the Court, by penal servitude for life, or not less than three yeas, or by a fine.--(English) Offences against the Person Act, 1861 (24 & 25 Vict. c. 100), s. 5.On the principle that any greater felony includes a less felony, a person indicted for murder may be convicted of manslaughter. See Steph. Dig., art. 272. See MURDER.A high degree of negligence is required before a charge of manslaughter can be established--the breach of a statutory duty causing death is not necessarily manslaughter, Andrews v. Director of Public Prosecutions, 1937 AC 576. See CHANCE...
Husband and wife
Husband and wife. the Common Law treated them, for most purposes, as one person, giving, with exceptions comparatively unimportant, the whole of a woman's property to her husband for his absolute use, and a husband could not make a grant to his wife at the Common Law, though he might do so: (1) under the Statute of Uses, by granting an estate to another person for her use; (2) by creating a trust in her favour; (3) by the custom of particular places; (4) by surrendering copyholds to her use; and (5) by will.Equity, however, from very early times, by the doctrines of 'separate use,' 'trusts,' and 'equity to a settlement,' very largely modified the Common Law in favour of the wife; and the statute law has, by s. 1 of the Law Reform (Married Women and Tortfeasors Act), 1935 (25 & 26 Geo. 5, c. 30), almost completely abolished the property distinction between an unmarried and a married woman. See MARRIED WOMEN'S PROPERTY.At Common Law, a gift of either realty or personal-ity to a husband a...
Forfeiture
Forfeiture, a penalty for an offence or unlawful act, or for some wilful omission of a tenant of property whereby he loses it, together with his title, which devolves upon others.Forfeiture resulted from the following circumstan-ces:--(1) Treason, misprision of treason, felony, murder, self-murder, pr'munire, and striking or threatening a judge. But the (English) Forfeiture Act, 1870 (33 & 34 Vict. c. 23), enacted that no conviction, etc., for treason or felony, or felo de se, shall cause any forfeiture except as consequent on outlawry. The Act also makes provision for the appointment by the Crown of administrators of the property of convicts.(2) Conveyance contrary to law, as transferring a freehold to an alien, who formerly could take lands but could not hold them; wherefore upon office found the Crown was entitled to the land. But the British Nationality and Status of Aliens Act, 1914 (substituted for the (English) Naturalization Act, 1870), subject to certain provisoes, enables ali...
Poison
Poison (poison, Fr.; fr. potio, Lat., a drink--applied originally to a medicated drink or draught].The administration of poison or other destructive thing, if done with intent to commit murder, is a felony, punishable with penal servitude for life, or any term not exceeding three years, or with imprisonment for any term not exceeding two years [(English) Offences against the Person Act, 1861, s. 11], and so is the attempt to administer with like intent, whether bodily injury be effected or not (s. 14).On a trial for murder of A, by poisoning, evidence of a subsequent poisoning of other persons is admissible against the prisoner, Reg. v. Geering, (1849) 18 LJMC 215; Rex v. Armstrong, (1922) 38 TLR 631; as also of antecedent poisoning, Reg. v. Garner, (1863) 3 F&F 681.Unlawful and malicious administering of poison so as to endanger life or to inflict grievous bodily harm is a felony, punishable by penal servitude up to ten years, or imprisonment; and such adminis-tration with intent to i...
Coverture
Coverture, the condition of a woman during marriage, because she was then presumed to be under the influence of her husband, so as to be excused from punishment for crimes committed in his presence, except treason, murder, and manslaughter [see Reg. v. Manning, (1849) 2 C&K 903]; but the presumption maybe rebutted [Reg. v. Torpey, (1871) 12 Cox CC 45]. The Criminal Justice Act, 1925 (c. 86), s. 47, abolishes this presumption of coercion by the husband, but on a charge for any offence other than treason or murder, it shall be a good defence to prove that the offence was committed in the presene of, and under the coercion of the husband. See further HUSBAND AND WIFE....
Burglary
Burglary [fr. burg, Sax., a house, and larron, a thief, fr. latro, Lat.]. At Common Law burglary is the breaking and entering of the dwelling-house of another in the night-time with intent to commit a felony therein. S. 25 of the (English) Larceny Act, 1916, provides that-Means the act of breaking and entering an inhabited structure (as a house) especially at night with intent to commit a felony (as murder or larcency), the act of entering or remaining unlawfully (as after closing to the public) in a building with intent to commit a crime (as a felony). The crime of burglary was originally defined under the common law to protect people, since there were other laws, Webster's Dictionary of Law, Indian Edn. (2005), p. 61.Burglary, is the common law offence of breaking and entering another's dwelling at night with the intent to commit a felony. The modern statutory offence of breaking and entering any building not just a dwelling and not only at night - with the intent to commit a felony....
Assassination
Assassination, murdering a person by lying in wait. In modern times the term is frequently applied to the open murder of great personages from political motives, as of the King of Italy by Brescia in 1900, and of the President of the United States of America by Czolgosz in 1901. The Offences against the (English) Person Act, 1861, s. 4, makes it a misdemeanour punishable by penal servitude for not more than ten years to solicit any person to murder any other person, whether a subject of the king or not, and whether within the king's dominions or not: and in Reg. v. Most, (1881) 7 QBD 244, this enactment was held by the Court for Crown Cases Reserved, constituted under the Crown Cases Act, 1948, to apply to the publication of a newspaper containing an article exulting over the assassination of the Emperor of Russia in 1881, and hoping that it was not the last....
Aberemurder
Aberemurder [fr. abere, apparent, notorious and mord, murder, Sax.], plain or downright murder, as distinguished from the less heinous crime of manslaughter or chance medley. It was declared a capital offence, without fine or commutation, by the laws of Canute, c. 93, and of Henry I. c. 13....
premeditation
premeditation : an act or instance of premeditating ;specif : consideration or planning of an act beforehand [designed so that it requires to tamper with it] [murder in the first degree is the killing of a human being committed…intentionally and with "Kansas Statutes Annotated"] see also cold blood, murder compare intent NOTE: The terms premeditation malice aforethought deliberate, and willful are often used in statutes either along with or instead of intent to describe the necessary mental state for a crime. In some jurisdictions the premeditation has to occur only moments before the act, while in others it must precede the act by an appreciable amount of time. ...
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