 Under the English common law, killing someone else was a special crime. It was not only removal of a resource that supported feudal privilege, but was a crime against the peaceful and productive people as well. It was handled as a public offense more than a personal offense against the dead person, nor those who relied upon that person. The person who would do such a thing was not considered fit to be among other people. The public threat was sufficient to destroy the one who killed another, or to deny them freedom to go among the common people. They would be exiled or imprisoned for so long a time that they would not be considered a public threat. The original concept of maim was a light crime. It dealt with destroying a person's usefulness to society and limiting the taxable income that supported aristocracy. It was considered maim if an injury impeded the use of the person in the military. Maim has been expanded through time to cover any mutilation or crippling of another person. It is more often addressed as an aggravated battery, a personal crime, than as a separate crime against the state. In the Americas, with the revolution removing the right of the sovereign to profit from citizens, we still have the offense against the people and the offense against the person who is killed, and all those who rely upon that person. Punishment is a challenge. With loss of vision on the sovereignty of people, we have the focus on appropriate punishment for a wrongful death. We have attempts to classify the challenge in terms of the evidence surrounding that death. Was it a mercy killing, helping someone to die? Was it aggravated wrong, one planned and executed with full knowledge of it being wrong? Was it personal or impersonal? Does it matter if the person had others relying upon the deceased, or was the criminal such a scoundrel that nobody could rely upon him or her? Was it an accidental death, one not even intended? How is anyone to codify this to assure that punishment fits the crime? The answer, of course, is that punishment is not the issue when it comes to we the people. We are the ones who are entitled to justice and peaceful pursuit of our lives and livelihoods. The question is one of serving the public and not one of application of legal sanctions upon the accused. The question is one of what service the people should receive from government actions that address the one accused of killing another person. Justice for the accused is a smokescreen and not the same as justice for we the people. The conditional rights that arise only when someone is accused are secondary to the authority granted to those who govern. The purpose of justice is set upon our leaders. The courts are clearly the arm of the government that is most directly involved in application of law to individuals rather than to the public. A court must have reasonable processes to support any actions that override the sovereignty of the accused. Legislation provides that process both by direction and by limitation. Legislation does not make it right or wrong to kill someone. The authorized public service is justice and the definition of justice is not fixed by law. Our application of jury determination is a must and the finding of legal guilt is both appropriate and necessary to overcome the sovereign right of the one who is accused. Limiting that determination to a single finding of guilt and innocence is understandable but is also likely to be inappropriate for a jury that was specifically selected as a representative body of sovereign citizens. In general, homicide is treated as a personal crime, an offense against the person whose life is taken rather than an offense against society or the nation. Punishment goes to the one convicted, and this may even include those who only aid or assist in the action of the one who kills. There remains the unanswered question of whether there is a duty owed by one citizen to come to the aid of others whose lives are in danger such that avoidance would contribute to the crime. Murder is the term we use for intentional killing of a person. It is aggravated by planning the killing and taking prior actions to bring it about or to avoid the natural consequences of having engaged in this serious violation of another human. There is one addition to this for those who intentionally engage in other crimes during which someone is killed. If a person attempts to rob a bank and a guard fires a gun in his direction killing another person, the bank robber is considered as the killer. It no longer matters whether they did the killing or even that they intended that someone died. What matters is they intended to act in a serious violation of law and their intended acts were at least a partial cause of death. Their intent to do wrong is attributed to them as intent to engage in what results. The doctrine is sometimes referred to as transfer of intent. There are often different degrees of murder based on circumstances with different punishments assigned. Man slaughter is a term used for killings that do not involve intention or planning to the extent that it becomes murder. It is used for crimes of passion or accidental death. Special accommodation is often made for vehicular homicide. These are deaths where the common person has been publicly entrusted, licensed, to operate a dangerous instrumentality with no ability to kill people. We have borderline cases where we address abortions or assisted death issues. The decision to apply or not apply punishments will always raise a challenge in such matters. There is no public agreement on even the concept of the act being wrong. These areas involve human regulation, punishments sought by some over the objection of others. And laws in this arena will lack general support of we the people. Also, murder is a crime of intent and cannot be excused or defended as an exercise of public office. There can be no public authorization intent to kill a person, except officers of the law and military. Even police are subject to regular punishment for murders committed. Transfer