INTRODUCTION
Criminal homicide is the act of ending another person’s life by the hand of another (Luckenbill, 1977). There are many different ways in which criminal homicide is defined in the American criminal justice system; different degrees of what constitutes homicide, as well as other mitigating factors, can help to determine the sentencing of an individual or individuals who take part in the act, whether voluntarily or not. This is meant to apply as individualistic a sentencing as possible on the particular situation, instead of making standardized choices for criminal homicide on the whole. All of this leads to an ...