You can't make this stuff up!!!! U.S. Muslim TV network founder charged with beheading wife <i> Muzzammil Hassan, founder and CEO of Buffalo, N.Y.-based Bridges TV which launched in 2004 with a mission to show Muslims in a more positive light, was charged after reporting the death of his wife, Aasiya Hassan, 37, on Thursday night.</i>
The estranged wife of a Muslim television executive feared for her life after filing for divorce last month from her abusive husband, her attorney said â and was then found beheaded Thursday in his upstate New York television studio. Aasiya Z. Hassan, 37, was found dead on Thursday at the offices of Bridges TV in Orchard Park, N.Y., near Buffalo. Her husband, Muzzammil Hassan, 44, has been charged with second-degree murder. I would like to know why he hasn't been charged with first degree murder.
Thanks, but I am interested only in the facts of the case and why 2nd degree murder was the charge, not first degree murder. Who knows, we might be looking at some type of "Twinkie defense" claiming the man snapped because of watching too many video be-headings as part of his work that requires watching be-headings that take place in the middle east.
Second-degree murder is ordinarily defined as 1) an intentional killing that is not premeditated or planned, nor committed in a reasonable "heat of passion" or 2) a killing caused by dangerous conduct and the offender's obvious lack of concern for human life. Second-degree murder may best be viewed as the middle ground between first-degree murder and voluntary manslaughter. For example, Dan comes home to find his wife in bed with Victor. At a stoplight the next day, Dan sees Victor riding in the passenger seat of a nearby car. Dan pulls out a gun and fires three shots into the car, missing Victor but killing the driver of the car. I think the easy way to understand it is the difference between cold blooded murder and hot blooded murder. It appears the DA's office view this as a crime of passion, not pre-meditation. However, I hold judgment until I know what the facts of the case are.
New York's 2nd degree murder statute from Patterson v. New York (footnote 2) Section 125:25: A person is guilty of murder in the second degree when: 1. With intent to cause the death of another person, he causes the death of such person or of a third person; except in any prosecution under this subdivision, it is an affirmative defense that: (a) The defendant acted under the influence of extreme emotional disturbance for which there was a reasonable explanation or excuse, the reasonableness of which is to be determined from the viewpoint of a person in the defendant's situation under the circumstances as the defendant believed them to be. Nothing contained in this paragraph shall constitute a defense to a prosecution for, or preclude a conviction of, manslaughter in the first degree or any other crime. http://law.onecle.com/new-york/penal/PEN0125.25_125.25.html
You would be wrong as usual... Every time you do something so ingloriously stupid, as in this particular instance, I think, "he can't really be this dense, can he?" Apparently so---