Although state law says that supplying drugs that cause a death is third-degree murder, Judge Manning ruled on Tuesday that the statute was unconstitutional.
"It is intentional and the crime, if any there be, is first-degree murder," Judge Dennis Porter said in his seven-page ruling.
"It is intentional and the crime, if any there be, is first-degree murder," judge Dennis Porter said in his seven-page ruling, implying prosecutors should have charged Servin with murder, not involuntary manslaughter.
To find Mr. Garcia guilty of manslaughter, rather than murder, Judge William C. Meehan instructed jurors that they would have to conclude that, among other things, Mr. Garcia had reasonable provocation to kill Ms. Ricart.
On February 7th, in a murder judged horrific even by Rio's fevered standards, a group of assailants hijacked a car and set off for a joy ride, dragging a six-year-old boy still tangled in his seatbelt through the streets.
On the first day of the trial against officer Caesar Goodson, who faces a charge of murder, judge Barry Williams said prosecutors should have disclosed a meeting they held with witness Donta Allen in which he confirmed statements made to the police on the date of Gray's arrest.
While finding Oscar Pistorius not guilty of murder, Judge Masipa appears to be leaning towards the lesser charge of manslaughter, known in South Africa as culpable homicide.
Mr Agyepong's father was one of the murdered judges, and he has been campaigning for years to have the killings reinvestigated.A bill setting up a body to handle such petitions is already in the works.
That does not impede them: prisoners who can afford to bribe their jailers expect such indulgences as cell phones and "intimate visits" from wives and girlfriends.Both the murdered judges favoured sterner regimes.
At first, he cleared the way for elected government, but re-seized power in 1981, turning his "housecleaning" on the wealthy and influential; a regime marked by murdered judges, public whippings, and businessmen fleeing abroad.
