United States law The law of the United States comprises many levels of Codification (law), codified and uncodified forms of law, of which the supreme law is the nation's Constitution of the United States, Constitution, which prescribes the foundation of the ...

, depraved-heart murder, also known as depraved-indifference murder, is a type of

murder Murder is the unlawful killing of another human without justification (jurisprudence), justification or valid excuse (legal), excuse committed with the necessary Intention (criminal law), intention as defined by the law in a specific jurisd ...

where an individual acts with a "

depraved ''Depraved'' is a 2019 American horror film written and directed by Larry Fessenden and starring David Call and Joshua Leonard. It is a modern version of Mary Shelley's ''Frankenstein''. Premise Suffering from PTSD following his stint as a Uni ...

indifference" to human life and where such acts result in a death, despite that individual not explicitly intending to kill. In a depraved-heart murder, defendants commit an act even though they know their act runs an unusually high risk of causing death or serious bodily harm to a person. If the risk of death or bodily harm is great enough, ignoring it demonstrates a "depraved indifference" to human life and the resulting death is considered to have been committed with

malice aforethought Malice aforethought is the "premeditation" or "predetermination" (with malice (law), malice) required as an element of some crimes in some jurisdictions and a unique element for first-degree or aggravation (law), aggravated murder in a few. Insof ...

.'' Commonwealth v. Malone''
354 Pa. 180, 47 A.2d 445
(1946). In some states, depraved-heart killings constitute

second-degree murder Murder is the unlawful killing of another human without justification or valid excuse committed with the necessary intention as defined by the law in a specific jurisdiction. ("The killing of another person without justification or excus ...

,Bonnie, R.J. et al. ''Criminal Law, Second Edition.'' Foundation Press, New York, NYL 2004, p. 797 while in others, the act would be charged with "wanton murder", varying degrees of

manslaughter Manslaughter is a common law legal term for homicide considered by law as less culpable than murder. The distinction between murder and manslaughter is sometimes said to have first been made by the ancient Athenian lawmaker Draco in the 7th ce ...

, or

third-degree murder In the United States, the law for murder varies by jurisdiction. In many US jurisdictions there is a hierarchy of acts, known collectively as homicide, of which first-degree murder and felony murder are the most serious, followed by second-degre ...

. If no death results, such an act would generally constitute

reckless endangerment Endangerment is a type of crime involving conduct that is wrongful and reckless or wanton, and likely to produce death or grievous bodily harm to another person. There are several kinds of endangerment, each of which is a criminal act that can b ...

(sometimes known as "culpable negligence") and possibly other

crime In ordinary language, a crime is an unlawful act punishable by a State (polity), state or other authority. The term ''crime'' does not, in modern criminal law, have any simple and universally accepted definition,Farmer, Lindsay: "Crime, definiti ...

s, such as

assault In the terminology of law, an assault is the act of causing physical harm or consent, unwanted physical contact to another person, or, in some legal definitions, the threat or attempt to do so. It is both a crime and a tort and, therefore, may ...

Common law background

It depraved heart" murderis the form f murderthat establishes that the wilful doing of a dangerous and reckless act with wanton indifference to the consequences and perils involved is just as blameworthy, and just as worthy of punishment, when the harmful result ensues as is the express intent to kill itself. This highly blameworthy state of mind is not one of mere negligence... It is not merely one even of gross criminal negligence... It involves rather the deliberate perpetration of a knowingly dangerous act with reckless and wanton unconcern and indifference as to whether anyone is harmed or not. The common law treats such a state of mind as just as blameworthy, just as anti-social and, therefore, just as truly murderous as the specific intents to kill and to harm.''Robinson v. State'',
07 Md. 738, 517 A.2d 94
(1986), quoting ''DeBettencourt v. State''
48 Md. App. 522, 530, 428 A.2d 479, 484
(Md. Ct. Spec. App. 1981)

The

common law Common law (also known as judicial precedent, judge-made law, or case law) is the body of law primarily developed through judicial decisions rather than statutes. Although common law may incorporate certain statutes, it is largely based on prece ...

punishes unintentional

homicide Homicide is an act in which a person causes the death of another person. A homicide requires only a Volition (psychology), volitional act, or an omission, that causes the death of another, and thus a homicide may result from Accident, accidenta ...

if the defendant commits an act of gross recklessness. A classic example of depraved-heart murder under the common law is in the case '' Commonwealth v. Malone'', a Pennsylvania case in which the court affirmed the second-degree murder conviction of a teenager for a death arising from a game of modified

Russian roulette Russian roulette () is a potentially lethal game of chance in which a player places a single round in a revolver, spins the cylinder, places the muzzle against the head or body (their opponent's or their own), and pulls the trigger. If the ...

in which each player pointed and fired the gun at the other, eventually resulting in the death of one of them.

