| • Science | • People | • Locations | • Timeline |
| Contents | ||
A difficult issue in defining murder is what counts as causing death. It is impossible to give a precise definition of this, but some legal principles have been developed to help. For example, many common law jurisdictions abide by the year and a day rule, which provides that one is to be held responsible for a person's death only if they die within a year and a day of the act. Thus, if you seriously injured someone, and they died from their injuries within a year and a day, you would be guilty of murder; but you would not be guilty if they died from their injuries after a year and a day had passed.
It is not murder to kill someone with lawful excuse; lawful excuses include killing enemy combatants in time of war (but not after they have surrendered), killing a person who poses an immediate threat to the lives of ones self or others (i.e., in self-defence), and executing a person in accordance with a sentence of death (in those jurisdictions which use capital punishment). Sometimes extreme provocation or duress can justify killing another as well. These cases of killing are called justifiable homicideA non-criminal homicide, usually committed in self-defense or in defense of another, may be called justifiable homicide in some cases. A homicide may be considered justified if it is done to prevent a very serious crime, such as rape, armed robbery, or mu.
Under English lawEnglish law the law of England and Wales (but not Scotland and Northern Ireland) is considered by some to be one of Britain's great gifts to the world. Also known generally as the common law (as opposed to civil law), it was exported to Commonwealth count (and the law of other mostly Commonwealth countries, such as AustraliaAustralia is the sixth-largest country in the world (geographically), the only one to occupy an entire continent, and the largest in the region of Australasia. Australia includes the island of Tasmania, which is an Australian State. Its neighbouring count, which pay close heed to the decisions of BritishThe United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is a state in Western Europe, usually known simply as the United Kingdom the UK Britain or less accurately as Great Britain . The UK was formed by a series of Acts of Union which united the formerly courts), it is murder to kill another human being for food, even if without doing so one would die of starvation. This originated in a case of four shipwrecked sailorA sailor is a member of the crew of a ship or boat. The term may comprise anyone from an admiral in the navy to a person who goes out yachting at weekends as a hobby. A sailor is also specifically an enlisted member of a naval force. The term can be useds cast adrift off the coast of South AfricaSouth Africa is a republic at the southern tip of Africa. It is bordered to the north by Namibia, Botswana and Zimbabwe, to the north-east by Mozambique and Swaziland. Lesotho is contained entirely inside the borders of South Africa. South Africa is one o in the 1880sEvents and Trends About 300 000 Swedes emigrate to the United States. First Boer War First commercial production and sales of phonographs and phonograph recordings. First steel frame construction "sky-scrapers" The New Imperialism Science and technology J; two of the sailors conspired to kill one of the other sailors (a sick cabin boy), and having killed him ate his fleshCannibalism is the act or practice of eating members of the same species, e. humans eating humans (sometimes called anthropophagy), or dogs eating dogs. Among humans, this practice has been attributed to people in the past all over the world, including ri to survive: R v Dudley and Stevens (1884) 14 QBD 273. Also, most common law jurisdiction do not allow for the defense of necessity. Comparatively recent adaptions to the English law of murder include the abolition of the year and a day rule.
Most countries allow conditions that "affect the balance of the mind" to be regarded as mitigating circumstances against murder. This means that a person may be found guilty of "manslaughter on the basis of diminished responsibility" rather than murder, if it can be proved that they were suffering from a condition that affected their judgement at the time. Depression, post-traumatic stress disorder and medication side-effects are examples of conditions that may be taken into account when assessing responsibility. A somewhat different defense is insanity, which is almost exclusively used in cases of psychosis such as that caused by schizophrenia.
Also, some countries, such as Canada, Italy, the United Kingdom and Australia, allow post-partum depression, or 'baby-blues', as a defense against murder of a child by a mother, provided that a child is less than a year old.