Shadowing Practice: Degrees of Murder - What Do They Mean? - Learn English Speaking with Video
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188 sentences
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The year is 2001 and a young woman is returning home to her apartment with her hands full of recently bought groceries.
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As she walks down the hallway toward the door of her apartment, she sees her neighbor holding on to the leashes of two incredibly strong and vicious looking Mastiff dogs.
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The woman is taking care of them, while their owner.
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A high -ranking member of the Aryan Brotherhood serves time in prison.
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No sooner than the dogs see the woman than they lunge forward, easily getting away from the woman who is holding them.
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A savage attack ensues.
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She does not survive the prolonged assault after being bitten on every part of her body beside her scalp
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and the soles of her feet.
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The woman who was looking after the dogs understood how dangerous they were.
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She and her husband were both attorneys doing legal work for the imprisoned owner, so that's how they ended up with the dogs.
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They were aware of how these dogs, the largest weighing in at 140 pounds, had been badly treated and were extremely aggressive.
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Ok, viewers, think about that short story for a second.
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You haven't been given all the facts, but you've heard the basics.
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What was the person taking care of the dogs guilty of?
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What about her husband? who wasn't even there at the time of the attack.
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The answer is, both the husband and wife were sent to prison at first for involuntary manslaughter.
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The thing is, the wife had at first been charged with what's called implied malice, second degree murder.
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And although the jury had found her guilty of that, the judge rejected the decision.
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Seven years later, the decision was reinstated.
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The dogs, by the way, were euthanized after the attack.
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You could say they had got the death sentence.
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Some of you might now be thinking, "How come the husband was convicted of manslaughter even though he wasn't there?" Others might be thinking, "Well, he was equally responsible since he agreed to look after
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the dogs." We're guessing most of you are wondering what on earth is implied malice second degree murder?
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The short answer is it's a degree of murder.
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In the realms of law and how it's applied, murder is far from simple.
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Today we'll explain what all the degrees are, and to make things clearer for you we'll give you some rather stark examples.
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Ok, so you've all heard the word "homicide." You probably watched a cop show and heard the line, "I think we've got a homicide on our hands." It basically means the killing of another person.
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It might have happened through a reckless act, or it might have been on purpose.
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It could have also been unintentional or on accident.
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There is something called "non -culpable homicide." What that means is the act of killing a person was justified in some way, such as self -defense, or when a soldier kills another soldier.
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It could also be an accident in which a person that caused the accident is not at all at
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The Latin word culpa means fault or blame, so you can be culpable or not culpable.
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When there's non -culpable homicide, compensation might be sought, but it's not a criminal offense.
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However, if you cause an accident and someone dies it could be a criminal offense
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if your actions were the result of.. willful blindness or negligence, A man in the US was convicted of negligent homicide after
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he left his six -month -old daughter in a vehicle for six hours.
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She died as a result.
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The man claimed he'd forgotten.
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After finding his daughter, he put her in the refrigerator to cool her down.
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Even though all this sounds quite horrific, in the end he didn't do any prison time.
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Negligent homicide is similar to manslaughter, but it's also different.
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They both relate to killing a person without any intention to do so, although the former concerns not doing something rather than doing something.
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Manslaughter is more about recklessness, while negligent homicide relates more to making a fatal mistake.
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How courts see things depends on them, The guy who left his kid in the car could have been convicted of manslaughter, and there have even been cases where the same happened and the parent has been charged with the murder.
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That happened in 2016 in Georgia.
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As you'll understand, after you finish the show, what a person is charged with doesn't always make sense.
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Or at least person A and person B can commit the exact same offense
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and there are two different outcomes in relation to what they're convicted of.
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Culpable homicide has three major categories: murder, manslaughter, and infanticide.
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That means killing an infant, and as you'll see, there's more to it than this.
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Let's start with something rather easy.
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Take the story of Ted Bundy.
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He killed people because he wanted to kill people.