Under the Model Penal Code

Depraved-heart murder is recognized in the

Model Penal Code The Model Penal Code (MPC) is a model act designed to stimulate and assist U.S. state legislatures to update and standardize the penal law of the United States.MPC (Foreword). The MPC was a project of the American Law Institute (ALI), and was pu ...

§ 210.2(1)(b).American Law Institute Model Penal Code (Official Draft, 1962) The Model Penal Code considers unintentional killing to constitute murder when the conduct of the defendant manifests "extreme indifference to the value of human life".

International equivalents

Canada

The Canadian

Criminal Code A criminal code or penal code is a document that compiles all, or a significant amount of, a particular jurisdiction's criminal law. Typically a criminal code will contain offences that are recognised in the jurisdiction, penalties that might ...

categorises

as first- and second-degree for sentencing purposes. However, the Supreme Court of Canada held that murder requires, at minimum, subjective knowledge that death is a likely consequence of the defendant's actions.

R v Martineau ''R v Martineau'', 9902 SCR 633 is a leading Supreme Court of Canada case on the ''mens rea'' requirement for murder. Background One evening in February 1985, Patrick Tremblay and 15-year-old Mr. Martineau set out to rob a trailer owned by the M ...

990 Year 990 ( CMXC) was a common year starting on Wednesday of the Julian calendar. Events By place Europe * Al-Mansur, Chancellor and effective ruler of Al-Andalus, conquers the Castle of Montemor-o-Velho (modern Portugal), expanding t ...

2 SCR 633. Section 229(a)(ii) of the Canadian Criminal Code is most closely analogous to depraved-heart murder, applying where the defendant intended to cause bodily harm to the deceased that he subjectively knew was likely to cause death, and was reckless as to the risk of death.

England and Wales

Murder Murder is the unlawful killing of another human without justification (jurisprudence), justification or valid excuse (legal), excuse committed with the necessary Intention (criminal law), intention as defined by the law in a specific jurisd ...

is not classified into degrees in

England and Wales England and Wales () is one of the Law of the United Kingdom#Legal jurisdictions, three legal jurisdictions of the United Kingdom. It covers the constituent countries England and Wales and was formed by the Laws in Wales Acts 1535 and 1542. Th ...

, unlike in Canada, but sentences are more severe (always

life Life, also known as biota, refers to matter that has biological processes, such as Cell signaling, signaling and self-sustaining processes. It is defined descriptively by the capacity for homeostasis, Structure#Biological, organisation, met ...

, but with a longer period when the offender is ineligible for

parole Parole, also known as provisional release, supervised release, or being on paper, is a form of early release of a prisoner, prison inmate where the prisoner agrees to abide by behavioral conditions, including checking-in with their designated ...

) in cases where there are more

aggravating Aggravation, in law, is "any circumstance attending the commission of a crime or tort which increases its guilt or enormity or adds to its injurious consequences, but which is above and beyond the essential constituents of the crime or tort itself" ...

than

mitigating factor In criminal law, a mitigating factor, also known as an extenuating circumstance, is any information or evidence presented to the court regarding the defendant or the circumstances of the crime that might result in reduced charges or a lesser sente ...

s. Murder requires intent to kill or cause grievous bodily harm; recklessness as to harm will not suffice. In a case where death results from recklessness, the defendant will be guilty of

Germany

A similar concept is , also called ''dolus eventualis'' or ''bedingter Vorsatz'' (literally: "conditional intent"). Under this concept, a court can treat the result of a criminal act as intentional if the defendant did not explicitly intend this result, but realized it was not unlikely and knowingly accepted this risk. While ''Eventualvorsatz'' can apply to any crime, it is usually only applied in cases involving bodily harm or murder. Typical cases where courts recognized ''Eventualvorsatz'' (in this case for murder) include setting fire to an inhabited house and reckless speeding in an urban area.

