From Killing to Confinement: Offenses Against the Person Compared

Homicide is the umbrella category, and its recorded sources note that homicides divide into overlapping legal categories such as murder, manslaughter and justifiable homicide. Begin here to see that the law treats killings very differently depending on circumstance.

Murder is the unlawful killing committed with the intent the law requires. The recorded sources explain that second-degree murder is generally the common law offense and first-degree is an aggravated form, and that premeditated murder is punished more severely than manslaughter.

Manslaughter is described as a homicide considered less culpable than murder. In common law jurisdictions it divides into unlawful-act manslaughter and criminally negligent manslaughter, and Finland treats it as the basic homicide offense with a fixed term of at least eight years.

Here the killing comes through driving rather than intent. The recorded source defines vehicular homicide as a death caused by criminally negligent or murderous operation of a motor vehicle, and notes that not every United States state has a dedicated statute.

This stop covers the killing that does not happen. In England and Wales it is an attempt offense under section 1(1) of the Criminal Attempts Act 1981, and the recorded source stresses that it needs an intention to kill together with an overt act.

Infanticide shows a legislature creating a separate offense for a particular killing. The Infanticide Act 1938 applies to a woman whose act causes the death of her child under twelve months, and allows her to be punished as if guilty of manslaughter.

Moving from death to injury, assault is described as causing harm or unwanted contact, or in some definitions the threat or attempt. The recorded source notes that England and Wales and Australia charge it as common assault, actual bodily harm or grievous bodily harm.

Battery is set against assault: the recorded source says it may be simple or aggravated and is distinct from assault, which creates fear of contact. It also notes that simple battery is a misdemeanor at common law, while Florida treats intentional great bodily harm as a second-degree felony.

Domestic violence is treated in the recorded sources as violence in a domestic setting. Cornell Legal Information Institute explains that federal law defines it through crimes by a current or former spouse, intimate partner or similar person, so the relationship shapes the charge.

Stalking is defined in the recorded source as unwanted or repeated surveillance or contact toward another person. It is a pattern offense, and the first anti-stalking law in the United States was California Penal Code Section 646.9.

Kidnapping adds the removal of a person. The recorded source gives Lord Brandon's four ingredients from R v D (1984), including the taking or carrying away of one person by another by force or fraud, and notes it is an indictable-only offence in England and Wales.

The path ends with confinement alone. The recorded source says it occurs when a person intentionally restricts another person's movement without legal authority or justification, and a United States plaintiff must prove willful detention in a bounded area, without consent, and without lawful arrest authority.