What is murder and what are the murder crimes? Murder has been defined as the taking of the life of one human being by another. Homicide crimes vary based on the degree of crime, penalties and where the crime occurred. These crimes include: first degree murder, second degree murder, felony, justifiable homicide, and excusable homicide. These are some of the main topics and can be divided into subcategories within and between them. Some of the earliest recorded murder cases date back to the 12th century with the King's Bench or Queen's Court in England; we will cover some of the earliest institutions of these laws and/or cases in history. Many states today classify homicide into two degrees: first and second, but others have even more degrees based on motive, intent or timing. Although England had established a set of criteria for defining degrees of murder, the Pennsylvania Court in the Act of Assembly of 1794 stated: “All murders which shall be perpetrated by poison, or by stalking, or by any other type of intentional, deliberate, or premeditated murder or committed in the commission or attempt to commit any arson, rape, robbery, or burglary, shall be considered murder in the first degree; and all other types of homicide shall be second-degree murder.” (Loewy, 2009, p. 20). By defining first-degree murder as arson, rape, robbery, or burglary, only these crimes would be punishable by the death penalty. The second degree would not be punishable by death and would only carry with it a prison sentence. Maitland and Pollock (2012), “The word crime comes from the Latin word felo, fallen, gall, the word for poison.” When it came to “criminal it seems to mean first of all cruel,...... middle of paper......nses against the murder of a person. St. Paul, Minnesota: West Publishing Co. First Degree Murder (2002). In the world of criminal justice, Gale. Retrieved from http://proxy01.hopkinsville.kctcs.edu/login?qurl=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.credoreference.com/entry/worldcrims/first_degree_murder.Green, TA "The Jury and the English Law of Murder, 1200 -1600.". Ann Arbor, MI: Mich. L. Rev. 74 (1976): 413-499. Dodd, Mead & Company. (1910). Relativity. In the new international encyclopedia. (Vol. 10, pp. 173). Cambridge, USA: International Encyclopedia.Rood, J. A. (1906). A summary of important cases: Crimes against the person. St. Louis, MO: Wahr.Loewy, A.H. (2009). Criminal law: cases and materials: Murder. (3rd ed.). Dayton, Ohio: Thomas/West. Pollock, F., & Maitland, F. W. (2012). The history of English law before the time of Edward 1: Crimes and wrongs. Indianapolis, IN: Liberty Fund.