Homicide – The Different Degrees (Click a Section)

Criminal Homicide

In Pennsylvania, “criminal homicide” is a general term that means the unlawful killing of a person by another person. It includes Murder of the First, Second, or Third Degree, Voluntary Manslaughter, and Involuntary Manslaughter. The prosecution can charge a person with Criminal Homicide generally, meaning that all of the above options are on the table at trial, and the jury (or judge) gets to decide the degree of homicide after hearing all of the evidence. If you face Criminal Homicide charges, it’s one of the rare situations where you don’t have a right to bail. However, an attorney can potentially still get you out on bail.

Murder is a killing committed with “malice.” This means that the killer demonstrated an extreme disregard for the value of human life. Manslaughter is when a killing was committed recklessly, but not so reckless as to rise to the level of malice.

For information on Drug Delivery Resulting in Death, please visit our page dedicated solely to that topic.

First Degree Murder

First-degree murder is the “intentional killing” of another person. It is the most serious form of criminal homicide. This can be any kind of willful, deliberate, and premeditated killing. But the law says that premeditation can be formed in an instant; there’s no requirement to prove that the killer thought about it for a long time or concocted an elaborate plan. Things like poisoning somebody or lying in wait for them would tend to show the killer’s intent. On the other hand, somebody could decide to kill a complete stranger passing by in the spur-of-the-moment for no reason, but still be guilty of first-degree murder.

Penalties

First-degree murder is the only crime potentially punishable by death. As such, it is the only “capital offense,” and a person facing this charge does not have a right to post bail to get out of jail before trial. To pursue the death penalty, the prosecutor has to file a “Notice of Aggravating Circumstances” before the Formal Arraignment (after the Preliminary Hearing), and must cite which aggravating circumstances are applicable. Pennsylvania has a list of 18 potential aggravating circumstances. The list includes things like the age or status of the victim, the commission of other crimes, how the killing was committed, and the defendant’s criminal background.

Then, the defendant has the opportunity to prove the opposite, called “mitigating circumstances,” and argue that those outweigh the aggravating circumstances.

If the jury (or judge) finds that the aggravators outweigh the mitigators, the sentence is death. If the jury or judge does not find that the aggravators outweigh the mitigators, or if the prosecution doesn’t pursue the death penalty, the sentence upon conviction is mandatory life in prison, without the possibility of parole. To see the list of aggravating and mitigating circumstances, check out subsections (d) and (e) of Title 42, Section 9711.

Even though the death penalty statutes still exist in Pennsylvania, and prosecutors still seek it in certain cases, Pennsylvania has not executed anyone since 1999. Even though the jury or judge imposes the death sentence, the Governor of Pennsylvania must still sign the killer’s death warrant for the person to be executed. Governor Josh Shapiro has announced his intention to continue the “moratorium” of the death penalty his predecessor Governor Wolf began, meaning that Governor Shapiro will not sign any death warrants while he is still in office.

Juveniles

What if the killer was a juvenile, under age 18? In Pennsylvania, if a juvenile commits a first-degree murder, he or she is likely to face trial as an adult. While a juvenile can sometimes ask a judge to move his or her case from adult court into juvenile court, judges rarely grant such requests in murder cases. In the 2012 case of Miller v. Alabama, the U.S. Supreme Court declared it’s unconstitutional to sentence a person to mandatory life imprisonment without parole for a murder committed while under age 18. Pennsylvania then changed its laws so that they followed this new ruling.

The prosecution still can pursue a sentence of “life without parole,” but the judge does not have to impose it. If the sentence is not life-without-parole, the mandatory minimum sentence is 35 years in prison if the juvenile was 15 or older at the time of the murder. It is 25 years in prison if the juvenile was under 15 at the time. The juvenile is then on parole supervision for the rest of his or her life after getting out of jail.

In 2016, with the Montgomery v. Louisiana case, the U.S. Supreme Court extended the Miller ruling to anyone who had been sentenced in the past to mandatory life in prison without parole. This opened up a huge new opportunity for “juvenile lifers.” This means those who were tried as adults and convicted of first-degree murder committed when they were under 18. They can now have their sentences revisited many years later to give them a second chance at life outside the institution.

Second Degree Murder (“Felony-Murder”)

Second-degree murder in Pennsylvania is very different than first-degree or third-degree murder and is often the most difficult kind of homicide to understand. Many other jurisdictions call it “felony-murder” because it requires the defendant to have been committing a felony, or helping someone else commit a felony, at the time the victim was killed. Not just any felony triggers this rule; in Pennsylvania, the list of eligible felony offenses only includes robbery, rape (and certain related crimes), arson, burglary, and kidnapping.

A person can be convicted of second-degree murder even if the victim was killed accidentally, even if by a bystander, so long as the victim was killed during the commission of a listed felony (or during a failed attempt), or during the “getaway” afterwards, and the defendant was involved in committing or helping commit the listed felony.

Penalties

A conviction for second-degree murder carries with it a mandatory sentence of life in prison for adults. For juveniles, just like for first-degree murder, the prosecution still can pursue a sentence of “life without parole,” but the judge does not have to impose it. If life-without-parole is not the sentence, the mandatory minimum sentence is 30 years in prison if he/she was 15 or older at the time of the murder, and is 20 years in prison if he/she was under 15 at the time. The juvenile would then be subject to parole supervision for the rest of his or her life after release.

