[lit-ideas] Re: Assault Crimes

I know the difference between Murder One and Murder Two here is whether it  
is premeditated.  I'm not sure I understand the difference between homicide  
and manslaughter.... and then I think there are degrees of manslaughter?   
Where 
are our lawyers?
 
Julie Krueger

========Original  Message========     Subj: [lit-ideas] Re: Assault Crimes  
Date: 5/31/06 4:26:58 P.M. Central Daylight Time  From: 
_judithevans1@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx (mailto:judithevans1@xxxxxxxxxxxxx)   To: 
_lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx 
(mailto:lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx)   Sent on:    
>Someone, maybe  Judy, said it was the other way around
 
Here, Murder One and  Murder Two do not exist, only murder.  Here, also,
someone can be  convicted of murder even if there was no intent to
kill.  (I see that  that can be true in the US also, but the proposed changes
to our laws are  supposed to make them more like yours, perhaps
to add a Murder  Two.)
 
>The FBI asks police  to list every homicide as murder, even if the case
> isnât  subsequently prosecuted or proceeds on a lesser charge, 
 
I'd not heard that --  but presumably statistics exist for convictions for
Murder One and Murder  Two (=murder here?) and manslaughter?
 
>By contrast, the  English police "massage down" the homicide statistics, 
>tracking each case  through the courts and removing it if it is reduced 
>to a lesser charge  or determined to be an accident or self-defense, 
 
I wouldn't call this a  massaging down.  
 
this is from the  reason.com piece:
 
>â In 1999 Tony  Martin, a 55-year-old Norfolk farmer living alone 
>in a shabby  farmhouse, awakened to the sound of breaking glass
> as two  burglars, both with long criminal records, burst into his 
>home. He had been  robbed six times before, and his village, 
>like 70 percent of  rural English communities, had no police presence. 
>He sneaked  downstairs with a shotgun and shot at the intruders. 
>Martin received  life in prison for killing one burglar, 10 years for 
>wounding the  second, and a year for having an unregistered shotgun.
 
Tony Martin lay in wait  for burglars, his gun ready.  The two young 
burglars,  who
were unarmed, were  running away -- trying to get through a window --
after being attacked by  Martin's Rottweilers.  The young man who died
was pleading for his  life.  
 
I quote the  judge
 
"The law is that every  citizen is entitled to use reasonable force to 
prevent  crime."
 
that doesn't include  shooting an unarmed burglar in the back while he's 
running  away.
 
Martin was sentenced to  life but later found guilty not of murder but of  
manslaughter
(after a court accepted  evidence that he was suffering from a paranoid
personality  disorder).
He was sentenced to 5  years imprisonment.  He was released after
serving two-thirds of  that sentence.  
 
The wounded burglar  decided not to apply for the money to sue Martin.
 
What bits of this could  the Reason.com writer not have known?  
Probably only the exact  date of Martin's  release and the burglar's decision 
 not
to sue; Martin's  conviction and sentence had been amended well
before the date of the  Reason article.
 
Judy Evans,  Cardiff

----- Original Message ----- 
From:  _Lawrence Helm_ (mailto:lawrencehelm@xxxxxxxxxxxx)  
To: _lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx (mailto:lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx)  
Sent: Wednesday, May 31, 2006 8:45  PM
Subject: [lit-ideas] Re: Assault  Crimes



I was referring to  this: âThe murder rates of the U.S. and U.K. are also 
affected by differences  in the way each counts homicides. The FBI asks police 
to 
list every homicide  as murder, even if the case isnât subsequently 
prosecuted or proceeds on a  lesser charge, making the U.S. numbers as high as 
possible. By contrast, the  English police "massage down" the homicide 
statistics, 
tracking each case  through the courts and removing it if it is reduced to a 
lesser charge or  determined to be an accident or self-defense, making the 
English 
numbers as  low as possible.â 
From this: _http://www.reason.com/0211/fe.jm.gun.shtml_ 
(http://www.reason.com/0211/fe.jm.gun.shtml)    
Someone, maybe Judy,  said it was the other way around and I donât have any 
additional info at this  point. 
Lawrence 
-----Original Message-----
From:  lit-ideas-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:lit-ideas-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] 
On  Behalf Of Robert Paul
Sent: Wednesday, May 31, 2006 12:00 PM
To:  lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [lit-ideas] Re: Assault  Crimes 
>     To Paul Stone:  In  one of the articles I posted there was indication 
>     that the U.S. looks worse  in the murder category because it counts 
>     every homicide as a  murder whereas, apparently, other nations count 
>     them as other things.   
I don't understand this. Who in the US counts every  homicide as murder?  
Some government agency? The criminal justice system  doesn't count every  
homicide as murder. I mean, to what does 'it'  refer? 
Robert Paul 
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