Defining Homicide & Murder [View all]

[H2O Man]

" Whoever hates his brother is a murderer" -- John 3:15


The above quote was my late friend Rubin "Hurricane" Carter's favorite in the last five years of his life. I am using it in hopes of having a conversation on what people think defines "murder," rather than to be preachy. For twenty years of his life, Rubin was a convicted triple murderer. Two months after the violent crime, the lead investigator referred to Rubin and his co-defendant as "ni__ers, Muslims, animals, and murders." (NY Times; 9-27-74)

Perhaps the lead investigator had the modus operandi in mind. The two murderers used a shotgun and a pistol to kill the people in the bar. A year earlier, Malcolm X was murdered by two men, with a shotgun and a pistol, with the leader coming from Trenton, NJ. Two of the men picked up the night of the triple murder -- who failed polygraphs and were incarcerated for a time -- were NOI members, connected with the on-going competition for control of the local bars and the money made on "the numbers." (As Malcolm noted in his autobiography, a great deal of money was made on vice.)

Rubin's conviction was eventually overturned by the federal courts. A few years after Rubin's death, the actual gunman Rubin was accused of being confessed to the crime on his death bed, identifying the other man as well. They were the two men that I mentioned in the above paragraph. Yet today, on internet boxing forums, I frequently read posts calling Rubin a murderer.

Thus, there are many definitions of murder and murderers. There is the legal definition, which includes murder as one type of homicide. There are a variety of opinions in the general public. On this very forum, for instance, a friend told me a person cannot be called a "murderer" if they were not convicted in a court of law. That would exclude the two men who slaughtered three people in the Paterson, NJ bar, something I disagree with. And there is Rubin, who in order to win his freedom, recognized he had to go inside himself to find that which is above the law.

Is Kyle Rittenhouse a murderer? He was charged with homicide, but a jury deemed him "not guilty." I suspect that many forum members disagree. How about Chris Kyle? The popularity of the 2014 movie "American Sniper" suggest many considered him a hero. I'm not sure that killing 200 Iraqi citizens opposed to the bush/Cheney invasion was heroic. That would tend to mean that bush and Cheney were heroic, by association.

In our country, states tend to have three levels of homicide: murder, manslaughter, and justifiable. Both first and second degree murder cover intentional acts. For sake of keeping this essay shorter than I find interesting, I'll skip over preterintentional killing and/or manslaughter. There are also at least seven types of murder covered by federal law. (There may be more, but I'm dealing with a head cold, feel sick as shit, and thus my mind isn't at the reduced peak usually associated with old age. But I count seven. And international law is a whole different kettle of fish, and I tend to be a vegetarian while suffering from a cold.)

It is interesting that the general public appears split on the case of the insurance CEO. Some think it was a justifiable homicide in a class war. Many recognize it was murder, do not approve of it, but do not have sympathy for the victim. And many think it was a brutal murder with zero justification. By NYS law, the young man will be prosecuted for murder, and almost certainly be found guilty.

I think the case can be made that the top levels of the insurance industry might be charged with manslaughter -- the unintentional killing of human beings without malice aforethought -- when they mistake human beings as mere statistics. They are as intoxicated by money as any drunk driver in a fatal crash.