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Aiding suicide.

Furnishing weapon or

drug to commit suicide.

Aiding attempt at suicido.

Mental incapacity of person aided, no defense.

Punishment of aiding suicide.

Punish

ment of

quence, would render the perpetrator chargeable with homicide, is guilty of attempting suicide.

An attempt to commit suicide is a misdemeanor at common law. And in this, as in other cases, the mero fact of drunkenness is no excuse, if there was an actual intent on the part of the accused to take his own life. The fact is, however, material as bearing on the question of intent. Rey v. Doody, 6 Cox Cr. Cas., 463.

S230. Every person who willfully, in any manner, advises, encourages, abets or assists another person in taking his own life, is guilty of aiding suicide.

S231. Every person who willfully furnishes another person with any deadly weapon or poisonous drug, knowing that such person intends to use such weapon or drug in taking his own life, is guilty of aiding suicide, if such person thereafter employs such instrument or drug in taking his own life.

S232. Every person who willfully aids another in attempting to take his own life, in any manner which by the preceding sections would have amounted to aiding suicide if the person assisted had actually taken his own life, is guilty of aiding an attempt at suicide.

$233. It is no defense to a prosecution for aiding suicide, or aiding an attempt at suicide, that the person who committed or attempted the suicide was not a person deemed capable of committing crime.

Intended to meet the possible argument in defense of one who assists the suicide of an insane person, &c., that as the principal was incapable of crime, no crime was committed by him, and therefore the abettor cannot be deemed to have assisted a crime.

S 234. Every person guilty of aiding suicide is punishable by imprisonment in a state prison for not less than seven years.

Corresponds with 2 Rev. Stat., 661, § 7; and Id., 662, § 20.

$ 235. Every person guilty of attempting suicide,

attempting or of aiding an attempt at suicide, is punishable by

aiding an

imprisonment in a state prison not exceeding two suicide or years, or by a fine not exceeding one thousand dol- attempt. lars, or both.

CHAPTER II.

HOMICIDE.

SECTION 236. Homicide defined.

237. Different kinds of homicide.

238. What proof of death is required.

239. Petit treason abolished.

240. Effect of proof of a domestic or confidential relation.
241. Murder defined.

242. Design to effect death when inferred.

243. Premeditation.

244. Anger or intoxication no defense.

245. Act eminently dangerous, and evincing a depraved mind.

246. Duel fought out of this state.

247. Punishment of murder.

248. Manslaughter in first degree defined.

249. Killing unborn quick child by injury to person of mother.

250. By administering drugs, &c.

251. Punishment of manslaughter in first degree.

252. Manslaughter in second degree defined.

253. Liability of owner of mischievous animal.

254. Liability of persons navigating vessels.

255. Liability of persons in charge of steamboats.

256. Liability of persons in charge of steam engines.

257. Liability of physicians.

258. Liability of persons making or keeping gunpowder con

trary to law.

259. Punishment of manslaughter in second degree.

260. Excusable homicide defined.

261. Justifiable homicide by public officers.

262. Justifiable homicide by other persons.

S 236. Homicide is the killing of one human being Homicide

by another.

$237. Homicide is either:

1. Murder;

2. Manslaughter;

3. Excusable homicide; or,

Justifiable homicide.

defined.

Different kinds of homicide

What proof of death is required.

Petit treason

$238. No person can be convicted of murder or manslaughter, or of aiding suicide, unless the death of the person alleged to have been killed and the fact of killing by the accused, are each established as independent facts beyond a reasonable doubt.

To this extent the strict rule of the common law requiring the finding of the body as an invariable condition to a conviction for homicide has, by the latter cases, been relaxed. See Ruloff v. People, 18 N. Y. (4 Smith), 179; compare also State of Vermont v. Davidson, 30 Vt., 377.

$239. The rules of the common law, distinguish

abolished. ing the killing of a master by his servant, and of a husband by his wife as petit treason, are abolished, and these offenses are deemed homicides, punishable in the manner prescribed by this chapter.

Effect of proof of a

confidential relation.

See 2 Rev. Stat., 657, § 8. In modifying the language of the Revised Statutes upon this subject, the Commissioners have not intended any change in the law, but have simply designed to introduce such a reference to the common law as should serve to explain why any legislation upon the point was demanded.

