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Comment by Bartweiss | Hacker News Reader

An honest question: what's up with the use of the word "murder"?

I'm not asking that to start a fight over whether these shootings were justified. I'm asking because that word has a specific criminal definition, and news organizations typically have very strict policies on implying criminal guilt (witness the pre-conviction use of "alleged X" even in the most obvious of cases).

As I understand it, most of the names described here as "murdered by police" have not produced murder convictions or even murder charges against police officers.

Without getting into subjective discussions of 'guilt', does TechCrunch have a policy on language in criminal cases? What is it?

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You could look on it as lexicographical civil disobedience.

If it's impossible to get justice because the killer was wearing uniform what's the value in the judgements of justice system? If so many cases of behaviour that would lead to a conviction, don't, that conviction loses starts to lose some of its meaning. If an officer is so rarely convicted for murder, at what point does it remain meaningful to use the word 'murder' to mean a legal conviction where a police officer is concerned?

Or do we look at the stats and say that police are incapable of committing murder. "There is no murder in paradise" as Stalin is reputed to have said.

(I'm slightly playing devil's advocate here but there is a massive problem)

From the wikipedia (which confirms my prior understanding):

>Murder is the unlawful killing of another human being without justification or valid excuse, especially the unlawful killing of another human being with malice aforethought. This state of mind may, depending upon the jurisdiction, distinguish murder from other forms of unlawful homicide, such as manslaughter.

Murder is both specifically unlawful (which is debatable in this case, even if we don't want it to be), and specifically premeditated (which it almost certainly is not). So I'd say murder is probably not accurate in common law jurisdictions, especially U.S. jurisdictions.

> and specifically premeditated (which it almost certainly is not)

No, "malice aforethought" does not, in modern US usage, actually equal premeditation; there are four distinct states all held to be encompassed within "malice aforethought" [0]:

i. Intent to kill,

ii. Intent to inflict grievous bodily harm short of death,

iii. Reckless indifference to an unjustifiably high risk to human life (sometimes described as an "abandoned and malignant heart"), or

iv. Intent to commit a dangerous felony (the "felony murder" doctrine).

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malice_aforethought#United_Sta...

To come at it from the point of view of my parent post. What conviction would a normal citizen normally receive if they shot someone with a gun? I have a hard time prosecutors wouldn't find a way to get the perpetrator tried for murder.

And...?

These are obviously not _normal_ situations are they?

Premeditation is what separates first degree murder from second degree murder, not murder from manslaughter.

Well, part of the problem is a lack of consistent prosecution, so it's not a surprise that there have been little in the way of murder charges or convictions.

We've seen video of an officer shooting someone and then going back to his squad car and appearing to remove a gun from his bag and plant it on the victim. Carrying around a "burner" gun (in case you might need it) seems premeditated to me, but IANAL.

While I understand your concern, the entire point of database is to highlight police misconduct in the first place, and highlighting that many of these deaths were unnecessary.

I mean otherwise we'd call lynching's back in the 1900's "alleged murders" since most of them also didn't have murder convictions nor murder charges.

Though I guess they could use "manslaughter" instead?

I mean, most newspapers would call lynchings today "alleged murders". The print-news standard still says alleged with witnesses, video, and a confession - until the conviction comes down, the crime is alleged.

That, I guess, was my question. Print journalism applies this rule even when taking moral stances; what's the standard here?

Well, TC is probably trying to carve itself out as an "edgy" news source" with edgy reporters, so they can play loosey goosey with language.

And it's a shame because there definitely is an issue with police aggressiveness and violence and espousing a shoot first ask questions later philosophy for policing.

On the other hand, we have too many people with guns who should not own guns. I'm ambivalent about the second amendment but so long as we have it, strictly test owners yearly and anyone possessing one illegally has to do massive community work and pay prohibitive fines.

Your argument in paragraph 2: the police are too violent and "shoot first and ask questions later".

Your argument in paragraph 3: only the police should have guns.

Umm ...?

No, only people who pass extensive psychological evaluations.

Besides, is there excessive police violence on JP or UK?

Police don't even do this. If I am a gun owner and I want to go buy a new gun, I am under more strutany than a police officer who received his training and psych evaluations 20 years ago. Disallowing guns won't stop violence, but it will make for an easier police state. While I am not a gun owner, I do think it's a little amusing that a few bad people (comparative to population) have used guns for harm and now after centuries they are bad. No one had an outcry during the olympics rifle competition - so does that mean only "good people get guns"? It's a no win argument on both sides.

I'd argue that some of the people who fall into "too many people with guns" referenced in paragraph 3 are cops...

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