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Not necessarily. In the state in which I practice law (Oklahoma), murder 2 has no intent requirement:

21 O.S. 701.8:

Homicide is murder in the second degree in the following cases:

1. When perpetrated by an act imminently dangerous to another person and evincing a depraved mind, regardless of human life, although without any premeditated design to effect the death of any particular individual [emphasis mine]; or

2. When perpetrated by a person engaged in the commission of any felony other than the unlawful acts set out in Section 1, subsection B, of this act.

In states like Oklahoma, we often create laws that are meant to make a single crime multiply, in order to maximize our "tough on crime" image. A police-friend was telling me one of their favorites is the "Computer Crimes Act", which makes the use of a "computer" (which, by their interpretation, includes a cellphone) during a crime, a separately punishable act.

So it applies to texting-while-driving and phone pranks, all of the way up to bank-robbery. Technically, according to paragraph 8, if you find this post *annoying*, I've just committed a misdemeanor!

Go USA!

Not in my jurisdiction:

Whoever, in a trial, hearing, investigation, deposition, certification or declaration, in which the making or subscribing of a statement is required or authorized by law, makes or subscribes a statement under oath, affirmation or other legally binding assertion that the statement is true, when in fact the witness or declarant does not believe that the statement is true or knows that it is not true or intends thereby to avoid or obstruct the ascertainment of the truth, is guilty of perjury. It shall be a defense to the charge of perjury as defined in this section that the statement is true.

21 O.S. 491. Not a word in there about relevance. Can you find a statute that does apply only to relevant questions?

(Also, it goes far beyond statements in court.)

Seriously,

Show me the lines of the traffic code that require slower people to move to the right side.

It's a "convention" at best.

43 O.S. 11-309, notably (5):

5. Upon a roadway which is divided into four or more lanes, a vehicle shall not impede the normal flow of traffic by driving in the left lane; provided, however, this paragraph shall not prohibit driving in a lane other than the right-hand lane when traffic conditions or flow, or both, or road configuration, such as the potential of merging traffic, require the use of lanes other than the right-hand lane to maintain safe traffic conditions. [Emphasis added]

11-25-2009 CTFREE - 72943283 Nov 25 2009 1:53:28:810PM - $ 0.00
MORRISSEY, LINDA G.: ORDER ENTERED. DEFENDANT ST. FRANCIS' MOTION TO RECONSIDER IS DENIED. THE COURT CANNOT WEIGH THE EVIDENCE OR ITS CREDIBILITY AND THERE IS TESTIMONY THAT THREE EKG'S SHOW A PATTERN OF MYOCARDIAL ISCHEMIA AND SHOULD HAVE BEEN PRESENTED. IF THE JURY WERE TO BELIEVE THAT THREE EKG'S SUGGEST THAT MR. CAMERON WAS HAVING A HEART ATTACK THEN IT IS REASONABLE TO CONCLUDE THAT THEY MAY NOT BELIEVE A DOCTOR WHO SAYS HE WOULD SEND SOMEONE HOME IN MR. CAMERON'S CONDITION. A JURY MAY NOT BELIEVE DR. ANDERSON WHEN HE SAYS HE WOULD NOT HAVE DONE ANYTHING DIFFERENT IF HE HAD SEEN A "PATTERN OF MYOCARDIAL ISCHEMIA" TESTIFIED TO BY PLAINTIFF'S EXPERT WITNESS. A REASONABLE PERSON COULD FIND THAT 1) THE EKG'S SHOW MYOCARDIAL ISCHEMIA; 2) THAT DR. ANDERSON SHOULD NOT HAVE RELEASED MR. CAMERON TO HIS HOME WHILE SUFFERING A HEART ATTACH; 3) THAT MR. CAMERON LOST A SIGNIFICANT CHANCE OF SURVIVAL BECAUSE HIS HEART ATTACK WAS NOT DETECTED TIMELY, AT LEAST IN PART BY THE FACT THAT ALL EKG'S WERE NOT PRESENTED AND THAT 4) ST. FRANCIS BREACHED THE STANDARD OF CARE. PLAINTIFF'S BURDEN AT THIS STAGE IS TO DEMONSTRATE A CONFLICT OF FACTS AND/OR THE REASONABLE INFERENCES WHICH MAY BE REACHED FROM THEM. IT CANNOT BE FOUND AT THIS TIME THAT THERE IS NO MATERIAL QUESTION OF FACT AS TO THE PLAINTIFF'S NEGLIGENCE CLAIM AGAINST ST. FRANCIS. COPY OF THIS MINUTE WAS MAILED TO DAVID G. GRAVES AND BRAD SMITH; LISA RIGGS AND RICHARD GANN; AMY KEMPFERT AND JOHN BOWLING.

