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mk09 t1_je9tcov wrote

Reply to comment by doterobcn in TIL that when former White House press secretary James Brady died in 2014, his death was ruled a homicide because it was ultimately caused by a gunshot wound he sustained in 1981, during the attempted assassination of Ronald Reagan by IAmTiborius

No, because the person who pushed you didn't intend to commit murder and the knee injury wasn't the proximate cause of death. The person who tried to assassinate Reagan did have that intent and injuries from the shooting proximately caused Brady's death, so it was a homicide.

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perfect5-7-with-rice t1_jeaar5l wrote

Murder charges only require intent to hurt, not intent to kill.

Also, homicide doesn't require any intent at all

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renecade24 t1_jebfem2 wrote

That's not entirely accurate. People can be charged with murder when they didn't intend to kill someone under the felony murder rule if the death occurs when they're in the process of committing another felony. In this hypothetical, there's no criminal intent if someone is fouled in a basketball game. Even if the player intended to injure the other player, at most it would likely be a misdemeanor assault, so the felony murder rule wouldn't apply (plus the basketball injury wasn't the proximate cause of the death). Even if the basketball injury did cause the death, if there's insufficient criminal intent to charge the player with murder, then it would be manslaughter and the statute of limitations for manslaughter would have already lapsed by that point.

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