Well-known cases

1946 Russian roulette case

In the 1946 case, '' Commonwealth v. Malone'', the

Supreme Court of Pennsylvania The Supreme Court of Pennsylvania is the highest court in the Commonwealth (U.S. state), Commonwealth of Pennsylvania's Judiciary of Pennsylvania, Unified Judicial System. It began in 1684 as the Provincial Court, and casual references to it as ...

affirmed the conviction of a teenager on the charge of

second degree murder Murder is the unlawful killing of another human without justification or valid excuse committed with the necessary intention as defined by the law in a specific jurisdiction. ("The killing of another person without justification or excuse, ...

using the depraved-heart doctrine. The teenager in question had set up a game of

which ended in the death of another teenager, a friend of the defendant. When tried for the crime of murder, his defense argued that since the defendant had no intent to kill, he could not be convicted of murder. The

prosecution A prosecutor is a legal representative of the prosecution in states with either the adversarial system, which is adopted in common law, or inquisitorial system, which is adopted in Civil law (legal system), civil law. The prosecution is the ...

successfully argued using the depraved-heart doctrine that the defendant's recklessness and carelessness amounted to a level of negligence sufficient to serve as evidence of criminally culpable intent.

2015 death of Freddie Gray

Caesar Goodson, Jr., a

Baltimore Baltimore is the most populous city in the U.S. state of Maryland. With a population of 585,708 at the 2020 census and estimated at 568,271 in 2024, it is the 30th-most populous U.S. city. The Baltimore metropolitan area is the 20th-large ...

police officer, was charged on May 21, 2015, with second-degree depraved heart murder for his alleged involvement in the death of 25-year-old Freddie Gray while in police custody. Gray died several days after he was arrested and driven in a police van to jail. The van was shown on video during the trial to have been driven normally, but was alleged to have been driven aggressively with no regard for the safety of the prisoner, who was not adequately secured for safety. Further, the prisoner was shackled, preventing him from protecting himself. The prosecution alleged that the injuries were inflicted during the ride and that pleas for medical attention were ignored. Officer Goodson was charged with second-degree depraved-heart murder before the internal investigation was completed. He was found not guilty on June 23, 2016. Of the six officers charged, three were acquitted, and charges were dropped against the remaining three.

Murder of George Floyd

The

murder of George Floyd On May 25, 2020, George Floyd, a 46-year-old Black American man, was murdered in Minneapolis by Derek Chauvin, a 44-year-old White police officer. Floyd had been arrested after a store clerk reported that he made a purchase using a c ...

, an

African-American African Americans, also known as Black Americans and formerly also called Afro-Americans, are an American racial and ethnic group that consists of Americans who have total or partial ancestry from any of the Black racial groups of Africa. ...

man, occurred in

Minneapolis Minneapolis is a city in Hennepin County, Minnesota, United States, and its county seat. With a population of 429,954 as of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, it is the state's List of cities in Minnesota, most populous city. Locat ...

Minnesota Minnesota ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Upper Midwestern region of the United States. It is bordered by the Canadian provinces of Manitoba and Ontario to the north and east and by the U.S. states of Wisconsin to the east, Iowa to the so ...

on May 25, 2020. Derek Chauvin, a

white White is the lightest color and is achromatic (having no chroma). It is the color of objects such as snow, chalk, and milk, and is the opposite of black. White objects fully (or almost fully) reflect and scatter all the visible wa ...

Minneapolis police officer, kept his knee on Floyd's neck for 8 minutes and 46 seconds, 2 minutes and 53 seconds of which occurred after Floyd became unresponsive, according to the criminal complaint filed against Chauvin. Floyd was handcuffed and lying

prone Prone position () is a body position in which the person lies flat with the chest down and the back up. In anatomical terms of location, the dorsal side is up, and the ventral side is down. The supine position is the 180° contrast. Etymology T ...

on the road throughout that time. Officers Thomas K. Lane, Tou Thao, and J. Alexander Kueng participated in Floyd's arrest, with Kueng holding Floyd’s back, Lane holding his legs, and Thao looking on as he stood nearby. Chauvin was charged with third-degree depraved-heart murder under Minnesota law on May 29, 2020. On April 20, 2021 Chauvin was convicted of unintentional

, and

second-degree manslaughter Manslaughter is a crime in the United States. Definitions can vary among jurisdictions, but manslaughter is invariably the act of causing the death of another person in a manner less culpable than murder. Three types of unlawful killings consti ...

, while the other officers pled guilty for various charges related to the murder.

References

{{reflist American legal terminology Killings by type Murder in the United States