Homicide

Premeditated murder, 1st degree, 2nd degree murder, (I did not mean to kill her when I hit her in the head with that hammer), and 3rd degree, manslaughter are the three major categories. Premeditated, as the name implies, requires a plan to murder someone. Second degree is when she hit me first while I was cutting a steak, and then I stabbed her because she made me mad. Then 3rd degree is any other killing that can’t be put into the first two well enough to get convictions.

Arizona Revised Statutes §13-1102 Negligent homicide; classification

A. A person commits negligent homicide if with criminal negligence the person causes the death of another person, including an unborn child.

B. An offense under this section applies to an unborn child in the womb at any stage of its development. A person may not be prosecuted under this section if any of the following applies:

1. The person was performing an abortion for which the consent of the pregnant woman, or a person authorized by law to act on the pregnant woman's behalf, has been obtained or for which the consent was implied or authorized by law.

2. The person was performing medical treatment on the pregnant woman or the pregnant woman's unborn child.

3. The person was the unborn child's mother.

C. Negligent homicide is a class 4 felony.

Finally an example is this; Investigators said the victim, Mark Mathes, lived with Jessica Nelson, who accused him of stealing from her. Nelson asked the three other suspects to help her "take care of this matter."

In February 2002, according to authorities, the four suspects allegedly beat Mathes unconscious, packed his body in the trunk of a car and drove him to the desert near Crown King. There, they killed him. The body wasn't found until a year later.

The three others were obviously guilty of murder, but was Nelson then first degree or second degree? She asked them to take care of the problem, but did not ask them to kill the victim. She only meant for them to frighten the victim, to go away and never bother her again. They got carried away and he died. My opinion is she was not guilty of murder, because she just wanted him gone, however she did know what the 3 would do, so she did order his death. That makes all four of them guilty of first degree murder.