| In many Western legal systems, to prove a crime like Murder there is normally two things the prosecution must demonstrate: That you A. Carried out the act; typically known as the Actus Reus, and
That you B. Had the guilty intent or mind, typically known as the Mens Rea. This is why the defense of "insanity" exists in so many legal systems; if you were insane you cannot satisfy condition B and therefore cannot have committed a crime such as murder, even if you performed the act of killing another human while insane. However, this is a very accademic distinction in practice in most places. There is usually a second slightly lesser crime known as something like "Manslaughter" or "Culpable Homicide", which is in essence a Murder charge without B - you killed someone but it was an accident for example - you didn't actually mean for them to die. Such cases satisfy the Actus Reus but not the Mens Rea of murder, and are therefore often known as a crime other than "murder" itself. The above is an absolute butchering of Western Criminal law practices, but the general distinction between the action and the intent to perform the action is found in a lot of places, and a Murder charge often requires prosecution to demonstrate both Actus Reus and Mens Rea or the charge cannot stand. The Manslaughter charge is sometimes the fallback position for when proving Mens Rea beyond reasonable doubt for Murder fails. The elevator pitch for this entire article is really, "Was Hal capable of mens rea - yes or no?" So far no machine has ever reached that bar, at least to my knowledge! No one really doubts a machine can do the actus reus - of course it can. > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Actus_reus > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mens_rea > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manslaughter > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Culpable_homicide |
In England for example the requirement for Murder is you intended at least "grievous bodily harm" and the victim in fact died.
For Attempted Murder, the intent proved must be Death, but for actual Murder, there is no need to show that the perpetrator specifically intended death.