of intent can justify prosecution of an officer who only intended to injure the party in his charge. Murder is a special crime. It usually requires judicial or grand jury directive to even issue a formal accusation. One of the more serious challenges to our application of homicide laws is seen in the purpose of legal system. The legal purposes for having laws, police, courts, and to are to establish justice, ensure domestic tranquility, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty. This is what our government is authorized to do. Treating homicide as a personal crime makes some sense as people are the sovereigns in the United States. But the only listed purpose for personal sovereignty is justice. The victim of homicide is not in a condition to receive any justice. Nor does the judge, prosecutor, jurors, or even the accused receive some justice through prosecution and punishment. There is an historical disconnect, a failure to serve we the people through the way we address this serious crime. Removing the person from society, whether by incarceration or execution, does provide for domestic tranquility in cases where the criminal is likely to commit a light crime on being allowed back into regular contact with others. This, however, serves we the people instead of the person who was killed. It addresses a crime against society of sovereign citizens instead of any individual. Then again, we have ancillary challenges of those who suffer injury without receiving any justice. The courts go to significant effort to assure that only the accused is punished, that there is no detriment applied to the innocent family of the accused other than the removal of the criminal. What of the other family, the family of the victim, they are also innocent? Is there some sort of justice for victims who have suffered the loss? Punishment is not about restitution. It is about retribution, about appending a negative response to a criminal action. There is no agreement that this is justice other than as a historical norm, a social justice that serves some people at the expense of others. Again, it is all about the accused and not about the victims and not about we the people. It is largely accepted as there is no agreement upon any alternative action that might serve. Incarceration gives temporary service only and at great expense. Destruction of the killer does permanently remove any threat of like action from that person, but only has value if the person is an ongoing threat. The judge and prosecutor may receive personal accolades, but that is not justice either. Where the crime of maim was damaging a person's value to the state, it has been converted into a crime of damage to the person. It generally applies to any wounding that cannot be naturally healed. It is commonly applied in situations where the person needs prosthetics to continue in normal life functions due to the injury suffered or has a marked loss of capability. Maim addresses damages to the person either in what they can do or in social interaction with others. Serious disfigurement is considered as maiming. Maim as a modern crime is addressed as the most serious case of aggravated battery. It is addressed as any unwanted physical touching that results in permanent physical injuries. Maim is not appropriate where the touching is with permission, even if the harmful result was agreed to be avoided. A tattoo artist who botches a tattoo giving a permanent picture that puts the former customer in derision is not guilty of maim. Neither is a surgeon engaged in maim when his administration is in so badly that the patient loses a limb. If there was a voluntary acceptance of the acts that caused the injury, the injured person cannot expect criminal action to follow no matter what damages are incurred. The crime does not lead to prosecution of any who voluntarily take part in an action, even by fraud or misrepresentation, nor to those who take part in the unintentional maiming of a victim. A prostitute who transfers incurable disease to a client will not be prosecuted for maim, even if the disease does permanently disable the victim. There may be civil damages, but the crime of maim will not be prosecuted. Those who lack intent cannot be prosecuted for maiming. Legal minors or the insane will not be prosecuted for this crime. Again, there is no criminal action that might relieve others who are affected. No justice for victims and probably none of them for the accused. It is only for the family of the accused that is protected by criminal law applications. And as with homicide crimes, there is little service to justice, but only the potential for temporarily removing a public threat. There is also the very serious question of recidivism, a potential for former criminal to commit additional crimes after release. Preventing the return of a public threat is a matter for the government, a threat to domestic tranquility. A woman who comes home to find another woman being serviced in her marital bed has a high potential for rash actions. If she shoots and kills her wayward husband, she has become more likely to shoot other people. Is she more a threat to society than if she had not found out about the infidelity? On the other hand, a man who kills while driving drunk is known to be a continuing threat to others as drinking is addictive and driving is a learned behavior. Is he to receive a remarkably lesser punishment than the woman who shoots her husband in the passion of the moment? In the current legal U.S. system, the boundaries of sentencing are generally set by legislation and a jury of citizens is called to address such questions as appropriate punishment for the violation. The court acts as the administrative support for the jury and acts to give effect to the jury decision. It is reasonable to have this system in the sense of trusting legislators to address appropriate ranges of punishment and that has generally been accepted by the people with the understanding that we the people have not previously been educated to examine other potentials.