Fahrlässige Tötung oder Mord? Zwei Urteile zu illegalen Autorennen aus der Sicht forensischer Linguistik

Abstract

Illegal car racing in German city centres repeatedly lead to fatal accidents. As a rule, they are punished by the courts as involuntary manslaughter. Until a judgement of the Berlin Regional Court makes legal history by convicting the speeders of murder. This requires reasoning. Court judgements are argumentative texts. Against the background of the applicable foundations of law, justice and jurisprudence, this article will take a closer look at two opposing verdicts (in Cologne and Berlin) on the comparable facts of the case, one assessed as negligent homicide, the other as murder, using the linguistic and argumentationanalytical cutlery from the toolbox of forensic linguistics.

Keywords

• legal language
• forensic linguistics
• negligent homicide
• manslaughter
• murder
• elements of the offence
• system of norms
• legal positivism
• means of the offence
• conditional intent (dolus eventualis)
• breach of duty of care
• traffic offence
• voluntary element