Produce evidence of premeditation and it is murder. Doesn’t matter if the perpetrator is a police officer on duty, if you can demonstrate malice aforthought, you can get murder charges to stick.
This is, of course, putting aside matters of corruption, tampering with evidence, et cetera, as in any case where you can produce evidence of premeditiation, these are moot points.
Murder comes from a root meaning death not deliberate unlawful killing of those protected by the law by those subject to the law, anyway.
Are you using the singular or plural “you”?
If a civilian causes the death of an innocent person during the commission of a crime then they’re often charged with murder even if that death was unintentional. I don’t think it’s a stretch to say the incompetence and malice on display in this raid enters the realm of criminal.
You’ve supplied an incomparable scenario.
The police are permitted to forcibly enter the homes they raid, as they are doing so in the course of their duties. Private citizens are not, except perhaps in extreme circumstances (which I admit to having little firm legal knowledge of), and hence your example of breaking into a home is not analagous.
Perhaps if the private citizen had reason to believe a felony was in commission? Say they hear screaming coming from a home, see evidence which suggests a break in, and believe that someone is being attacked in a home invasion of some sort. I believe (if I am not mistaken) that such a situation typically constitutes a scenario in which a private citizen is allowed to enter someone else’s home without permission.
The exact situation of course isn’t important - what is important is that the armed private citizen entering the home which is not their own is, for whatever reason, legally allowed to do so. Then things can be compared.
So you’re investigating what you believe to be a felony, and once inside the house someone draws a gun on you. You fire, lethally wounding them. Turns out you killed the homeowner, who believed you were a robber or something of the sort. You were mistaken about the felony in progress - it was a loud television playing a horror movie, or whatever.
Murder? No. You lacked “malice aforethought”. You didn’t premeditate a killing - you reacted in self defence, to a situation encountered in the course of investigating an apparent felony, with a motive of engaging in the defense of others and stopping the commission of an apparent felony.
I think you’ve confused first degree murder with…murder in general. Negligent homicide would seem to fit the bill here. Voluntary manslaughter as well. But this isn’t a court, and we don’t need to split hairs: it’s an unjust and willful killing. We can call it murder.
Yes, this is called felony murder.
Police officers raiding a home are not committing a felony, however, as they are legally empowered to enter the home. It’s not comparable.
Can we at least agree to call it murder in the moral sense?
I’d be surprised to discover that the Keystones can forcibly enter any house whenever they want, and have no culpability for anything that happens. Is that really what you’re trying to argue here?
They killed someone doing something they never should have been doing. Meets the standard for 2nd Degree, at least, in my mind.
I cannot agree to that, as I base my morals on logic and agreed upon definitions.
You can be outraged at the situation, and well you should be in my view, but that isn’t an excuse for ignoring the truth and twisting meaning and circumstance to suit your anger. The truth is bad enough without you needing to dress it up and twist it around for no good reason.
Much like the secret police in, say, Egypt, are permitted to execute dissidents without trial, so, in such a country them doing that is clearly not, legally, murder, but that doesn’t mean that we should refrain from referring to is as state-sponsored murder.
oh allooow me:
homicide
/hɒmɪsʌɪd/
noun North American
noun: homicide; plural noun: homicides
the killing of one person by another.
murderˈ
/məːdə/
noun: murder; plural noun: murders
the unlawful premeditated killing of one human being by another.
verb: murder; 3rd person present: murders; past tense: murdered; past participle: murdered; gerund or present participle: murdering
kill (someone) unlawfully and with premeditation.
edit: see I put ‘There I Fixed That For You’, I was just trying to add a dramatic flair!
They are doing it wrong.
As Emerson said, ‘a foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines.’ You can base your morals on whatever you choose, but don’t expect raucous applause for your slavish adherence to conformity and consistency.
Dude broke into someone’s house because of false evidence, expected trouble, got it, killed homeowner WHO’D DONE NOTHING WRONG. Really, what else do you need to know? How is that not ‘a killing caused by dangerous conduct and the offender’s obvious lack of concern for human life’?
…in your opinion.
Legally, they had every right to enter that house. A valid warrant was issued. If you find fault with the issuance of the warrant (and I certainly do personally), that’s still a completely different matter.
It isn’t felony murder unless you are committing a felony.
If someone draws a gun on you while you’re jaywalking, and you shoot them in self defence, you aren’t a murderer. You shouldn’t have been jaywalking, certainly, but that means nothing.
Well, first off, accepted by who? This seems to be a clear case where the definition accepted by lawyers is very different from that in general use.
Second, and more importantly morality has very little to do with logic, for you or me or anyone else. Moral judgements are never of the type where we can say empirically that something isn’t true, they all arise from people’s personal, emotional gut feelings about what is wrong, and, in many cases, people’s gut reactions about right and wrong can be very different. If someone disagrees with me about a fundamental matter of morality, I can’t say that he’s objectively wrong and I’m right, I can only say that he’s my enemy.
Please Please Please!
Can’t we spare a little thought for the real victim here.
The usage of proper terminology.
Even if it’s proven they were technically culpable due to gross negligence we still should be sure not to use the term ‘murder’ until they are found guilty and have exhausted their options to appeal the verdict.
I meant it as addressing people who complain about police and government, without doing anything directly to change the situation.
Why do YOU, ChuckV, not see it happening?
In my opinion? An innocent man is dead, and you think whether that’s ok is a matter of opinion.
felony murder
Move the goalposts, much?
This is just disgusting and an affront to my personal feelings which are much upset at the flagrant, nay, totalitarian attack on nomenclature.
Your evil and persecutory bastardisation of the specific meaning of words is fascist and controlling!
You should be ashamed of yourselves. Ashamed!
I assure you that you do not, nor does anyone else who makes that claim. As a practical matter, it is impossible. Ask a moral philosopher or ethicist about it sometime.