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That was his intention.
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That's certainly a culpable homicide, as is hurting someone so bad that the perpetrator is pretty sure the injuries will lead to death.
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this, but actually kills bystander Mrs. C.
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What's that?
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Well, it's still murder, even if the person didn't mean to kill Mrs. C, and that's because his first intention was to kill.
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But in this case, the killing was transferred to another person.
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This is called "transferred intent." Let's now give you an example.
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A woman in the US was shot and killed even though she was totally unknown to the guy that pulled the trigger.
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He was standing a block away having an argument with a guy when he shot the gun.
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You could say he didn't mean to kill the woman, but because he did mean to kill the man, he was charged with murder with transferred intent.
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Even if you do something that you know is so crazy
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that it could possibly kill someone but you didn't have the explicit aim to kill someone, it can still be ruled as murder.
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It basically means that your conduct was so damn dangerous and foolish that when a person died as a result, it is murder.
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This could be said to be a third degree murder, something which not all states in the US have.
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In other countries, it just wouldn't be called murder, it'd be called manslaughter.
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It could also be called depraved heart murder which sounds like something from Middle Ages Britain.
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We should say that this can be both second degree and third degree.
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We told you this was complicated.
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Let's give you a real -life example of a depraved heart murder.
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There was a teenager in the US who thought it'd be a good idea to get the guys together
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and play a game of Russian roulette.
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That's never a good idea.
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One kid died as a result.
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During the trial, his defense argued that it wasn't murder because there was no intent, but in the end he was found guilty under the depraved heart murder doctrine.
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We found a more recent example involving a man who supplied a woman with drugs, that the drugs were very strong.
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She died sometime later, and the guy was convicted of depraved heart third -degree murder.
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That happened in the state of Minnesota, a place where you can be convicted of third -degree murder for the murder of an unborn child.
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This is how the kind of murder has been explained.
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A murder without intent to affect the death of any person
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causing the death of another by perpetrating the act eminently dangerous to others
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and evincing an appraved mind without regard for human life.
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Yep, being stupid can make you a murderer, in some countries at least.
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In many countries if you can't prove killing with intent you will not be sentenced to murder at all, but the sentence of the crime will be based on just how reckless the action was.
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Then you have second degree murder, which also differs from state to state, or how a jury in a state will view the crime.
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Unlike what we've just talked about, it usually involves the killing of another without explicit intent.
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Let's imagine that you lent your friend some cash, but when you ask for it back he refuses to pay up.
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Worse than that, he tells you that you never gave him any money, and anyway you're a total pushover.
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He then goes and tells his friend what a loser you are.
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Another thing, your mom's always going on about how you need anger management sessions.
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You are infuriated at that very moment and even though you have no plan to kill the guy, you just pick up a baseball bat that's handily lying around and whack him with it.
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In this case, you might be charged with second degree murder because you didn't plan on killing him.
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You did know though that when you violently swung that bat, you caused serious damage to his head.
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If he actually started hitting you and you went overboard and smashed his head with the bat, it could be deemed a lesser crime, but we'll get around to that.
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You could also have been charged with second -degree murder if you showed what's called extreme indifference to human life.
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Let's imagine you didn't have a bat, but inside your house you had a gun.
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Since your emotions were all exploding, you went into your house and grabbed it.
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When you went outside, you just acted up, not really firing it at your friend, who was now some distance away laughing at you with his friends, but you fired over their heads to cause a scene.
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Except someone was hit and died.
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Maybe you thought it was an accident, but you showed extreme indifference to human life.
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Now you're a second -degree murderer.
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Something similar recently happened in Alaska.
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Two men had been arguing in a car when the driver ordered his friend to get out.
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The driver went on for a bit and then turned around.
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He drove back in the same direction and swerved as if to hit his friend.
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This could have been first degree murder, but it was only charged with second degree because it was thought he didn't really mean to kill him.
