constitutional-law us-constitution murder constitutional-rights
Is murder unconstitutional?
<p>I've heard a number of times now that the U.S. Constitution regulates the government and not private entities. This is why, for example, private organizations can limit free speech but the government cannot.</p>
<p>I got to thinking: <strong>Is murder unconstitutional?</strong> Obviously, I know of no state that allows murder, but would anything in the U.S. Constitution bar one private person from taking the life of another private person?</p>
<p>Again, murder is both illegal and immoral, but to ensure I'm following just how far the Constitution does <em><strong>not</strong></em> regulate private persons, would the U.S. Constitution alone fail to prohibit murder? It's wrong and illegal, but is it unconstitutional?</p>

<p>The Constitution does not define any crimes (except for an explicit limit on what can be considered 'treason.') It places limits on what penalties the government may apply for crimes and how crimes are tried in court, but it does not itself actually create any criminal offenses. Rather, state and federal law do that.</p>
<p>Having said that, if a state government creates a crime of murder (which, obviously, they all do,) the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equal_Protection_Clause" rel="noreferrer">Equal Protection Clause</a> of the 14th Amendment does require that that law protect all people within the jurisdiction of that state. That is, a state cannot make a law criminalizing the murder of a white person, but not of a black person, for example. States can't just pick and choose who is protected by their laws. It would not violate the U.S. Constitution if a state completely decriminalized murder, though. It's exceptionally unlikely to happen, but it would not be a violation of the Constitution.</p>
<p>Depending on exactly what you mean by 'murder,' it could be argued that murder <em>by the government</em> is unconstitutional, though. The <a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution/amendmentxiv" rel="noreferrer">14th Amendment</a> bans states from depriving anyone of life without due process of law:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>No state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; <strong>nor shall any state deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law</strong>; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Similarly, the <a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution/fifth_amendment" rel="noreferrer">5th Amendment</a> provides an equivalent protection from the federal government:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>No person... shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law</p>
</blockquote>

<p>The U.S. Constitution sets up the structural framework of the government and the restraints upon it.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>While much of the Constitution consists of a general framework for the federal government’s form and functions, a central, and perhaps counterintuitive, purpose of the Constitution is to restrain the government, by, among other things, immunizing certain values and principles from government interference.</p>
<p><em>The Constitution Annotated</em>: &quot;<a href="https://constitution.congress.gov/browse/essay/intro.7-1/ALDE_00000028/" rel="noreferrer">Overview of Basic Principles Underlying the Constitution</a>&quot;</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The Constitution does not have <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Concept_of_Law#Primary_rules" rel="noreferrer"><em>primary rules</em></a> of obligation directed at individuals. It contains what H.L.A. Hart refers to as <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Concept_of_Law#Secondary_rules" rel="noreferrer"><em>secondary rules</em> of change and recognition</a>. There is nothing in the Constitution prohibiting murder.</p>

<p>The only crime defined in the Constitution itself is treason.  There are statutes defining “murder,” but those could be changed or repealed.  There is also a common-law definition of murder, which some judges might rule applies in the absence of any statute superseding it. (This theory has applied to some other areas of law, but so far as I know, this situation has never arisen with murder.)</p>
<p>As others have mentioned, the Fourteenth Amendment does prohibit both the federal and state governments (and by extension, other local governments created by either) from depriving any person of life “without due process of law.”  Government agents such as police, though, are allowed by law to kill people under some circumstances, such as when they reasonably feel that they’re in danger, and this is deemed due process of law.</p>
<p>The Fourteenth Amendment also guarantees each person equal protection of the law, which might be the basis of an argument that it’s unconstitutional to allow some people to be murdered with impunity but not others.  Historically, this did not force states to do anything about lynchings, though.  There is also a prohibition on “cruel and unusual punishment” that, some have argued, prohibit execution at least for some offenses where it would be disproportionate.  Some activists would like the courts to declare that capital punishment or abortion are always unconstitutional, but the courts have declined to do so.</p>
<p>There have also been a small number of times in history—most famously, the Nuremberg Trials—where people whose government authorized them to commit genocide have been tried for crimes against humanity.  There is no way to force a nuclear power to submit to such a tribunal (although this has not always stopped the International Criminal Court from issuing symbolic indictments it has no power to enforce).</p>

<p>you are simply confusing two bodies of law, criminal law and constitutional law...
moreover, States generally as sovereigns often grant themselves abusus over their subjects or citizens, i.e. the right of life and death (over one thing, the republics often inherit this right of slavery over people of law...</p>
<p>although they can no longer call themselves &quot;absolute owner&quot; or sovereign of people and land... however this could be precisely a case, a constitutional amendment aimed, not at abolishing, but at prohibiting the use of this right to a republic, because these citizens are not things, personal property, but human beings by right, free and who must remain so</p>

<p>Murder by a private citizen is not unconstitutional, in the same way the same way that it doesn’t violate Roberts Rules of Order, or the rules of the FIDE (International Chess Federation).</p>
<p>Crimes and government structure are entirely separate areas of what is loosely known as The Law, with very little overlap.</p>
