2006 Code of Virginia § 18.2-32 - First and second degree murder defined; punishment

18.2-32. First and second degree murder defined; punishment.

Murder, other than capital murder, by poison, lying in wait, imprisonment,starving, or by any willful, deliberate, and premeditated killing, or in thecommission of, or attempt to commit, arson, rape, forcible sodomy, inanimateor animate object sexual penetration, robbery, burglary or abduction, exceptas provided in 18.2-31, is murder of the first degree, punishable as aClass 2 felony.

All murder other than capital murder and murder in the first degree is murderof the second degree and is punishable by confinement in a state correctionalfacility for not less than five nor more than forty years.

(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.)