10 Sep Reaction Paper Guidelines Reaction papers are a critical component

Reaction Paper Guidelines

Reaction papers are a critical component of the conversation that will take place in this course. There will be a total of five different reaction papers throughout the course. Each of the five reaction papers will be approximately two pages in length. The text will be double-spaced and formatted using APA format. Students should clearly identify their topic and present their personal viewpoint or perspective; however, students must also present a factual basis for that viewpoint (as opposed to an opinion paper). All references supporting the factual basis must be properly cited to the original sources in accordance with APA guidelines.

· Excusable homicide

While you are primarily addressing the topic selected, you may want to discuss or expand on a topic presented in the textbook, a case dealing with the subject, or a current event from the news or Internet, and present your viewpoint or perspective on that item as it relates to the issue present in your chosen topic.

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9-3aHistory of Murder Law

LO3

Our modern law of criminal homicide took centuries to develop. Over several centuries, the English common law judges had developed two broad kinds of homicide, criminal and noncriminal. By the 1550s, the common law judges, with the help of a growing number of statutes, had further divided criminal homicide into murder and manslaughter and noncriminal homicide into justifiable and excusable homicide (Chapters 5 and 6).

By 1700, the English common and statute laws of homicide and the American colonies’ law recognized three kinds of homicide:

1. justifiable homicide , Killing in self-defense (Chapter 5), capital punishment, and law enforcement use of deadly force

2. excusable homicide , Killings done by someone “not of sound memory and discretion” (insane and immature) (Chapter 6)

3. criminal homicide , All homicides that are neither justified nor excused

We’ll examine manslaughter later in the chapter. For now, let’s concentrate on murder. In the early 1600s, Sir Edward Coke wrote that common law murder occurred when a person “of sound memory and discretion, unlawfully killeth any reasonable creature in being and under the king’s peace, with malice aforethought, either express or implied” (Blackstone 1769, 4:195, quoting from Coke 1628, 3:47).

Here’s how Blackstone defined the elements of common law murder in 1769:

1. Sound memory and discretion excused “lunatics and infants” from criminal liability.

2. “Unlawfully” meant killing without justification (Chapter 5) or excuse (Chapter 6).

3. Killeth included causing death by “poisoning, striking, starving, drowning, and a thousand other forms of death, by which human nature may be overcome” (196).

4. Reasonable creature in being was someone already born alive and breathing at the time of the killing (198).

5. Under the king’s peace meant “to kill an alien, a Jew, or an outlaw, who are all under the king’s protection, is as much murder as to kill the most regular Englishman; except he be an alien enemy in time of war” (198).

6. With malice aforethought, express or implied.

Let’s take a closer look at the mental element—killing with  malice aforethought . At first, “malice” meant with specific intent or killing on purpose—and probably with some amount of spite, hate, or bad will. “Aforethought” meant the acts were planned in advance of the killing. The English homicide statutes in the 1550s defined “murd