Page:1887 Compiled Laws of Dakota Territory.pdf/1096

§§ 6136-6444

§ 6436. Every person guilty of attempting suicide, or of aiding an attempt at suicide, is punishable by imprisonment in the territorial prison not exceeding two years, or by a fine not exceeding one thousand dollars, or both.

§ 6437. Homicide is the killing of one human being by another.

§ 6438. Homicide is either:

1. Murder.

2. Manslaughter.

3. Excusable homicide; or,

4. Justifiable homicide.

§ 6439. No person can be convicted of murder or manslaughter, or of aiding suicide, unless the death of the person alleged to have been killed, and the fact of killing by the accused, are each established as independent facts beyond a reasonable doubt.

§ 6440. The rules of the common law, distinguishing the killing of a master by his servant, and of a husband by his wife, as petit treason, are abolished, and these offenses are deemed homicides, punishable in the manner prescribed by this chapter.

§ 6441. Whenever the grade or punishment of homicide is made to depend upon its having been committed under circumstances evincing a depraved mind or unusual cruelty, or in a cruel manner, the jury may take into consideration the fact that any domestic or confidential relation existed between the accused and the person killed, in determining the moral quality of the acts proved.

§ 6442. Homicide is murder in the following cases:

1. When perpetrated without authority of law, and with a premeditated design to effect the death of the person killed, or of any other human being.

2. When perpetrated by any act imminently dangerous to others and evincing a depraved mind, regardless of human life, although without any premeditated design to effect the death of any particular individual.

3. When perpetrated without any design to effect death by a person engaged in the commission of any felony.

§ 6443. "A design to effect death is inferred from the fact of killing, unless the circumstances raise a reasonable doubt whether such design existed.

§ 6444. A design to effect death sufficient to constitute murder, may be formed instantly before committing the act by which it is carried into execution.