Homicide

The homicide provisions of the Maine Criminal Code break down culpable killings into six degrees. Until the line of cases beginning with State v. Wilbur, the law of Maine had always seemed to separate the various unlawful killings into separate crimes rather than degrees of the same crime. Commencing with State v. Rollins and State v. Lafferty, the Maine Supreme Judicial Court announced that there was and always had been only one crime of "felonious homicide." Murder and manslaughter were merely punishment categories or degrees of "felonious homicide." The new homicide provisions are similar to the pre-Code court interpretation in this respect.