                                 CODE OF VIRGINIA

FIRST AND SECOND DEGREE MURDER DEFINED; PUNISHMENT (§ 18.2-32)

Murder, other than aggravated murder, by poison, lying in wait, imprisonment,
starving, or by any willful, deliberate, and premeditated killing, or in the
commission of, or attempt to commit, arson, rape, forcible sodomy, inanimate or
animate object sexual penetration, robbery, burglary or abduction, except as
provided in § 18.2-31, is murder of the first degree, punishable as a Class 2
felony.
		All murder other than aggravated murder and murder in the first degree is
murder of the second degree and is punishable by confinement in a state
correctional facility for not less than five nor more than forty years.

HISTORY: Code 1950, § 18.1-21; 1960, c. 358; 1962, c. 42; 1975, cc. 14, 15;
1976, c. 503; 1977, cc. 478, 492; 1981, c. 397; 1993, cc. 463, 490; 1998, c.
281; 2021, Sp. Sess. I, cc. 344, 345.