Page:United States Statutes at Large Volume 76A.djvu/550

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-454§ 1187. Punishment for manslaughter (a) Whoever is guilty of voluntary manslaughter shall be imprisoned in the penitentiary not more than 10 years. (b) Whoever is guilty of involuntary manslaughter shall be fined not more than $1,000 or imprisoned in jail not more than one year, or both; or, in the discretion of the court, shall be imprisoned in the penitentiary not more than 10 years. §1188. Timeof death as element; computation To establish a killing as either murder or manslaughter, it is requisite that the injured party die within a year and a day after the injury is received or the cause of death administered; in the computation of which the whole of the day on which the act was done shall be reckoned the

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§ 1189. Proof of corpus delicti A person may not be convicted of murder or manslaughter unless the death of the person alleged to have been killed, and the fact of the killing by the defendant as alleged, are established as independent facts; the former by direct proof and the latter beyond a reasonable doubt. § 1190. Excusable homicide Homicide is excusable when committed by accident and misfortune or in doing a lawful act by lawful means with usual and ordinary caution and without unlawful intent. § 1191. Justifiable homicide (a) Homicide is justifiable when committed by public officers, and those acting by their command in their aid and assistance, either: (1) m obedience to a judgment of a competent court; (2) when necessarily committed in overcoming actual resistance to the execution of legal process or in the discharge of any other legal duty; or (3) when necessarily committed in retaking felons who have been rescued or have escaped, or in arresting persons charged with felony, and who are fleeing from justice or resisting the arrest. (b) Homicide is also justifiable if committed by any person when: (1) resisting an attempt to murder a person or to commit a felony or to do great bodily injury upon a person; (2) committed in defense of habitation, property or person, against one who manifestly intends or endeavors by violence or surprise to commit a felony, or against one who manifestly intends and endeavors in a violent, riotous or tumultuous manner to enter the habitation of another for the purpose of offering violence to a person therein; (3) committed in the lawful defense of such a person, or of a wife or husband, parent, child, master, mistress or servant of the person, when there is reasonable ground to apprehend a design to commit a felony or to do great bodily injury and imminent danger of such a design being accomplished; or (4) necessarily committed in attempting by lawful ways and means to apprehend a person for a felony committed or in lawfully suppressing a riot, or in lawfully keeping and preserving the peace. (c) In order to justify a homicide under paragraph (3) of subsection (b) of this section, the slayer, or the person in whose behalf the defense was made, if he was the assailant or engaged in mutual combat, must really and in good faith have endeavored to avoid or escape any further struggle before the homicide was committed.