The Sunday Telegraph has learnt that Harriet Harman, the Commons Leader, will outline the proposed changes during her week in charge of the country while Gordon Brown is on holiday.

 

The overhaul is largely based on recommendations by the Law Commission in 2006 which proposed the biggest shake-up of the laws on homicide for more than 50 years.

Instead of only being able to charge defendants with either murder or manslaughter, prosecuting authorities may be able to choose from a wider range of options.

 

These would include first-degree murder, where the offender intends to kill; second-degree murder, where the offender intends to cause serious harm but causes death; and manslaughter, for cases involving negligence or the intention to cause some but not serious harm, which result in death.

 

Scores of killers who are now charged with manslaughter would no longer be able to escape a murder charge. The new plans also signal the end of the mandatory life sentence for all murderers, a regime that dates back to the abolition of the death penalty more than 40 years ago.

 

Under the changes, while first-degree murder would carry a mandatory life sentence, judges in cases of second-degree murder would have the discretion to impose a fixed-term sentence.

 

"The aim is to be tougher but also give prosecutors more flexibility over charging and courts more flexibility over sentencing," a government source said.

 

The new category of second-degree murder would, for example, be likely to catch terrorists who planted a bomb or poisoned supermarket food but gave a warning in which they said they did not intend to kill. Currently they could only be convicted of manslaughter.

 

Ms Harman is also understood to be proposing changes to the rules on provocation, which often apply to domestic homicides. While provocation is set to remain in law as a defence, it will be limited to the most serious cases. For example, men who kill nagging women will no longer be able to plead provocation, in changes backed by women's groups and reformers.

 

Some Labour MPs are alarmed that Ms Harman plans to use her week in charge to promote important legal changes that will be seen as advancing the feminist cause. One said: "This is not exactly the message we need to be putting out right now to the core vote – look what happened in the Glasgow East by-election." Later stints "in charge" will be taken by Alistair Darling, the Chancellor, and Jack Straw, the Justice Secretary.

 

HOW AMERICA DEFINES ITS CRIMES

 

First degree murder

 

Killings that are both "wilful" and "premeditated". This could apply to Dr Harold Shipman who murdered 15 of his patients.

Most states also adhere to the "felony murder rule," under which a person commits first degree murder if he or she is responsible for a death while committing another violent offence.

 

Second degree murder

 

Applies to killings that are not premeditated but caused by the offender's dangerous conduct or lack of concern for human life. Can also cover cases where the killer pleads provocation.

 

Source: Sunday Telegraph

 

Seems a sensible move to me

 

Someone who catches their wife in bed with the milkman after returning home from a nightshift and batters the milkman to death with a bedroom lamp or someone who kills a burglar or a wife that kills her husband after domestic violence for instance shouldn't be treated the same as a child killer or the guy that killed those whores in Ipswich or the killer of Sally Ann Bowman

 

I think 1st degree murder - premeditated should carry an AUTOMATIC life without prospect of parole tariff

 

2nd degree killers such as the type I listed above like the killer of a burglar are not a threat to the public so after they have served a few years can be rehabillitated into society

Edited July 28, 200817 yr by Tim Barnes

More fukkin' Americanisation of our society...... I mean, why dont we just raise the fukkin' stars and stripes above Buckingham Palace and have done with it.... <_<

 

We've had a perfectly good, logical system of law for a damn sight longer than the US has existed, in fact, they nicked all OUR ideas.. Everyone understands the difference between "Murder" and "Manslaughter", well, everyone with a brain that is.... We've also had a thing called "judicial discretion" in which a judge looks at the evidence of an individual case and weighs things up before passing sentence.....

 

We can give out stiffer sentences for Pre-Med murder without having to change the categorizations, Judges already have the power to pass life sentences without parole, or with minimum recommendations... Flexibility already exists in the present system, so I see no need to change things tbh....

Seems a sensible move to me

 

Someone who catches their wife in bed with the milkman after returning home from a nightshift and batters the milkman to death with a bedroom lamp or someone who kills a burglar or a wife that kills her husband after domestic violence for instance shouldn't be treated the same as a child killer or the guy that killed those whores in Ipswich or the killer of Sally Ann Bowman

 

Well, they're not treated the same way Craig.... Which is why we have charges such as Manslaughter or Involuntary Manslaughter..... :rolleyes:

 

 

Well, they're not treated the same way Craig.... Which is why we have charges such as Manslaughter or Involuntary Manslaughter..... :rolleyes:

 

There was a case of a woman only last year who after years of physical, mental and sexual abuse at the hands of her husband snapped and killed him, she was charged with MURDER and jailed for life, that is unjust that she should get the same sentence as Mark Dixie :manson: who lay in wait outside a girls house and killed her

 

Then there is Tony Martin, after being harassed and tormented for ages by burglars he finally snapped and killed a burglar, merely doing what any householder would have done under the circumstances yet the guy got charged with murder

 

Those are 2 examples of cases where at best manslaughter charges should have been bought given the provocation and where the killer does not pose a threat to the general public

 

 

There was a case of a woman only last year who after years of physical, mental and sexual abuse at the hands of her husband snapped and killed him, she was charged with MURDER and jailed for life, that is unjust that she should get the same sentence as Mark Dixie :manson: who lay in wait outside a girls house and killed her

 

Then there is Tony Martin, after being harassed and tormented for ages by burglars he finally snapped and killed a burglar, merely doing what any householder would have done under the circumstances yet the guy got charged with murder

 

Those are 2 examples of cases where at best manslaughter charges should have been bought given the provocation and where the killer does not pose a threat to the general public

 

Those are mistakes made by Prosecutors though at the charging stage though mate, NOT a case of the Law itself being at fault... The Law is the Law mate, there is plenty of room for discretion and common sense, we DO NOT NEED these changes.. What we DO need is for Prosecutors, Judges, Lawyers, etc, to practice BETTER JUDICIAL DISCRETION and more common sense... And you aint gonna get that with changes in the law, rather by changing the personnel....

 

With regard to the Tony Martin case, I dont think that "any householder" would've gone out and bought a completely ILLEGAL weapon on the black market (a pump-action shotgun which you cannot LEGALLY obtain in this country in any case...), that's just utter cr@p mate.... He should've gotten 10 years for that alone.... Sorry if that sounds harsh, but I cannot possibly defend what he did any more than I would defend someone on an estate buying an illegal gun or carrying a knife for "protection" either.....