Homicide and Criminal Justice Term Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Homicide and Criminal Justice - Term Paper Example As noted by Fox and Jack (2001), homicide is considered excusable if death results from a mistake that cannot be described as sufficient to declare someone guilty. An example of excusable homicide is a road accident that leads to death but does not result from driver’s serious negligence. Justifiable homicide is the acceptable killing of a person (Fox & Jack, 2001). For example, a person can kill another person in self-defense or soldiers can shoot and kill members of enemy camps without committing criminal offenses. Acceptable killing is also called non-felonious homicide (Fox & Jack, 2001). On the other hand, felonious homicides – also known as criminal homicides - comprise of two broad forms of illegal killing (Fox & Jack, 2001). In this regard, as pointed out by Fox and Jack, a felonious homicide that is not premeditated is called manslaughter in most US states. The worst form of homicide called murder is a criminal act in which a person’s meditation to kill leads to the actual killing of another person (Fox & Jack, 2001). In some states, criminal homicide is classified in terms of degrees depending on circumstances under which killing takes place. A person can bear murder related responsibilities in two ways (Arafa, 2008). First, an individual can only bear criminal liability for murder if he or she intended to kill and actually killed another person. However, according to Arafa (2008), sometimes people can bear criminal responsibilities for crimes they did not commit. In this regard, a person who assists or encourages the commission of murder bears accomplice responsibility. A person can only be an accomplice in the murder case if he or she wanted the killed person to die and would bear responsibility for any other crime committed as a result of the commission of the original crime (Arafa, 2008).