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Ok, so what is that thing called felony murder?
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It basically means that someone had the intent to commit a felony crime, but in the process of doing that someone was killed.
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This can be complicated too, so we'll give you an example.
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Two guys go into a clothing store with the intention of robbing it.
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That's a felony crime, but during the commission of
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that crime one of the guys pulls out a gun and shoots the store owner.
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Ok, so the other guy didn't even know his buddy was carrying a gun, but it doesn't matter, he was there.
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He could be charged with felony murder, either first degree or second degree, but likely first degree.
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Let's now change the scenario.
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Two guys go into the store unarmed, except this time the owner pulls out a gun and kills one of the offenders.
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He leaves the other alone.
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The owner is not charged with anything since he was protecting his property, but the surviving guy is charged with felony murder because it's partly his fault that his friend was shot.
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This has happened, and it's happened a lot.
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It's a good reason not to take part in a crime if you know your friends are unstable and dangerous.
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Most countries would never convict, say, a getaway driver of murder or the guy keeping the lookout, but some states in the US have a zero tolerance to these crimes,
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never mind if someone was just there.
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A young man in 2004 was sentenced to life without parole
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for a felony murder even though he wasn't close to the crime.
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He'd just lent his car to some friends, but he'd been told they were going to steal drugs from people.
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He didn't, however, know anyone would be killed.
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This was what he later said, "I honestly thought they were going to get food." When they actually mentioned what was going on, I thought it was a joke.
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His sentence was later reduced to 25 years.
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The lesson to be learned here is don't lend your car to small -time gangsters.
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You can end up facing a lifetime in prison.
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You can also be convicted of capital murder, which is one that can lead to the death penalty.
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This can be very straightforward, of course, but it can also be felony murder.
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There are umpteen cases of people not pulling the trigger but were executed just because they were there.
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In most cases, the people that didn't commit the actual murder were participants in the crime, but in some cases they may not have known anyone would be killed.
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That's another reason not to hang out with maniacs.
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It could get you an appointment with a cocktail of lethal drugs.
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So what about that woman at the start of the show who was convicted of implied malice, second degree murder?
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What exactly does that mean?
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Some states will call this a murder in which a person shows a conscious disregard for life.
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In this case, the jury agreed that the woman knew those dogs were capable of killing someone, and yet she still took them out for a walk.
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She was also aware that if they should try to get away from her, she'd be helpless to stop them.
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You could be charged with this if you joined in on beating some guy up.
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You and your friends carried on doing it until the guy was black and blue.
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You should have known this could result in death.
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Another case in which it could happen is if you had firearms training and killed someone accidentally while showing off your gun.
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Again, you should have known better.
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Many drunk drivers have faced this charge.
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Some courts might find you guilty of the lesser charge of manslaughter, but if they think you showed enough implied malice, they might actually find you guilty of murder.
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Manslaughter also has degrees, and they can sound similar to some degrees of murder we've discussed.
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actions, but you might not be charged with the crime at all.
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Imagine you were walking down the street and some drunk guy bumped into you and then fell and hit his head.
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That's not a crime, but what if you pushed him?
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Well, if it's a crime will depend on how hard you pushed him and the whims of criminal justice.
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There's involuntary manslaughter, which means unintentional killing of someone from negligence or reckless behavior.
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That can also be sometimes deemed to be a kind of murder.
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An example of involuntary manslaughter could be a guy It wasn't a depraved action,
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and there was no malice unless the guy was drunk on something, and in most cases if he was just forgetful it would be involuntary manslaughter.
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Let's give you a real -life example of an involuntary manslaughter, and a strange one at that.
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A rich man hired a young man to dig a hole under his mansion to find a hidden nuclear bunker.
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As the man was digging, there was an electrical fire and he died.
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The rich man was later charged with involuntary manslaughter, which meant his reckless actions had caused the death.
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But get this, he was also charged with second -degree depraved heart murder.
