18 U.S.C. § 1111 — Murder

submitted 78 years ago by ch. 645 to r/title-18-CRIMES-AND-CRIMINAL-PROCEDURE · 303 words · no verdicts yet

in plain englishAI-generated · not legal advice

Murder is unlawfully killing a person with malice aforethought. This section splits murder into first and second degree, based on how and why it happened. First degree covers planned killings and killings during certain other serious crimes. It sets prison or death as punishments, and defines terms like "child" and "torture."

This section defines murder for purposes of federal criminal law and sets the penalties for it when it occurs within the United States’ special maritime and territorial jurisdiction—for example, certain federal waters, ships, and federal territories. It does not make every murder a federal crime; murders outside that jurisdiction may be governed by state law or another federal statute.

Murder means unlawfully killing another person with malice aforethought: a wrongful killing carried out with intent, extreme disregard for human life, or a planned purpose to cause death.

First-degree murder

A killing is murder in the first degree when it involves any of these circumstances:

Poisoning or lying in wait.
Any willful, deliberate, malicious, and premeditated killing.
A killing committed while carrying out or attempting to carry out:
- arson;
- escape;
- murder;
- kidnapping;
- treason;
- espionage;
- sabotage;
- aggravated sexual abuse or sexual abuse;
- child abuse;
- burglary; or
- robbery.
A killing committed as part of a pattern or practice of assault or torture against one or more children.
A premeditated and malicious plan to kill someone that instead causes the death of a different person.

So if someone kills a bystander while robbing a store, that is first-degree murder — no plan to kill is required when the death happens during one of the listed crimes. And if someone plans to kill one person but the attack kills someone else instead, the planned character of the killing carries over: it is still first-degree murder.

For a first-degree murder committed within the covered federal jurisdiction, the punishment is death or life imprisonment.

Second-degree murder

Any murder that does not fit the first-degree categories is murder in the second degree. For example, a malicious killing that was not planned in advance and was not connected to one of the listed crimes may fall into this category.

Second-degree murder is punishable by any term of years in prison or life imprisonment.

Special definitions for killings involving children

For this section:

A child is someone under 18 who is either:
- under the perpetrator’s care or control; or
- at least six years younger than the perpetrator.
Child abuse means intentionally or knowingly causing a child’s death or serious bodily injury.
A pattern or practice of assault or torture means assault or torture occurring on at least two occasions.
Assault, serious bodily injury, and torture take their definitions from section 113, section 1365, and section 2340 of this title.

facts

- Codified at 18 U.S.C. § 1111, titled "Murder," located in the federal criminal code. - Originally enacted June 25, 1948 (ch. 645, 62 Stat. 756), with an enacting reference to Pub. L. 98–473. - Comprises 303 words across three subsections: (a) definitions of first- and second-degree murder, (b) penalties within special maritime and territorial jurisdiction, and (c) definitions of key terms. - Amended six times, most recently by Pub. L. 108–21, title I, § 102, Apr. 30, 2003, 117 Stat. 652. - Source credit lists seven distinct legislative citations spanning from 1948 to 2003.

the actual law source: uscode.house.gov ↗public domain

(a)

Murder is the unlawful killing of a human being with malice aforethought. Every murder perpetrated by poison, lying in wait, or any other kind of willful, deliberate, malicious, and premeditated killing; or committed in the perpetration of, or attempt to perpetrate, any arson, escape, murder, kidnapping, treason, espionage, sabotage, aggravated sexual abuse or sexual abuse, child abuse, burglary, or robbery; or perpetrated as part of a pattern or practice of assault or torture against a child or children; or perpetrated from a premeditated design unlawfully and maliciously to effect the death of any human being other than him who is killed, is murder in the first degree.

Any other murder is murder in the second degree.

(b)

Within the special maritime and territorial jurisdiction of the United States,

Whoever is guilty of murder in the first degree shall be punished by death or by imprisonment for life;

Whoever is guilty of murder in the second degree, shall be imprisoned for any term of years or for life.

(c)

For purposes of this section—

(1)

the term “assault” has the same meaning as given that term in section 113;

(2)

the term “child” means a person who has not attained the age of 18 years and is—

(A)

under the perpetrator’s care or control; or

(B)

at least six years younger than the perpetrator;

(3)

the term “child abuse” means intentionally or knowingly causing death or serious bodily injury to a child;

(4)

the term “pattern or practice of assault or torture” means assault or torture engaged in on at least two occasions;

(5)

the term “serious bodily injury” has the meaning set forth in section 1365; and

(6)

the term “torture” means conduct, whether or not committed under the color of law, that otherwise satisfies the definition set forth in section 2340(1).

Source credit: (June 25, 1948, ch. 645, 62 Stat. 756; Pub. L. 98–473, title II, § 1004, Oct. 12, 1984, 98 Stat. 2138; Pub. L. 99–646, § 87(c)(4), Nov. 10, 1986, 100 Stat. 3623; Pub. L. 99–654, § 3(a)(4), Nov. 14, 1986, 100 Stat. 3663; Pub. L. 100–690, title VII, § 7025, Nov. 18, 1988, 102 Stat. 4397; Pub. L. 103–322, title VI, § 60003(a)(4), Sept. 13, 1994, 108 Stat. 1969; Pub. L. 108–21, title I, § 102, Apr. 30, 2003, 117 Stat. 652.)

history & why it existsrecord from the source credit

1948Enacted · Act of June 25, 1948, ch. 645 · 62 Stat. 756
1984Amended · Pub. L. 98-473 · 98 Stat. 2138
1986Amended · Pub. L. 99-646 · 100 Stat. 3623
1986Amended · Pub. L. 99-654 · 100 Stat. 3663
1988Amended · Pub. L. 100-690 · 102 Stat. 4397
1994Amended · Pub. L. 103-322 · 108 Stat. 1969
2003Amended · Pub. L. 108-21 · 117 Stat. 652

The record shows that this section was enacted on June 25, 1948, as chapter 645 of that year's session laws (62 Stat. 756), part of the broader 1948 recodification and revision of the federal criminal code found in Title 18. The source credit further establishes that the section has been amended six times since then: by Public Law 98–473 (1984), Public Law 99–646 (1986), Public Law 99–654 (1986), Public Law 100–690 (1988), Public Law 103–322 (1994), and Public Law 108–21 (2003). Each amendment altered or added to the statutory text, though the source credit does not itself detail the substance of each change. The 1948 enactment is generally understood to be part of a large-scale effort by Congress to consolidate, clarify, and modernize the federal criminal statutes, many of which had accumulated piecemeal since the nation's founding. That broader revision is commonly described as an exercise in codification rather than the creation of new policy, aiming to organize existing federal crimes—including homicide offenses committed within federal jurisdiction—into a single, more coherent title. The specific reasons Congress structured the degrees of murder, the listed predicate felonies, or later amendments (such as the addition of child-abuse and torture definitions) as it did are not established by the record provided here. Determining the precise legislative intent behind each subsequent amendment would require consulting the individual public laws and their accompanying legislative history, which are not detailed in the source credit itself.

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