| Comment | Yes, and if you beat a person to death with a spanner you'll get life.
Drop the same spanner off scaffolding that you're working on and kill a passer-by, and you'll get a much lighter sentence.
​
Meanwhile, if you get in an argument with someone, issue threats, and then run them over with your car, you'll still be up on a murder charge. But that's different from an accident, even if there was negligent driving.
The legal distinction is between "actus rea" (actually doing the deed), and "mens rea", having the intention of doing it.
This can sometimes get messy when, say, someone is punched in a bar fight, lands badly, and dies of a brain bleed. The person throwing the punch can claim they didn't intend to kill, but the intent to harm is still there. |
|---|