Manslaughter??

I'm not an expert on UK crime but could someone like Rand explain why this isn't a murder charge?

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/arti...th-London.html

"A teenager stabbed to death outside a block of flats has been described as 'joyful and beautiful' by her heartbroken family who said she could 'put a smile on everyone's face.'

Katerina Makunova, 17, became the latest victim of London's knife crime epidemic when she was found with stab wounds by a ground floor lift in a property in Brisbane Street, Camberwell."

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"* Oluwaseyi Dada, 21, of Camberwell, is due before the Old Bailey today charged with manslaughter. "

Met Police arrested the suspect on suspicion of murder. After investigation, he was charged with manslaughter.

Now, go and look up the differences between murder and manslaughter (note: they're fundamentally the same between the UK and the US), then apply what you've learned to the details of this case you have privy to that no one outside of the police and the CPS do at this stage. I've checked five different news outlets on this offence, including the Met Police's own public link to the case above, and as this case has yet to be tried there are of course no details given.

So, what do you know that no one else outside of the Police and the CPS do that leads you to conclude this was murder and not manslaughter?

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Originally Posted by Timbuk2

Met Police arrested the suspect on suspicion of murder. After investigation, he was charged with manslaughter.

Now, go and look up the differences between murder and manslaughter (note: they're fundamentally the same between the UK and the US), then apply what you've learned to the details of this case you have privy to that no one outside of the police and the CPS do at this stage. I've checked five different news outlets on this offence, including the Met Police's own public link to the case above, and as this case has yet to be tried there are of course no details given.

So, what do you know that no one else outside of the Police and the CPS do that leads you to conclude this was murder and not manslaughter?

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Someone was stabbed. They died. That's pretty much murder unless you have some crazy circumstance of events where your knife slips out in a struggle and the other person accidentally falls on it. Manslaughter for deliberate stabbing is absurd as if you are looking to stab people with pointy object the intent is to kill.

With your obsession with this subject you don't know that the definition of murder contains premeditation? That this means the prosecution needs to prove that the killer had the premeditated intention to kill her before he actually killed her. And that beyond reasonable doubt too.

Man, I didn't know you were joining BLM.

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Originally Posted by Lewkowski

circumstance of events .

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There y'go. See it wasn't that hard was it.

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Originally Posted by Hazir

With your obsession with this subject you don't know that the definition of murder contains premeditation? That this means the prosecution needs to prove that the killer had the premeditated intention to kill her before he actually killed her. And that beyond reasonable doubt too.

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Unless it's different in the UK (and Timbuk implied that it isn't), murder requires intent, not premeditation. In the common (but not universal) definitions, first degree murder requires premeditation, but second degree murder doesn't. Manslaughter is accidental killing through gross criminal negligence.

Definition of manslaughter in the UK:

Manslaughter can be committed in one of three ways:

1. killing with the intent for murder but where a partial defence applies, namely loss of control, diminished responsibility or killing pursuant to a suicide pact.
2. conduct that was grossly negligent given the risk of death, and did kill, is manslaughter ("gross negligence manslaughter"); and
3. conduct taking the form of an unlawful act involving a danger of some harm, that resulted in death, is manslaughter ("unlawful and dangerous act manslaughter").

The first is also know as voluntary manslaughter, and the second two are known as involuntary manslaughter. US law generally makes the same distinction between voluntary and involuntary.

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Originally Posted by Lewkowski

I'm not an expert on UK crime

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True

Under British law the facts of the case are discussed in trial not in media. So given the trial hasn't happened yet we don't know why it is manslaughter and not murder. That ought to come out at trial.