Manslayer

“ What guidance the jury got from the explanation of what constitutes murder is not quite clear to the lay mind, however satisfactory it may have appeared to the judge.
"Gentlemen," he stated, with admirable lucidity, "murder is where a man is murderously killed. The killer in such a case is a murderer. Now, murder by poison is just as much murder as murder with a gun, pistol, or knife. It is the simple act of murdering that constitutes murder in the eye of the law. Don't let the idea of murder and manslaughter confound you. Murder is one thing; manslaughter is quite another. ”

“ The murderer, cheerful and complacent over the verdict of manslaughter; the professional garotter, in whose estimation human life is of no value, troubled only at being so foolish as to be caught; the professional thief, the pickpocket, the skilled housebreaker—​every one of them sound in wind and limb, intent only on their schemes and “dodges,” to extract the sting from their punishment—​all longing for the time when they and society would cry “quits,” and they be at liberty to pursue their career of villainy. ”

“ Some of our best citizens have been stricken down by the hand of the assassin, whose blood has cried in vain upon the legal tribunals for justice. And although many have fallen victims to this atrocious crime, not one of its numerous perpetrators has yet suffered the just penalty of the law. The murderer, his hands still reeking with human gore, walks unmolested in our midst, laughing to scorn the laws which condemn him to an ignominious death. ”

“ If one man kill another in a moment of ungovernable wrath, that is a crime which, though heavily punished by the conscience, is gently dealt with by the law, which calls it only manslaughter; but if a motive to the violence, such as jealousy or revenge, can be assigned, and there should be no witness by to prove that the violence was not premeditated, then the law does not call it manslaughter, but murder. ”

“ He that has committed murder, though he flees for his life, shall be continually haunted with terrors, shall himself flee to the pit, betray himself, and torment himself, like Cain, who, when he had killed his brother, became a fugitive and a vagabond, and trembled continually. 2. The duty of the avenger of blood, whether the magistrate or the next of kin, or whoever are concerned in making inquisition for blood, let them be close and vigorous in the prosecution, and let it not be bought off. Those that acquit the murderer, or do any thing to help him off, come in sharers in the guilt of blood ”

“ In fact, it was reserved for this incredible monster and his associate fiends to reduce murder to a system, and to establish a regular traffic in the bodies of their victims. Ordinary homicides slay from passion or revenge; the murders they commit are the product of an ungovernable and overmastering impulse, which hurls reason from her seat, and, in the wild conflict of guilty passion, precipitates them into the commission of acts which are no sooner done than they would perhaps give the universe were they undone. ”

“ But if, on a sudden quarrel, parties presently fetch their weapons, and go into a field and fight, and one of them is killed, that is manslaughter, because it is presumed that their blood never cooled. Otherwise, if the parties appoint the next day to meet, or even the same day, at such an interval as that their passion may have subsided, or if{616} from circumstances in the case, it may be reasonably presumed that their judgment had controlled the first transports, if death then ensue, it is murder. ”

“ But when I am further asked why such homicides should do more harm to your community in the estimation of the world than murders for the purpose of robbery do to ours, the answer is that here the murderer is, as a general thing, condemned by public opinion and hunted down as an infamous criminal and hung, if caught, while the kind of manslaying in the South I speak of is, as a general thing, greatly “deplored,” but at the same time very frequently excused, and almost universally protected against due punishment by morbid public sentiment. ”

“ But if they kill him or wound him, they shall be beaten and their heads shaved, and they shall be branded on the jaws. If a murderer escapes, all his property shall be confiscated, but his relatives, if they are innocent, shall not be punished for him. If the murderer does not flee, but, in order to prove his innocence [that is, that he acted in self-defence] , wishes to fight a duel with some relative of the slain man, and if he wins [in the duel] , he shall pay the wergeld and satisfy the relatives of the slain man. ”

“ If there be a sudden falling out and fighting and one is killed in heat of blood, then the law calls it manslaughter, but in such a case as this, that happens on slight words, the prisoner calls the deceased a ‘lousie dog,’ and the deceased says, ‘If I be so, you have made me so,’ can this be a reasonable cause to kill him? and if you believe them not to be a reasonable cause of provocation I cannot see what distinction can be made, but that the prisoner is guilty of murder. ”

“ That it is lawful for the master to chastise his slave, and that if death ensues from such chastisement, unless it was intended to produce death, it is like the [Pg 589] case of homicide which is committed by a man in the performance of a lawful act, which is manslaughter only. ”

“ I have committed no crime—what has been done, that you are going to murder me?" was my reply. My master then asked me, why I had followed the young lady and her brother, who went from the house the evening before, and murdered her? Astonished and terrified at the charge of being a murderer, I knew not what to say ”

“ We have use neither of the wheel nor of the bar, as in other countries; but, when wilful manslaughter is perpetrated, beside hanging, the offender hath his right hand commonly stricken off before or near unto the place where the act was done, after which he is led forth to the place of execution, and there put to death according to the law. ”

“ Passing over three cases of culpable negligence resulting in death, we come to thirty-seven homicides during quarrels, some of which might have been technically classified as murders, but which being committed "in the heat of passion," in practically every instance resulted in a verdict of manslaughter. ”

“ MR. Y. Is it not murder to kill a person?
MR. X. Not always. The law speaks of murder, manslaughter, killing in self-defence—and it makes a distinction between intentional and unintentional killing. However—now you really frighten me, for it's becoming plain to me that you belong to the most dangerous of all human groups—that of the stupid. ”

“ And, secondly, if he be proved to have died of the injury within that time, we must duly weigh the previous circumstances and the provocation, to ascertain, if the act done be manslaughter or murder.
Those, who vociferate, most loudly, against the law, for its hesitancy, and demand the immediate descent of the executioner’s axe, upon the neck of the victim, will be the very first fervently to supplicate, for the law’s most merciful carefulness of life, should a father, a brother, or a son be charged with crime, and involved in the complicated meshes of presumptive evidence. ”