Some examples of fact patterns that could lead to a second-degree murder conviction are:

• During a gunpoint robbery, a store clerk draws his own gun in self-defense, fires it at the robber, and accidentally hits an innocent bystander in the distance, killing him.
• During a burglary, a homeowner tries to shoot the burglar, but accidentally kills a family member.
• A person kidnaps a victim and places her in the trunk of a vehicle, and while transporting the victim the vehicle is rear-ended by another vehicle, killing the victim.
• Someone intentionally sets a building on fire, and a responding firefighter dies from smoke inhalation.

Third Degree Murder

Third-degree murder is any other homicide committed with malice, which is such a heightened level of recklessness that it shows an extreme disregard for the value of human life. This requires more than ordinary recklessness, which simply means a “conscious disregard of a substantial and unjustifiable risk that serious injury or death might result.”

Penalties

Third-degree murder is a felony of the first degree (F1), but is punishable by up to 40 years in prison, which is twice the potential penalty of an ordinary first-degree felony. There is usually no mandatory minimum penalty, but if the victim was younger than 13 years old, a newly-rewritten 15-year mandatory minimum sentence may apply. If a person is convicted of third-degree murder and is convicted of another third-degree murder or a voluntary manslaughter, the prosecution can seek a mandatory sentence of life imprisonment, even if the two victims were part of the same trial and the defendant has no prior record. Without the mandatory sentence, sentencing guidelines recommend a minimum of anywhere between 6 and 20 years.

Examples

Murder of the third degree typically takes place when a person tries to seriously injure another person yet doesn’t necessarily want to kill them, but the other person dies as a result of their injuries. It can be the result of a fight that gets way out of hand. It can even be the result of when someone drives a car so dangerously that ordinary Reckless Driving and Homicide by Vehicle charges don’t cut it, and can be when a drunk driver ignores warnings not to drive because he or she’s too drunk, drives anyway, and kills somebody.

Third-degree murder can also be the result when a person facing first-degree murder charges presents a strong enough defense of voluntary intoxication that the judge tells the jury to consider whether the intoxication rendered the killing not “intentional.” Third-degree murder is also often the result of taking a plea bargain to lesser charges in a first-degree murder case. That often takes convincing the prosecutor that their case isn’t as strong as they think it is, or requires compiling reasons why the defendant deserves leniency, or a combination.

There is often a very fine, subtle line that divides an “intentional killing” (first-degree murder) from an extreme-recklessness “malice” killing (third-degree murder), and the way the judge and jury perceives the defendant’s intent can mean the difference between life/death in prison and a chance at being released. This is one of many reasons that it’s so important to speak with one of our highly-skilled criminal defense attorneys if someone you know of is facing charges of Murder in Montgomery, Bucks, or the surrounding counties.

Attempted Murder

To convict someone of Attempted Murder in Pennsylvania, the prosecution must prove that a person had the specific intent to kill another person, and that the person actually took a substantial step towards accomplishing that goal. This step can take many forms, like shooting somebody at close range where the victim survives, shooting at somebody but missing them, trying to run somebody over with a car but missing them, and so on.

Attempted murder is a felony of the first degree that ordinarily carries up to 20 years in jail upon conviction. There is no mandatory minimum penalty. However, the potential penalty doubles to 40 years if the victim suffers serious bodily injury, which is a level of injury that creates a substantial risk of death, or that causes serious and permanent disfigurement, or that causes long-term impairment or loss of part of the body.

Voluntary Manslaughter

Voluntary Manslaughter in Pennsylvania is a felony of the first degree, punishable by up to 20 years in prison. There are two different potential varieties of this charge: 1) a “heat of passion” killing, or 2) an “unreasonable self defense” killing.

In the first variety, the “heat of passion” killing, a person commits voluntary manslaughter if he is acting “under a sudden and intense passion resulting from serious provocation” by the intended victim. For example, if a woman came home from work to find her abusive husband cheating on her with her best friend, and the husband then verbally abused his wife, it might be voluntary manslaughter if she fatally stabs him immediately. Such despicable behavior by the victim could reduce the case from a murder into a manslaughter, warranting lesser punishment.

In the second variety, a person commits an “unreasonable self defense” voluntary manslaughter if he intentionally kills someone, thinking it was necessary to save himself or others from serious injury or death, but his belief was unreasonable. The defendant must have actually had the belief, which may be difficult for jurors and judges to believe. However, because of the intentional nature of this kind of killing, properly asserting this defense will mean the defendant can get out of serving a life sentence for first-degree murder; just another reason to contact us to speak with one of our attorneys regarding cases like these.

Involuntary Manslaughter

Involuntary manslaughter still requires a voluntary act despite its name; a person is guilty of it if he does any act recklessly, and a person dies as a result. Ordinary recklessness means a “conscious disregard of a substantial and unjustifiable risk that serious injury or death might result.” It is the only form of criminal homicide that is usually a misdemeanor of the first degree, punishable by up to 5 years in prison. An enhanced grading applies if the victim was under 12 years old and was under the care of the defendant. In that instance, it becomes a felony of the second degree punishable by up to 10 years in jail.

Since involuntary manslaughter cases only involve ordinary recklessness and not the extreme “malice” level of recklessness seen in murder cases, many of these do not involve the intentional use of deadly weapons like guns and knives. Rather, many result from reckless operation of a motor vehicle, or by intense brawls going way too far, and sometimes can relate to the improper handling or cleaning of guns. Parents who have guns in the house and fail to secure them from access by their young children will likely be charged with involuntary manslaughter if a child dies by using one of those guns.

Involuntary Manslaughter is sometimes available as a lesser crime to argue for instead of a murder, and can be a fair outcome for a particular case.

Contact us to speak with one of our attorneys who fully understands the distinctions among the various types of homicide offenses to get the best possible outcome in a case like this affecting you or somebody you know.