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GlossaryCrime classifications

Homicide

Homicide concerns one person’s death caused by another, with different medical and crime-reporting meanings. Learn why homicide is not automatically murder or a finding of guilt.

Homicide concerns the death of one person caused by another, but its precise meaning depends on the record. A medical examiner's homicide manner-of-death classification and a police crime-reporting category serve different purposes. The word alone does not establish murder, criminal intent, a particular charge, or the guilt of any person.

Medical and criminal records answer different questions

A death investigation can distinguish cause of death from manner of death. Cause identifies the injury or disease process; manner classifies the circumstances under the certifier's framework. Homicide can be one manner classification without being a criminal adjudication.

NIST's medicolegal lexicon explains that a homicide manner classification does not necessarily require intent to cause death and does not itself imply criminal intent. Its entry cites a 2025 medicolegal terminology report. NIST homicide entry

Crime reporting uses separate defined categories, including murder and nonnegligent manslaughter and other homicide-related classifications. The FBI's named NIBRS manual provides those statistical definitions. They should not be substituted automatically for a medical examiner's terminology. FBI NIBRS manual

Example

Hypothetical example: A medical examiner determines that a person's death resulted from another person's actions and records the manner as homicide. Investigators and prosecutors separately review the circumstances under applicable law. The public medical record contains no court verdict.

The manner classification supports an account of the death-investigation finding. It does not establish which criminal charge, if any, was filed or whether a legal defense applied. Describing a named person as a convicted murderer from that record alone would exceed what it shows. The example gives no invented finding of criminal liability.

Common confusion

Murder is a more specific legal or statistical classification. Homicide can be broader and context-dependent. A death listed as homicide in a medical record is not automatically counted in every published murder statistic.

A death investigation is also not proof of homicide: agencies examine deaths for several reasons. Cause and manner are distinct fields, and a pending finding can later be amended. A conviction requires a separate court outcome.

Comparing death totals

Identify whether a source counts deaths by medical manner, police-reported offenses, or court outcomes. Check residence versus occurrence geography, reporting period, classification date, and later revisions. These sources can legitimately differ because they answer different questions. A comparison should explain those boundaries before treating mismatched totals as errors or combining them into one trend.

Sources