Father Charged with Murder in Death of Toddler Left in Car.

[yellowcanine]

67. I believe 2nd Degree murder does require intent, though.

For example, two people get into an argument in a bar, one guy pulls out a gun and shoots the other. Or a road rage incident where someone shoots into an occupied car and hits a passenger instead of the offending driver he was supposedly aiming at. Those could be 2nd Degree murder. The way the story reads here this would not even be a close call. For a prosecutor to go for a charge which is not justified by the facts in the hope of getting a guilty plea to a lesser charge is prosecutorial misconduct and could be a breach of judicial ethics resulting in criminal or administrative sanctions against the prosecutor.

Second Degree Murder: Definition
Second-degree murder is ordinarily defined as: 1) an intentional killing that is not premeditated or planned, nor committed in a reasonable "heat of passion"; or 2) a killing caused by dangerous conduct and the offender's obvious lack of concern for human life. Second-degree murder may best be viewed as the middle ground between first-degree murder and voluntary manslaughter.

- See more at: http://criminal.findlaw.com/criminal-charges/second-degree-murder-overview.html#sthash.lH2zecSH.dpuf