PARRICIDE. - In common usage it denotes the killing of the father or also the killing of the son by the father. In the penal field, parricide means the killing of a relative (as well as of a relative by marriage in the direct line), and a distinction is drawn between parricide proper and improper (or quasi-parricide), according to whether the person killed is a relative in the direct line or not. In the Italian Penal Code there is no trace of the term.
The etymology of the word is highly uncertain, even though it is commonly held to derive from patricidium, that is, the killing of a pater familias. The question has been examined especially by Romanist doctrine, with particular reference to a passage contained in a law of Numa Pompilius (« si quis hominem liberum dolo sciens mortui duit, paricidas esto ¹). In the absence of further clarification, the expression paricidas esto, in which the sanction of the provision just cited was summed up, has been the object of differing interpretations: thus some have understood it in the sense that the killer of a free man was equated with the killer of a pater familias (and the etymology of the word parricide would thereby be explained in the simplest way); for others, on the other hand, the formula in question meant that the killer of a free man was to be par occisum, that is, killed in the same manner, which naturally implies a quite different etymological solution. Nor have other singular explanations been lacking. It has been said that paricidas was the avenger, that is, the one who killed a person in the same way (par) in which that person had killed another. Finally, paricidium has been derived from per caedere. Nor has the figure of the quaestores paricidi helped to clarify the problem, given the many doubts attaching to their institution. In any case, in the course of time paricidium came to mean in Roman law the killing of a kinsman. And such, in a broad sense, remained the meaning of the term thereafter.
The differences between one age and another, between one people and another, concern essentially the extension of the concept of kinsman and the penalty imposed on the paricida. In the Roman law of the historical period, parricide consisted in the killing of a descendant, of an ascendant, of a spouse, of a brother, of an uncle, of a cousin, of the closest relatives by marriage and of the patron. The typical penalty was that of the sack (culleus): the guilty party was placed in it together with an animal and then thrown into the sea. In the 1st century B.C. the lex Pompeia de paricidio notably modified the regulation of parricide: among other things, the death penalty was replaced by banishment. The culleus reappears, however, in the 1st century of the Empire, at first only for the case of killing an ascendant, then for the killing of any close kinsman. Subsequently it was replaced by expositio ad bestias and by burning at the stake. As also appears from the barbarian legislations and those of the following centuries, death thus became the normal sanction for parricide. Naturally, death was replaced by life imprisonment in those legislations which, from the 18th century onward, abolished capital punishment. At the same time, the tendency prevailed to restrict the sphere of parricide to the killing of an ascendant or a descendant.
In the Zanardelli Code, indeed, life imprisonment punished the killing of a legitimate ascendant or descendant, as well as the killing of the natural parent or child, when the natural filiation had been legally recognized or declared (art. 566). Also aggravated in comparison with ordinary homicide was the killing of the spouse, of the brother, of the sister, of the adopter, of the adopted person and of relatives by marriage in the direct line: in such cases, in fact, imprisonment from 22 to 24 years was applicable (art. 365). In relation to this twofold treatment, there was indeed talk, respectively, of parricide proper and improper. Since the Rocco Code has reproduced more or less in the same terms the system adopted in this matter by the Zanardelli Code, the distinction between parricide proper and improper continues to be made today. The first occurs in the hypothesis provided for by art. 577 no. 1, that is, the killing of an ascendant or a descendant (penalty: life imprisonment); the second occurs in the hypothesis provided for by the second paragraph of art. 577, that is, the killing of the spouse (and by spouse is meant the person to whom one is joined by a marriage having civil effect), of a brother or a sister (including therein full siblings, those sharing the same father and those sharing the same mother), of the adopter, of the adopted person and of a relative by marriage in the direct line (penalty: imprisonment from 24 to 30 years). As can be seen, apart from the greater severity of the latter sanction, the present legislation differs from the previous one solely in having equated, in deference to the penal principle laid down by art. 540, illegitimate filiation with legitimate filiation: art. 577 no. 1 in fact provides for life imprisonment for the killing of an ascendant or a descendant in general. There therefore falls within this provision the killing of the son or of the father, whether the filiation be legitimate, natural, adulterine or incestuous.
Another important difference with respect to the Zanardelli Code has instead disappeared after the issuance of D. L. L. 8 Aug. 1944 no. 244 abolishing the death penalty: art. 576 in fact punished with death the killing of an ascendant or a descendant when it had occurred in given situations; that is, for a base or vile motive or with the use of cruelty or by employing a poisonous means or another insidious means or with premeditation. Now even in these cases life imprisonment is applied.
What is most important to note is that the relationship of kinship is considered by the Italian legislator an aggravating circumstance of ordinary homicide and not a qualified form of homicide, as instead happens for infanticide for reasons of honor, for the killing of a consenting person, for homicide for reasons of honor or for preterintentional homicide. Under art. 60, however, the aggravating circumstance must not be applied when the killer acted in ignorance of the relationship of kinship with the victim: in that case, in fact, there is an error as to the person.
As regards canon law, parricide is considered a form of qualified homicide (v.). Cf. the entry cited for its character as delictum mixti fori and for the penalties.