Legal Loopholes to Murder: Definitions and More

The word "murder" is enough to set most people's nerves on edge. It has been regarded, since pre-Biblical times as being a high crime, but always with culturally specific caveats and exceptions. Here is a brief review of some of the more commonly used ways to reason murder as being OK.

Definitions:
There are two primary 'types' of definitions of what we call Murder. The first is "Common Law" which has only two sections/criteria that are 1) The act of killing a person, and 2) that the act is somehow purposeful, intentional, premeditated and/or 'wanton.' (Random mayhem, etc.) In jurisdictions where this set of criteria are used, there is no need for further clarification or qualification and every instance is judged on it's individual circumstances taking those two basic precepts into account.

More commonly, the second and universally more complex definitions of "Murder" tend to be less precise and clear and far more complicated by guidelines for arguable legal exclusions as well as defined categories of mitigating circumstances (including mental incapacities, self-defense, non-intentionality and diminished capacity among many others.)

No matter what the applied rules are, murder always has one thing in common. It involves the willful taking of one human's life by another human. Looked at from this perspective, we must acknowledge that there are a lot of things that happen that are technically 'murder,' but some of these are socially allowed for if not actually sanctioned and encouraged.

In these situations, we try to avoid using the word 'murder' and try to call it something else. Something that sounds less like a heinous crime committed by one person against another. Without judgment, I think it important to reflect on where and when we think about murder as being different - so call it something different - so that we can live with it more easily.

To cite just a few examples (adapted from www.wikipedia.com) :