“ When a witness, for example, swears, directly and unhesitatingly, that he saw the prisoner inflict a wound, with a deadly weapon, upon another person—that he saw that other person instantly fall, and die shortly after, this is positive evidence of something. Yet the act may be murder, or it may be manslaughter, or it may be justifiable homicide. Murder consists of three parts, the malice prepense, the blow inflicted or means employed, and the death ensuing, within a time prescribed by law. There can be no murder, if either of these parts be absent. ”

“ The eighth assignment is taken to the following definition of manslaughter —
"It is the killing of a man unlawfully and willfully, but without malice aforethought. Malice aforethought, as I have defined it to you, must be excluded from it; that is, the doing of a wrongful act without just cause or excuse, and in the absence of mitigating facts, in such a way as to show a heart void of social duty, and a mind fatally bent upon mischief, must be out of the case. If that is driven out of the case, then if it is a crime at all it must come under this statute ”

“ A third head under which, in this cursory account of Crown Law, I shall range other offences that are punished capitally, are those against our fellow subjects, and they are either committed against their lives, their goods or their habitations. With respect to those against life, if one person kill another without any malice aforethought, then that natural tenderness of which the Law of England is full, interposes for the first fact, which in such a case is denominated manslaughter. ”

“ It is also provided that 'every murder perpetrated by poison, lying in wait, or any other kind of wilful, deliberate malice and premeditated killing; or committed in the perpetration of, or attempt to perpetrate, any arson, rape, burglary, or robbery, or perpetrated from a premeditated design, unlawfully and maliciously to effect the death of any other human being, other than him who is killed; or perpetrated by any act greatly dangerous to the lives of others, and evidencing a depraved mind, regardless of human life, is murder in the first degree ”

“ When a workman flings down a stone or piece of timber into the street, and kills a man; this may be either misadventure, manslaughter, or murder, according to the circumstances under which the original act was done: if it were in a country village, where few passengers are, and he calls out to all people to have a care, it is misadventure only; but if it were in London, or other populous town, where people are continually passing, it is manslaughter, though he gives loud warning; and murder, if he knows of their passing, and gives no warning at all. ”

“ They were of the most atrocious character—murders committed, not from the ordinary motive of revenge, or of robbery, or to escape from the punishment of other offences,—but its object was indiscriminate murder for dissection, and cold-blooded [293] traffic, rendering the crime profitable in proportion to the number of its victims. These atrocities seem to have attracted the notice of the Lord Advocate, whose conduct, in all these proceedings, he considered highly meritorious. ”

“ A detected criminal was either fined, mutilated, or killed, but punishment, as we now understand the term, was seldom inflicted; that is to say, the dominant idea was neither to reform the culprit nor to deter others from following in his footsteps. If a man was killed it was either to satisfy the blood-feud or to remove him out of the way as a wild beast would be destroyed ”

“ Malice, then, is an element in the offense, and discriminates it from the other crime of felonious homicide which I have mentioned, to wit, manslaughter; that is, malice, express or implied, discriminates murder from the offense of manslaughter.' 'Express malice exists when one, by deliberate premeditation and design, formed in advance, to kill or to do bodily harm, the premeditation and design being implied from external circumstances capable of proof, such as lying in wait, antecedent threats, and concerted schemes against a victim. ”

“ The naked, strong body has known death, and sits in utter dejection, finished, hulked, a weight of shame. And what remains of life is in the face, whose expression is sinister and gruesome, like that of an unrelenting criminal violated by torture. The criminal look of misery and hatred on the fixed, violated face and in the bloodshot eyes is almost impossible. ”

“ Notwithstanding that the criminal was now obviously dead, and nothing visible but his wretched carcass hanging at the end of a cord, a disgusting spectacle of the pitch of degradation that guilt and crime can reduce a human being to, the populace showed no disposition to disperse, and comparatively few left the place. ”

“ If any person committ any wilfull murther, which is manslaughter, committed upon premeditated malice, hatred, or Crueltie, not in a mans necessarie and just defence, nor by meere casualtie against his will, he shall be put to death. ”

“ Voluntary and Involuntary Homicide
It is generally [131] asserted that primitive societies recognise no distinction either between wilful murder and manslaughter (which presumes a certain degree of guilt) , or even between wilful murder and accidental slaying. The reason assigned is that bloodshed, even in comparatively advanced civilisations, is a ‘civil’ rather than a ‘criminal’ offence—a matter for damages and compensation rather than for exemplary punishment. Thus Glotz [132] says: ‘L’intention n’est rien: le fait est tout. ”

“ The murdered gentleman had several other slaves, none of whom were at home at the time of his death, except one man; and he was so terrified that he was afraid to run and alarm the neighborhood. I knew this man well, and believe he was afraid of the woman and her accomplice. I never had any doubt of his innocence, though he suffered a punishment, upon no other evidence than mere suspicion, far more terrible than any ordinary form of death. ”

“ I have shown how these malefactors who were supposed to be expiating their crimes swaggered about, armed, and with knives in their hands, insulting their keepers with vile abuse, lording it over their weaker fellows, using violence whenever the spirit moved them to murder a constable, beat a comrade to death, or make a mouthful of his nose. ”

“ Hence, if the accident happen in a village where few persons pass, and the workman had given previous notice, it is simply a misadventure; if in London, or any other populous city, where numberless persons are passing and re-passing, and due warning had been published, it is manslaughter; but, if no notice whatever had been given, and such workman knew of people going and returning, it is then murder; because it is a proof of malice against all mankind. ”