$ 240. Whenever the grade or punishment of domestic or homicide is made to depend upon its having been committed under circumstances evincing a depraved mind or unusual cruelty, or in a cruel manner, the jury may take into consideration the fact that any domestic or confidential relation existed between the accused and the person killed, in determining the moral quality of the acts proved.

Murder defined.

$241. Homicide is murder in the following cases: 1. When perpetrated without authority of law, and with a premeditated design to effect the death, of the person killed or of any other human being;

2. When perpetrated by any act imminently dangerous to others and evincing a depraved mind, regardless of human life, although without any premeditated design to effect the death of any particular individual;

3. When perpetrated without any design to effect death, by a person engaged in the commission of any felony.

The former definition. This section is founded on 2 Rev. Stat., 657, § 5. The definitions of the four grades of homicide given in the Revised Statutes, though drawn with care, and resulting, when attentively considered, in an accurate demarcation, are yet obscured and embarrassed with references to each other, and to the rules of the common law. The Commissioners have, in subsequent sections, recommended a modification of the law of manslaughter, distinguishing it into two degrees only, instead of four. In other respects, whenever they have departed, in these definitions of homicide, from the phraseology of the Revised Statutes, it has chiefly been in order to render each definition independent and sufficient in itself.

Degrees in Murder. By recent statutes (Laws of 1860, 712, ch. 410, § 2, and 1862, 369, ch. 197, § 5), murder was divided into two degrees, the first degree only being punishable with death. The practical result of introducing such a distinction will be that jurors influenced by unwillingness to unite in a capital conviction, will always find the prisoner guilty of the second degree only. The Commissioners are of opinion that the simplicity of the definition of murder in the Revised Statutes should be restored.

S 242. A design to effect death is inferred from the fact of killing, unless the circumstances raise a reasonable doubt whether such design existed.

Design to when in

effect death

ferred.

tion.

S 243. A design to effect death sufficient to consti- Premeditatute murder, may be formed instantly before committing the act by which it is carried into execution.

People v. Clark, 7 N. Y. (3 Seld.), 385.
People v. Austin, 1 Park. Cr., 154.

$244. Homicide committed with a design to effect death is not the less murder because the perpetrator was in a state of anger or voluntary intoxication at the time.

People v. Johnson, 1 Park. Cr., 291.
People v. Sullivan, 7 N. Y. (3 Seld.), 396.

People v. Austin, 1 Park. Cr., 154.

People v. Vinegar, 2 Id., 24.

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Act eminently

$ 245. Homicide perpetrated by an act eminently dangerous dangerous to others and evincing a depraved mind, regardless of human life, is not the less murder because there was no actual intent to injure others.

and evincing a depraved mind.

Duel fought out of this

state

Punishment of murder.

Manslaughter in first degree defined.

Intended to correct the rules deemed incorrect, laid down in People v. Sheriff of Westchester Co., 1 Park. Cr., 659; Darry v. People, 10 N. Y. (6 Seld.), 120.

S 246. Every person who, by previous appointment within this state, fights a duel without this state, and in so doing inflicts a wound upon his antagonist or any other person, whereof the person injured dies, and every second engaged in such duel, is guilty of murder, and may be indicted, tried and convicted in any county of the state.

See 2 Rev. Stat., 657, § 6.

S247. Every person convicted of murder shall suffer death for the same.

Corresponds with 2 Rev. Stat., 656, § 1. See notes to sections 60 and 241, above.

S248. Homicide is manslaughter in the first degree in the following cases:

1. When perpetrated without a design to effect death by a person while engaged in the commission of a misdemeanor;

2. When perpetrated without a design to effect death, and in a heat of passion, but in a cruel and unusual manner or by means of a dangerous weapon; unless it is committed under such circumstances as constitute excusable or justifiable homicide;

3. When perpetrated unnecessarily either while resisting an attempt by the person killed to commit a crime, or after such attempt shall have failed.

Subd. 1. This clause is intended to embody the provisions of 2 Rev. Stat., 661, § 6.

The words "by the act, procurement or culpable negligence of another," used in that statute, are omitted. They are not found in the corresponding clause in the definition of murder. (2 Rev. Stat., 657, § 5, subd. 3.

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