>>Very disturbing story
>>
>>the alleged murder is charged with second degree murder. Why not first degree?
>>
>>http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,493645,00.html
>
>In New York
>
>so
>
> 1. First Degree Murder: Murder involving special circumstances, such as murder of a police officer, judge, fireman or witness to a crime; multiple murders; and torture or especially heinous murders. Note that a "regular" premeditated murder, absent such special circumstances, is not a first-degree murder; murders by poison or "lying in wait" are not per se first-degree murders. First degree murder is pre-meditated.[68] However, the New York Court of Appeals struck down the death penalty as unconstitutional in the case of People v. LaValle, because of the statute's direction on how the jury was to be instructed in case of deadlock in the penalty phase.
> 2. Second Degree Murder: Any premeditated murder or felony murder that does not involve special circumstances.[69]

I guess, then, it depends on what is "special circumstances".
Couldn't a lawyer make a case that years of abuse and beheading a live and conscious person is a form of torture?
What did he use to do his deed? He probably didn't use an ordinary pocket knife.