What is the difference between manslaughter, first degree murder, second degree murder, etc?

1st degree murder is when you intentionally kill someone and plan in advance to do so. 2nd degree murder is when you intentionally kill someone, spur of the moment. Manslaughter is when you kill someone through a negligent aggressive act. Like if you get into a fight and hit someone with a stick and they wind up dying as a result, even though you did not intend to kill them.

It varies widely State to State, but there are some commonalities. The Model Penal Code issued by the American Bar Association, which several States use as the basis for their criminal law, doesn't grade murder. Common law, which predates formal written statutes, doesn't grade murder either. However, many States do. Generally, if you intend to kill someone, it's first degree. If you intend to seriously harm them or act with disregard for their life, it's second degree. If you intentionally kill someone, but there are mitigating factors (heat of passion), it's voluntary manslaughter. If you kill someone through negligence like by running a red light, that's involuntary manslaughter.

In England, we have murder (no degrees of it) and manslaughter, though I understand some other jurisdictions do recognise different degrees of murder. Murder, or murder in the first degree where that offence exists, is the taking of the life of another human being with malicious intent, or "malice aforethought". This does not necessary mean there is a great degree of forward planning. The planning could in fact be instantaneous. It could also be that you had no intent at all to kill the victim, but intended in fact to kill someone else. The doctrine of "transferred malice" (you intended to hurt someone) means that it is still murder, no matter who ends up dead. Manslaughter is crime of lesser intent. The mens rea could be, not malice, but negligence or omission, or failing to act or carry out a duty which you owed somebody. One obvious difference is that murder requires a definite action, the deliberate and direct taking of a life. Manslaughter may not require the direct taking of a life. Failing to close the doors of a ferry, and then the boat sinking causing passengers to drown, would be manslaughter rather than murder. Another common example is "fright and flight" - chasing somebody and causing genuine fear in them that they are in danger, and causing them in turn to have a fatal accident. For example chasing somebody across a road, and that person then being struck fatally by a car, could be manslaughter.

First degree murder is when your caught red handed. Second degree murder is when you helped in the murder like an accomplice But im not sure what manslaugter is.