Parricide Law and Legal Definition
Parricide refers to the murdering of one's father, mother, or other near relative. It can also refer to the person who commits such a murder.
The following is an example of a caselaw discussing Parricide:
The crime of "parricide," murdering one's own parents or grandparents, has in all societies been considered to be more despicable than other homicides. According to Blackstone, under Roman law "parricide was punishable in a much severer manner than any other kind of homicide. After being scourged, the delinquents were sewed up in a leathern sack, with a live dog, a cock, a viper, and an ape, and so cast into the sea." Blackstone, Commentaries on the Laws of England, Book IV, ch. 14 at 202-03, Clarendon Press, Oxford (1769). Under the Napoleonic Code of France parricide was punished by the murderer's being taken to the place of execution, without any clothes other than his shirt, barefooted, and with his head covered with a black veil. He was then exposed on the scaffold, while an officer of the court read his sentence to the spectators. His right hand was cut off, and he was then put to death. [Flanagan v. State, 107 Nev. 243, 256 (Nev. 1991)]
