Teen charged with 1st-degree murder in officer's death

Also, the kid in question was apparently already known to police and there are reports that he may be paralyzed from the waist down. If that's true, I'd say karma's already taken care of him, regardless of whether or not the murder charges stick.

X Factor said:

If it's manslaughter "at most", does that mean you think it could be something less?

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It could be argued to have been involuntary manslaughter if the teen had no intention of dragging the police officer. That's a lesser offense than voluntary manslaughter.

X Factor said:

Yeah, but it was a cop conducting a traffic stop. Are you satisfied the cop wasn't overstepping his authority by pulling the kid over in the first place?

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You can continue to engage in hyperbole, but it won't get us anywhere. I assume the cop had legitimate reason to pull him over and no other evidence has been presented to the contrary. At any point you can perhaps not be so disingenuous in your comments and the conversation would go a lot better.

Ikari said:

But there are very historic definitions of these sorts of laws. The common definitions of which have already been listed in the thread. I don't necessarily think it is right to change the definition just because the individual happened to be a cop. People are people, no one person is better than the other due to position in life, and laws are made for specific reasons. It doesn't quite seem to be within the lines of justice to change the laws for certain people particularly given the punishments involved. This kid has to face what he did, but he should face the right law for what he did.

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Actually there are many crimes that are upped if the victim is a police officer. Killing a cop (along with killing children and killing more that one person ie serial/mass murderers) in the US is a capital murder, killing your spouse, say, is a first degree. If you assault a civilian, usually that's only a misdemeanor. Assault a police officer on duty and it becomes a felony. It's not about the cop being better (and I know you're no fan of law enforcement), it's about trying to protect those with a dangerous job. Also, the thinking is, if you're willing to kill a cop, you wouldn't hesitate to kill anyone else.

Viktyr Korimir said:

... What is murder, if it isn't exactly what the law says it is? 1st degree murder is defined by statute.

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Canadian Judicial Council: For Lawyers and Judges

As defined in Canadian law. In California it falls under the "Special Circumstances".

X Factor said:

Actually there are many crimes that are upped if the victim is a police officer. Killing a cop (along with killing children and killing more that one person ie serial/mass murderers) in the US is a capital murder, killing your spouse, say, is a first degree. If you assault a civilian, usually that's only a misdemeanor. Assault a police officer on duty and it becomes a felony. It's not about the cop being better (and I know you're no fan of law enforcement), it's about trying to protect those with a dangerous job. Also, the thinking is, if you're willing to kill a cop, you wouldn't hesitate to kill anyone else.

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If you're willing to kill any human, why would you hesitate to kill anyone else? I can think of reasons why someone may shoot a cop when they normally wouldn't kill anyone else. But regardless, human is human. And I know there are crimes that are upped if you involve a cop, I just don't think it's right. Because in a lot of crimes, cops are involved (responding to crimes, etc) so statistically speaking it's more likely that they could get caught up in it. But lots of people have dangerous jobs, some even more so than cops. I mean if I shoot an Alaskan crab fisherman, am I going to see the higher penalties? No. It's specifically protecting the government personnel. But it shouldn't matter, a person is a person and murder is murder. People should face the appropriate law for the crime they commit. The system must be kept open and fair. Equal crime, equal time.

In Canada, all murder is classified as either first or second degree. Here are circumstances that constitute first-degree murder. In the U.S. we think of first-degree murder as premeditated. In Canada, it's different:

planned and deliberate
contracted
committed against an identified peace officer
while committing or attempting to commit hijacking an aircraft
while committing or attempting to commit sexual assault
while committing or attempting to commit sexual assault with a weapon
while committing or attempting to commit aggravated sexual assault
while committing or attempting to commit kidnapping and forcible confinement
hostage taking
while committing criminal harassment
committed during terrorist activity
while using explosives in association with a criminal organization
while committing intimidation.[4]

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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder_(Canadian_law)

MaggieD said:

In Canada, all murder is classified as either first or second degree. Here are circumstances that constitute first-degree murder. In the U.S. we think of first-degree murder as premeditated. In Canada, it's different:



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder_(Canadian_law)

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we only have two classifications of murder as well. just a myriad of definitions by state.