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Criminal Law • Murder
CRIMLAW#008
Legal Definition
Premeditation occurs where one reflects on the idea of killing, even if briefly.
Plain English Explanation
Humans are emotional animals. This is important to keep in mind when assessing a potential murder because murder isn't simply the killing of another human being. It's much worse than that. It is the calculated, intentional, purposeful killing of another human being. For example, imagine that Bob and Sam are hanging out. Bob, very stupidly, wants to scare Sam with his gun that he believes is unloaded. Bob grabs his gun, points it at Sam, and pulls the trigger. Unfortunately, the gun was loaded, and Sam dies.
In this example, is Bob a bad person? Yes. A super bad person. The kind of person who should be criminally punished. HOWEVER, as bad and stupid as Bob may be, he's not as bad as someone who intended to kill Sam. This is ultimately why there are degrees of murder, because murder is such a bad crime that society has unpacked it into multiple scenarios so that we reserve the most severe punishment for the most severe cases.
With that in mind, there are two important factors that are required in order to turn second degree murder into first degree murder: Premeditation and Deliberation.
"Premeditation" simply means that at some point before a defendant killed a victim, the defendant considered causing the victim to die. It is an awareness that there is a potential for death to occur. Note that this doesn't mean someone needs to obsessively plan to kill someone. It just means that there was some point, however brief, that the thought of "I am going to kill that person" entered the mind of the defendant prior to their action of actually killing them.
"Deliberation" simply means that the result of the defendant's actions were deliberate. In other words, the defendant deliberately intended to cause the victim to die, and their actions succeeded. Why is this important? Because in the absence of deliberation, you have an accident. For example, if someone walks in on their spouse cheating on them only to violently snap and, in the heat of the argument, kill someone — are they a bad person for letting their emotions take control resulting in them killing someone? Yes. But remember that no matter how bad they may be, they are less bad (legally speaking) than someone who calmly takes the life of another human. Their lack of deliberation makes them arguably less bad than those who plan to kill.
In this example, is Bob a bad person? Yes. A super bad person. The kind of person who should be criminally punished. HOWEVER, as bad and stupid as Bob may be, he's not as bad as someone who intended to kill Sam. This is ultimately why there are degrees of murder, because murder is such a bad crime that society has unpacked it into multiple scenarios so that we reserve the most severe punishment for the most severe cases.
With that in mind, there are two important factors that are required in order to turn second degree murder into first degree murder: Premeditation and Deliberation.
"Premeditation" simply means that at some point before a defendant killed a victim, the defendant considered causing the victim to die. It is an awareness that there is a potential for death to occur. Note that this doesn't mean someone needs to obsessively plan to kill someone. It just means that there was some point, however brief, that the thought of "I am going to kill that person" entered the mind of the defendant prior to their action of actually killing them.
"Deliberation" simply means that the result of the defendant's actions were deliberate. In other words, the defendant deliberately intended to cause the victim to die, and their actions succeeded. Why is this important? Because in the absence of deliberation, you have an accident. For example, if someone walks in on their spouse cheating on them only to violently snap and, in the heat of the argument, kill someone — are they a bad person for letting their emotions take control resulting in them killing someone? Yes. But remember that no matter how bad they may be, they are less bad (legally speaking) than someone who calmly takes the life of another human. Their lack of deliberation makes them arguably less bad than those who plan to kill.
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