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That's because he also showed a depraved indifference to human life.
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If you're wondering how someone can be convicted of a lesser crime as well as a worse crime, it's because the jury can choose only the lesser crime if they want to.
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There's also constructive manslaughter, which means someone is killed during the commission of a small crime.
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Let's say you're driving recklessly and you hit someone, well that could be constructive manslaughter.
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If you were driving normally and some kid just ran from behind a van in front of you, that was an accident.
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Then there's voluntary manslaughter, which ends with someone being killed even though the person charged with the manslaughter didn't intend to kill someone.
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He was also aware his actions could possibly lead to something very bad happening.
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It's pretty common.
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Imagine you get into a fight over who's next on the pool table.
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You're not a killer, but you know how to defend yourself.
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You hit the guy and he dies.
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Okay, so you could be charged with second -degree murder, but because you acted knowing you were at risk, it's likely you'd be convicted of voluntary manslaughter.
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home to find their spouse in bed with another person, they could get angry.
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If a fight breaks out and someone dies, perhaps they are mitigating circumstances and the crime could be voluntary manslaughter.
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Let's give you a real -life case.
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Not long ago in the US, a man believed another man was dating his ex -girlfriend.
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But both men got into an altercation with one of the men, the guy accused of dating the ex, thinking the other guy was going to pull a gun on him because he reached around his back.
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"I didn't wait for his hand to come back up, and I shot him," he later told the court.
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The other guy died.
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That might sound like murder to you guys, and indeed, he was first charged with second -degree murder but in the end he got 25 years for voluntary manslaughter.
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It seems it was thought there was no intent to kill, and this all happened in the heat of the moment.
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But like many of the cases we've discussed today, there's sometimes no telling what a person might be convicted of.
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Now, you need to watch Why Prisoner Proven Innocent Can't Be Released, or have a look at Innocent on Death Row.
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Here's what you actually get when you're released.
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Vocabulary and speaking notes for this lesson
This C2 speaking lesson is built on the video “Degrees of Murder - What Do They Mean?”. The speaker keeps coming back to these words: murder, degree, manslaughter, crime, charged. This video has 188 sentences and 2999 words to shadow. The speech runs for 13:28. The speaker talks fast, about 223 words per minute, so expect linked and reduced sounds. 85% of the words are among the 3,000 most common in English; the rest is worth studying before you start.
Key vocabulary in this video
The 15 most advanced words in the video, with pronunciation and meaning:
| Word | Pronunciation | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| manslaughter noun | /ˈmænˌslɔtɚ/ | The unlawful killing of a human, either in negligence or incidentally to the commission of some unlawful act, but without specific malice, or upon a sudden… |
| convict verb | /ˈkɑnvɪkt/ | To find guilty, as a result of legal proceedings, or (informal) in a moral sense. |
| homicide noun | /ˈhɑ.məˌsaɪ̯d/ | The killing of one person by another, whether premeditated or unintentional. |
