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David Hall
Patterson
Personal Health
12 September 2013
The Four Supreme Dictators of the Crime World
A police detective was investigating a homicide. As he questioned the on-scene officer, he
learned the body was that of a young woman. The body was found with a bowl over her head and
a spoon stuck in her back. The on-scene officer asked what the detective thought had happened
to the woman. The detective responded, "I think it's obvious. A cereal killer got her!”
(http://www.jokebuddha.com/joke/Investigating_A_Homicide_11) Homicide is the killing of
another human intentionally. There are many reasons homicide can happen such as another
criminal event like rape, emotional responses, religious reasons, or maybe even an accidental
fraternity initiation. Excusable, felonious, justifiable, and praiseworthy, are the four major types
of homicide.
“Excusable homicide is a killing that is found not to have the required intent to amount to
murder, due to justifying or unusual circumstances. It is a crime governed by state laws, which
vary by state. For example, an excusable homicide may be committed by public officers and
those acting by their command in their aid and assistance to carry out a court order, or in the
discharge of any other legal duty, or to capture fleeing or escaping felons.” (US Legal) Law
enforcers of any kind have the right to kill if given authority or if it is deemed necessary. This
right belongs to the police chief or any higher authority. An example of an excusable homicide
would be a police unit having a firefight with a gang or dangerous criminal. They were given

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authority by the chief to shoot at will. This idea also counts for armed forces. Excusable is a
direct kill order from a higher authority.
Unlike excusable homicide, felonious homicide is the killing of a human being without
legal justification. A good example of this would be a murder on your average television sitcom
such as, NCIS or Criminal Minds. A real example of this was a murder in 1979 of Sun Kim
Travis. Travis was killed in an armed robbery caused by Anthony Rozelle Banks. A similar
example was the murder at East Central University. A student named Chris Lane was shot by
three students in a drive by while he was out for an evening jog. Police said he was targeted at
random. In summary, this is the most common form of homicide.
Justifiable homicide refers to those homicides which were accidents in the first place.
This includes self-defense, drunk accidents, and even small things such as fun events with
friends gone bad. Most of these may appear in movies. Some are comedies, others start a serious
plotline. Either way that certain death was an accident and had no criminal intent behind it. In
court many witnesses are seen as murderers or suspects just because they were there. Most of the
time the verdict is not guilty. One surprising event on self-defense was a man in Edmond, Ok. In
2012, a man by the name of Michael Ford had entered his ex-wife’s house and had started
fighting with her and her friend (who in fact was male). After a few minutes, Ford had gone to
get a rather large knife from his pick-up truck. This event now turns it into a home invasion since
the husband had no business there. Ford pinned the man to the wall and threatened to kill him,
which was when the man pulled out a gun and fired three shots into Ford.
The last of these would be praiseworthy homicide. A praiseworthy homicide is when a
group of people are proud and happy that a certain person was killed. Many groups throughout

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time committed praiseworthy homicide. A few of these groups were the KKK, Nazis, Muslims,
assassins, and sometimes even Americans. Most of these people were actually arrested but did
this crime for the glory of their peers and to kill a loathed person. Americans fall into this
category because of two recent praiseworthy homicides; Osama Bin Laden, and Saddam
Hussein. The army is also a major part of this topic because the whole nation supports them
fighting an enemy of the United States. An assassin is praiseworthy because a certain group of
people got together and planned out how they would kill that certain target. An example of this
would be the JFK assassination. A large sum of people didn’t want Mr. Kennedy to be president.
So they got together and planned it out and thus Lee Harvey Oswald took the oath and tried to be
brave and ended up dead outside a club. Praiseworthy homicide happens occasionally and
usually deals with major nations!
In conclusion, there are four types of homicides; excusable, felonious, justifiable, and
praiseworthy. However, homicide is still homicide and death is death. This paper what not made
to encourage an “accidental” homicide but to give knowledge of what homicide really is.
Excusable homicide is an order to kill, given by authority or higher rank. This applies to the
police, law enforcers, and armed forces. Felonious homicide is a murder committed purely on
criminal intent and/ or hate. Justifiable homicide is either self-defense or an accident that
happened at an event without criminal motive. Praiseworthy homicide is a murder of any
individual that a group of individuals either hate or don’t wish to be in that current situation.
These events could be the president or a famous dictator being killed. Excusable, felonious,
justifiable, and praiseworthy, are the four dictators of the crime world.

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Cited Sources
http://www.jokebuddha.com/joke/Investigating_A_Homicide_11
US Legal, Initials. 2001. 0. <http://definitions.uslegal.com/e/excusable-homicide/>
http://ca.news.yahoo.com/us-man-convicted-murder-womans-1979-shooting-death-
045728783.html
http://www.koco.com/news/oklahomanews/around-oklahoma/oklahoma-student-murder-top-
news-story-in-australia/-/12530084/21536620/-/ocfq4tz/-/index.html
http://www.news9.com/story/19502291/police-release-name-of-man-shot-killed-in-edmond
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/7651099