It should be pretty straight forward. Although the laws surrounding murder, and what constitutes 1st degree murder, 2nd degree murder and manslaughter are fairly complex, the section that deals with the culpable homicide of a police officer is pretty clear.
Section 229(4) of the Criminal Code lays it out.
Irrespective of whether a murder is planned and deliberate on the part
of any person, murder is first degree murder when the victim is
(a)
a police officer, police constable, constable, sheriff, deputy sheriff,
sheriff’s officer or other person employed for the preservation and
maintenance of the public peace, acting in the course of his duties;
Which is why, if the statements of the accused's lawyer in this article are accurate, I wonder just why in the hell there is a trial still going on for the murder of Chris Worden.
Even if you took the accused's, Emrah Bulatci, claims at face value (and I have to say that a claim that you shot someone twice to "hurt" them, and that you didn't intend to fire the next two shots that killed him stretches all manner of credibility) he is guilty of 1st degree murder.
According to the article Bulatci admits he fired the four shots that killed Chris Worden, he acknowledges that it is his fault that Chris Worden is dead. Chris Worden was acting in the course of his duties. He was in uniform, responding to a call of a suicidal person. Bulatci further admits that he was in Hay River to deal drugs, and armed with an illegal firearm.
Whether he intended to kill Cst Worden or wound him is immaterial. He killed a police officer by shooting him four times, knowing full well that his death could result from those actions.
His guilty plea in court today was an admission of first degree murder, and there needn't be a trial to determine that.
Comments
6 responses
I completely, 100% agree.
Thanks Tuesy, just one of those things that makes me bleed from my temples.
Temples… eyes… you have summed this up perfectly.
Thanks Natalie.
You shoot at someone, you are trying to kill them. End of story.
Well yes and no Kent. Certainly not in the eyes of the law. But in this case the law is pretty clear. At the very least the law requires that if you shoot at someone a reasonable person would know that their death might be a consequence of that action. This subsection takes “intent” out of it. Shoot at a policeman, an act that a reasonable person would understand might result in his/her death, and if he dies it is first degree murder, regardless of your intent or degree of planning.
A very similar thing arose with the Kuugaruk murder, clearly first degree murder based on the law. Originally I intended to include it in this post, but it also has a whole host of other issues that require comment and I couldn’t summon the energy that that post would have required. I hope to get around it at some point.