| depraved adjective | /dɪˈpɹeɪvd/ | Perverted or extremely wrong in a moral sense. |
| culpable adjective | /ˈkʌlpəbəl/ | Meriting condemnation, censure or blame, especially as something wrong, harmful or injurious; blameworthy, guilty. |
| involuntary adjective | /ɪnˈvɑ.lənˌtɛɹ.i/ | Without intention; unintentional. |
| malice noun | /ˈmælɪs/ | Intention to harm or deprive in an illegal or immoral way. Desire to take pleasure in another's misfortune. |
| reckless adjective | /ˈɹɛkləs/ | Careless or heedless; headstrong or rash. |
| imply verb | /ɪmˈplaɪ/ | To have as a necessary consequence; to lead to (something) as a consequence. |
| voluntary adjective | /ˈvɑ.lənˌt(ɛ)ɹi/ | Done, given, or acting of one's own free will. |
| indifference noun | /ɪnˈdɪf.ɹəns/ | The state of being indifferent. |
| negligent adjective | /ˈnɛɡ.lɪ.d͡ʒənt/ | Careless or inattentive. |
| lend verb | /ˈlɛnd/ | To allow to be used by someone temporarily, on condition that it or its equivalent will be returned. |
| deem verb | /dim/ | To hold in belief or estimation; to adjudge as a conclusion; to regard as being; to evaluate according to one's beliefs; to account. |
| unintentional adjective | /ˌʌnɪnˈtɛnʃənəl/ | Not intended or deliberate; inadvertent; unwitting. |
Phrasal verbs you will hear
| Word | Pronunciation | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| pull out verb | To withdraw; especially of military forces; to retreat. | |
| walk down verb | To continually advance (on an opponent) and punch (the opponent) in order to control the fight and dominate the opponent, while shrugging off the opponent's… | |
| act up verb | /ækt ˈʌp/ | To misbehave; to cause trouble. |
| break out verb | To escape, especially forcefully or defiantly. | |
| end up verb | To bring to a conclusion. | |
| get around to verb | To eventually begin or return to some task. | |
| get out verb | To leave or escape. | |
| pay up verb | To pay in total a sum which is owed, especially when the sum has been owed for a period of time. |
Sentences worth repeating
Short, complete lines from the video that you can reuse in everyday conversation:
- Let's start with something rather easy.
- Let's now change the scenario.
- That's not a crime, but what if you pushed him?
- Let's give you a real -life case.
- Here's what you actually get when you're released.
Grammar in this video
The structures the speaker uses most, with the exact words from the video:
| Structure | In the video |
|---|---|
| Conditional sentences if + clause, will/would + verb — a condition and its result | if it's a crime will depend · if he was just forgetful it would be |
| Passive voice be + past participle — the focus is on what happens, not who does it | being bitten · had been badly treated · been given |
| Present perfect have/has + past participle — a past action that still matters now | haven't been given · have even been · has been explained |
| Relative clauses who / which + clause — extra information about a person or thing | woman who is · woman who was · guy who left |
Pronunciation to watch
The speaker uses 51 contractions and reduced forms, such as didn't, you're, wasn't. Say them the short way, as you hear them.
- The “th” sounds: euthanize /ˈjuː.θənˌaɪz/, lethal /ˈliː.θəl/
- The “sh” and “zh” sounds: unintentional /ˌʌnɪnˈtɛnʃənəl/, altercation /ˌɔltɚˈkeɪʃən/, pushover /ˈpʊʃəʊvə(ɹ)/, vicious /ˈvɪʃəs/, foolish /ˈfuː.lɪʃ/
- Long words — get the stress right: involuntary /ɪnˈvɑ.lənˌtɛɹ.i/, voluntary /ˈvɑ.lənˌt(ɛ)ɹi/, unintentional /ˌʌnɪnˈtɛnʃənəl/, altercation /ˌɔltɚˈkeɪʃən/, eminently /ˈɛmɪnəntli/
How to practise with this video
- Listen to the whole video once without speaking and note the words you do not know.
- Start at 0.75× speed, shadow it sentence by sentence, then go back to normal speed once it feels easy.
- Record yourself and compare with the original, paying attention to words like manslaughter, convict, homicide.
What is the Shadowing Technique?
Shadowing is a science-backed language learning technique originally developed for professional interpreter training and popularized by polyglot Dr. Alexander Arguelles. The method is simple but powerful: you listen to native English audio and immediately repeat it out loud — like a shadow following the speaker with just a 1–2 second delay. Unlike passive listening or grammar drills, shadowing forces your brain and mouth muscles to simultaneously process and reproduce real speech patterns. Research shows it significantly improves pronunciation accuracy, intonation, rhythm, connected speech, listening comprehension, and speaking fluency — making it one of the most effective methods for IELTS Speaking preparation and real-world English communication.