Talk:Murder

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I have a feeling things are slightly different in the USA. Murder=Murder 1 and manslaughter=murder 2 or something like that. Can anyone confirm? If I'm right, it should be mentioned in the article. -- Tango

As I understand the laws of my country, murder is always an intention to kill. I think first degree is premeditated, second degree is a sudden act of passion. Voluntary manslaughter is when one wants to only hurt someone, but kills them instead. Involuntary manslaughter is when there is no intention to hurt someone. I think there may also be a category for negligent manslaughter, such as drunk driving. IANAL, but I would expect these definitions to be pretty standard, since I imagine law in most English-speaking countries is based on English law. Kevin Saff

As I understand the laws of my country, everything except what you call first degree murder, we call manslaughter. I expect there are specific terms for the different types of manslaughter. Drink driving would probably be "causing death by dangerous driving" but there may be a more specific term. -- Tango 20:20, 22 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Interesting. It could also be that I have it wrong. I'll change the article to avoid the issue for now. Kevin Saff 20:38, 22 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Maybe I'm alone on this but the I Robot reference is embarassing. This is supposed to deal with a serious moral/legal issue not some imaginary out-of-context possibility (besides which the "murder" in I Robot is tecnically an assisted suicide-depending on just how cognizant one thinks Sonny the robot is). By the way- American law is very different from English law despite the shared language. This unsigned comment was added by 74.116.127.11 (talk • contribs) .