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Homicide offenses

Summary of the topic

Chapter 19 of the Penal Code is short, and almost every question in it turns on the mental state. Section 19.01 says a person commits criminal homicide by causing the death of an individual intentionally, knowingly, recklessly or with criminal negligence, and it divides the field into murder, capital murder, manslaughter and criminally negligent homicide. Section 1.07 defines an individual as a human being who is alive, including an unborn child at every stage of gestation from fertilization until birth.

Section 6.03 supplies the four mental states. A person acts intentionally when it is his conscious objective or desire to engage in the conduct or cause the result, and knowingly when he is aware that his conduct is reasonably certain to cause the result. A person acts recklessly when he is aware of but consciously disregards a substantial and unjustifiable risk, and with criminal negligence when he ought to be aware of such a risk and the failure to perceive it is a gross deviation from the standard of care. Recklessness and criminal negligence differ on awareness.

Section 19.02(b) gives four ways to commit murder. Under (b)(1) the person intentionally or knowingly causes the death of an individual. Under (b)(2) the person intends to cause serious bodily injury and commits an act clearly dangerous to human life that causes death. Under (b)(3), the felony murder route, the person commits or attempts a felony other than manslaughter and, in the course of and in furtherance of it or in immediate flight from it, commits or attempts an act clearly dangerous to human life that causes death. Under (b)(4) the person knowingly manufactures or delivers a Penalty Group 1-B controlled substance and an individual dies from taking it.

Murder is a first degree felony under section 19.02(c). At the punishment stage the defendant may raise the issue of sudden passion arising from an adequate cause, and if the defendant proves it by a preponderance of the evidence, the offense is a second degree felony.

Section 19.03(a) makes a murder under section 19.02(b)(1) capital murder in listed circumstances. They include a victim who is a peace officer or fireman acting in the lawful discharge of an official duty, a murder in the course of kidnapping, burglary, robbery, aggravated sexual assault or arson, a murder for remuneration, a murder of more than one person in the same criminal transaction, and a victim under 10 years of age. Capital murder is a capital felony under section 19.03(b), and section 19.03(d) presumes the actor knew the victim was a peace officer or fireman if the victim wore a distinctive uniform or badge.

Section 19.04 makes it manslaughter to recklessly cause the death of an individual, a second degree felony. Section 19.05 makes it criminally negligent homicide to cause death by criminal negligence, a state jail felony. Section 19.02(b)(3) excludes manslaughter as the underlying felony for felony murder.

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