1. Homicide
Four categories

2. Two major Divisions
Murder
Manslaughter

3. Murder: the unlawful, unjustified and unexcused intentional killing of one human being by another human being with malice aforethought
First degree murder - the unlawful, unjustified and unexcused willful, deliberate, and premeditated and intentional killing of one human being by another human being with malice aforethought.
Second degree murder - all killings with malice aforethought but without premeditation. [Some states use different terminology for murder to differentiate the degrees. Ohio calls first degree murder, Aggravated Murder, and refers to second degree murder as Murder]

4. Voluntary Manslaughter
The unlawful, unjustified and unexcused killing of one human being by another human being, without malice aforethought.
Requires adequate provocation; defendant must have been enraged or extremely angry.
Must kill before cooling down or before calm returns to defendant.
Must be provocation that would have enraged average person.
Intent to kill is present, but not called malice because the rage or emotion “clouds” or obscures the human brain from reason or rationality.

5. Involuntary manslaughter- is an unintentional killing done without excuse or justification and without malice aforethought.
Includes intentional acts resulting in an unintentional death during the commission of an unlawful act which is inherently dangerous to humans.
Includes unintentional death as the result of criminal negligence while doing a lawful act in an extremely careless or outrageously negligent manner where the danger to human life should be apparent to the defendant.
Criminal negligence is more than [greater than] ordinary negligence. On manner to determine whether an act or omission is criminally negligent is to weigh the social utility of the act against the risk of harm if it occurs.