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Serious question - if I shoot a gun wildly at a house, my goal being to scare people, and I accidentally kill someone, would the law consider that murder with i

by olliej 5y ago

Serious question - if I shoot a gun wildly at a house, my goal being to scare people, and I accidentally kill someone, would the law consider that murder with intent? Because that's what swatting is.

skzr 5y ago
The law would likely find that somewhere between Negligent Manslaughter and Murder without Intent assuming it was truly random and you didn't plan it beforehand. If you did plan to shoot "randomly" at your house, it could support a premeditated murder charge but it would be unlikely. Whether or not you think Swatting is planned in this parallel is up to you, but it isnt a great comparison.
ZephyrBlu 5y ago
I thought that murder is pre-meditated, and if it's not pre-meditated it's manslaughter.
- jeremyjh 5y ago
  There are different crimes that are called murder. Pre-meditated murder with intent is often called first-degree murder but there are other crimes. Killing anyone during the commission of any felony - or even having someone accidentally killed as a result of the felony crime - can be felony murder in some states. In any case there are also other murder charges where there is intent but it was not premeditated (crime of passion - often called second degree murder) and there are may be crimes called murder where there is for example aggravated assault with disregard for human life that kills someone even if death was not the intent. Maybe that is third degree murder.
  - Jetrel 5y ago
    Yeah, from reading up on it, this is often classified as "Third Degree" murder: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Depraved-heart_murder https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Depraved-heart_murder https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder_(United_States_law)#Degrees https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder_(United_States_law)#Deg...
sokoloff 5y ago
IANAL, but absent specific intent to kill, I suspect you’d be looking at a manslaughter or negligent homicide charge, but in the rare jurisdictions that have third-degree murder, that might apply.
deleted 5y ago
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dragonwriter 5y ago
> if I shoot a gun wildly at a house, my goal being to scare people, and I accidentally kill someone, would the law consider that murder with intent? Probably depraved indifference murder, unless shooting the gun at the house was a felony, then probably felony murder.
Jetrel 5y ago
Honestly it's probably a case-by-case thing, and debatable. A lot of it is down to the motives of the people involved, and I think swatting really hits on a grey area. With any sort of "potentially lethal indirect action" like this, there are some people who genuinely do wish to kill the victim, but are scared enough of legal consequences that they're trying to hide behind an act of "plausible deniability" - they're too scared to do a cut-and-dry "this is agreed upon by society to be murder" act, and/or they want to do something where they're likely to be undetected. A lot of times they genuinely want to keep living their life, but specifically want to off this other person because they feel like their life would be better with that person out of it (i.e. the motivator behind many duels, or many poisonings of spouses, etc). The second big thing is a grey area of "quasi-lethal intent", which is as old as humanity. Perhaps the classical example of it is King David "willfully endangering" Uriel, the husband of Bethsheba, in order to get him out of the way in order to adulterously claim her as his own. It's a fuzzy motivation - did he really mean to kill him outright, or perhaps merely to cripple him, or just simply "get him out of the picture" by sending him off on a distant military campaign? He knew quite well it could end up lethal, and it did. The reality is we just don't know where the motive fell - we do know that no matter what, it was a very bad motive, that was close to being murderous; we just don't know if it was "the full monty". I think a lot of swatting and such is like that. It could be a laissez-faire "if he dies, he dies" attitude, or it could be lethal intent. Without mindreading, we can't tell the difference. Either one's pretty bad, and at the very least, I feel like the former is pretty cut-and-dry "manslaughter". I think we've got a few degrees of murder it also qualifies for - in fact, I think the description of what is often "third degree murder (aka Depraved-Heart murder)" is pretty close: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder_(United_States_law) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder_(United_States_law) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Depraved-heart_murder https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Depraved-heart_murder

by olliej 5y ago

Serious question - if I shoot a gun wildly at a house, my goal being to scare people, and I accidentally kill someone, would the law consider that murder with intent? Because that's what swatting is.

skzr 5y ago

The law would likely find that somewhere between Negligent Manslaughter and Murder without Intent assuming it was truly random and you didn't plan it beforehand. If you did plan to shoot "randomly" at your house, it could support a premeditated murder charge but it would be unlikely. Whether or not you think Swatting is planned in this parallel is up to you, but it isnt a great comparison.

ZephyrBlu 5y ago

I thought that murder is pre-meditated, and if it's not pre-meditated it's manslaughter.

jeremyjh 5y ago
There are different crimes that are called murder. Pre-meditated murder with intent is often called first-degree murder but there are other crimes. Killing anyone during the commission of any felony - or even having someone accidentally killed as a result of the felony crime - can be felony murder in some states. In any case there are also other murder charges where there is intent but it was not premeditated (crime of passion - often called second degree murder) and there are may be crimes called murder where there is for example aggravated assault with disregard for human life that kills someone even if death was not the intent. Maybe that is third degree murder.
- Jetrel 5y ago
  Yeah, from reading up on it, this is often classified as "Third Degree" murder: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Depraved-heart_murder https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Depraved-heart_murder https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder_(United_States_law)#Degrees https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder_(United_States_law)#Deg...

sokoloff 5y ago

IANAL, but absent specific intent to kill, I suspect you’d be looking at a manslaughter or negligent homicide charge, but in the rare jurisdictions that have third-degree murder, that might apply.

deleted 5y ago

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dragonwriter 5y ago

> if I shoot a gun wildly at a house, my goal being to scare people, and I accidentally kill someone, would the law consider that murder with intent? Probably depraved indifference murder, unless shooting the gun at the house was a felony, then probably felony murder.

Jetrel 5y ago

Honestly it's probably a case-by-case thing, and debatable. A lot of it is down to the motives of the people involved, and I think swatting really hits on a grey area. With any sort of "potentially lethal indirect action" like this, there are some people who genuinely do wish to kill the victim, but are scared enough of legal consequences that they're trying to hide behind an act of "plausible deniability" - they're too scared to do a cut-and-dry "this is agreed upon by society to be murder" act, and/or they want to do something where they're likely to be undetected. A lot of times they genuinely want to keep living their life, but specifically want to off this other person because they feel like their life would be better with that person out of it (i.e. the motivator behind many duels, or many poisonings of spouses, etc). The second big thing is a grey area of "quasi-lethal intent", which is as old as humanity. Perhaps the classical example of it is King David "willfully endangering" Uriel, the husband of Bethsheba, in order to get him out of the way in order to adulterously claim her as his own. It's a fuzzy motivation - did he really mean to kill him outright, or perhaps merely to cripple him, or just simply "get him out of the picture" by sending him off on a distant military campaign? He knew quite well it could end up lethal, and it did. The reality is we just don't know where the motive fell - we do know that no matter what, it was a very bad motive, that was close to being murderous; we just don't know if it was "the full monty". I think a lot of swatting and such is like that. It could be a laissez-faire "if he dies, he dies" attitude, or it could be lethal intent. Without mindreading, we can't tell the difference. Either one's pretty bad, and at the very least, I feel like the former is pretty cut-and-dry "manslaughter". I think we've got a few degrees of murder it also qualifies for - in fact, I think the description of what is often "third degree murder (aka Depraved-Heart murder)" is pretty close: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder_(United_States_law) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder_(United_States_law) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Depraved-heart_murder https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Depraved-heart_murder