 Hi, I'm David Cantor with the Law Offices of David Michael Cantor. Today I'm going to talk about first degree murder. Now first degree murder is obviously the most serious of all the charges with capital murder being the most serious penalty, that being death. Now our firm's attorneys have handled over 100 homicide cases of all different types as either prosecutors or defense attorneys. Myself, I've done over 30 homicide cases, including I first chaired a double capital murder trial. That individual, although I didn't get an outright acquittal, I did save his life. In fact, I've never had a client on a capital case sentenced to death. In regards to another case I had capital murder recently, I had that dismissed with prejudice. I was able to show as the case progressed that the scientific evidence presented by the state was completely wrong and that the state care provider had nothing to do with this child's death. It was called a medical rule out. In fact, the state even hired a separate out of state expert who agreed with me and that's how we got the case dismissed. If you go to our victories section at dmcantor.com, you'll see we have over 100 homicide victories of all types on our website, so check it out. Now the definition of first degree murder is that somebody caused death intentionally or knowingly with premeditation or what's known as a felony murder rule. Now the felony murder rule means any death is a result or results during the commission of certain felonies. Meaning if you're going to a bank to rob it and you're just the getaway driver and the guard shoots your co-defendant, they're going to charge you with murder for your co-defendant's death. That's how the felony murder rule works. Other examples are when a gang member does a drive by shooting and shots fire out and he accidentally shoots and kills his own friend. He can be charged with his friend's death. So it's very important first degree murder, not just manslaughter, second degree or negligent homicide. Now that death must be reasonably foreseeable. If it's not reasonably foreseeable, just some hypothetical that never happens and they've charged you with first degree murder, we can get the case either knocked down or dismissed completely. This is overcharged a lot. They charge people with first degree murder when they really should have charged them with not second degree but manslaughter, maybe even Nag-Hom or not at all. Now the punishment for first degree murder is either 25 to life in prison. After 25 years, you can try and parole out. It's either natural life. That means no chance or it's death. And those are the only three sentences. So believe it or not, a capital case where death is taken off the table and then life becomes 25 to life is actually quite good. Now you're thinking, well, that doesn't sound good. Sure it is. If somebody is 20 years old and they get released when they're 45, they may have another 45 years of life left in them. It's better than natural life in prison or being put to death. Now in regard to defenses, there's self-defense. There's what's called supervening cause. Supervening cause is when something else caused the death. Let's say on the way to the hospital, the person's in the ambulance and then another car hits the ambulance and everybody dies. Well, that's not your fault. Maybe the person being put into the ambulance might be your fault, but not the ultimate death. Now the experts we use at our firm, tool mark, that's for ballistics. We use gunshot residue, DNA, either mitochondrial or touch DNA or trace DNA. Crime scene, accident reconstruction, blood spatter reconstruction, human factors experts, we have them all. We have one of the best libraries. Our attorneys here average a minimum of 10 years or more. When you average it all out, it's over a decade for every lawyer that works here. We have a victory section. If you go to our victory section, you'll see pre-charge victories for homicide cases. You'll see non-homicide victories. We have over 3,000 victories that have nothing to do with homicides, but all different types of cases. So we're very good at what we do. If you have been charged or loved ones been charged, give us a call at 602-307-0808 or go to our website dmcantor.com. Set an appointment. It won't cost you anything, but it'll take about 30 minutes. We'll see you. We'll go over your case from top to bottom, actually in these types of cases, more like an hour. And we'll give you all of that time for free to find a way out if it exists.