That was the reason that the plaintiff's motion to quash,

10-05-2009 MOQ - CAMERON, PAM 72291829 Oct 6 2009 8:47:07:537AM - $ 0.00
PLAINTIFF'S MOTION TO QUASH SUBPOENA DUCES TECUM // CERTIFICATE OF MAILING (C2J)

was granted. Every other entry except for the description of the jury and trail outcome is labeled merely, "Document Available at Court Clerk's Office."

I (finally) found this record buried in the Oklahoma State Courts Network database, so it wouldn't be cached by Google or archive.org. There (unsurprisingly) doesn't seem to have been any contemporaneous reporting on the case's developments, so closing the record for the duration of the trial would have been completely effective in preventing jury contamination. Just by reading the ruling, I am not entirely sure what it means or what legal principle it implements, so I will easily grant that it would have been prejudicial as hell to a jury; probably not in a rational, predictable way, either.

Joey Senat, an associate professor of journalism at Oklahoma State University, said this court order "is essentially closing off court records from the public."

"If she is going to close off court records, she should have a compelling reason to justify it," said Senat, a former president of Freedom of Information Oklahoma Inc., a watchdog group supporting openness in government.

A compelling reason...like hiding rulings about suppressed evidence from the jury. Right. No need to explore that dimension in the article, of course, that would be too much work. Or perhaps Senat actually is familiar with th

in Oklahoma

They *are* indeed Public Records. You have every right to go see them. (Many Counties have you file an affidavit of identity and/or purpose to protect them from stalkers and identity thieves, etc...)
Just go down to your local County Assessor's Office and/or County Clerk's Office and/or Court Clerk's Office and you may well be surprised what are in public records. (Of course, the hours of operation are M-F 8-5 typically) I have to tell you, it beats Googleing someone (if you know what county they live in and have the time to go there during banker's hours.)
This is about loss of per-copy income to the particular clerk's office from providing copies of official documents and plat maps. (Which will still have to be paid for if a "certified" copy is needed for court proceedings, etc..) The clerk will just have to raise the cost of the copies made to offset the losses or raise some other tax or fee to offset the loss (such as filing fees).
The clerk's offices in my state are non-profit, and believe me... they do spend the money on improving their products and services. They are non-profit and headed by a publicly-elected official.
As this particular office FTA provides *.TIF images of their official Documents/Instruments/Plats, either they are particularly advanced technologically for an Assessor's/Clerk's office, or they are contractually outsourcing to a third party document archiving company.. Either way, the Judge's orders make the Assessor's/Clerk's business model fail and they will need to charge exorbitant rates to maintain their contract or stop producing scans on all files Legal Documents and Instruments.

Many courthouses in my state have a similar online 3rd-Party records system for the County Clerk's Records (but not all Counties contribute):
http://okcountyrecords.com/index.php
(You will have to file an affidavit and obtain a *free* login from a participating county's County Clerk to view read-only non-printable PDF's of records, however, you can pay $1 per page and print it locally (unlocks the PDF file and removes watermark) or have clean copies mailed to you. There are also State Supreme Court Network Records Online covering the largest 13 counties in my state: http://www.oscn.net/applications/oscn/start.asp?viewType=DOCKETS
My State's District Court Records are Online too: http://www.odcr.com/

But, for now, County (Tax) Assessor's Offices' in each county of my state are not online (that I am aware of).. A special trip to every county courthouse is needed.
I politely pay a modest fee for an official copy of the surface ownership plat map and list of any/all surface owners (for any given legally described section of land I am researching.)

It is now quite common for digital cameras to be used in public court record vaults statewide (with completed free filed affidavit), however, flash is not allowed and you are not allowed to take images of the handwritten index books. NOTE: These Index books are NOT public records, they are the handwritten indices which the County Clerk use as a means to organize the seemingly otherwise random public records by physical location (legal land description). There are thousands of volumes of records with 500-800 pages each dating back to Statehood. The County clerks typically charge $1 per page to obtain a copy of each page of their non-public indexes covering the library of public records. They will allow you to use their index books freely as long as you follow the posted rules and agree to not scan or take photos of their books.

This raises the crux of the argument of the Assessor's Office. Tax records, though being some of the most accurate and up-to-date records, ARE public records. And from the read, they are resisting placing their tax maps online. These Assessor's Office tax surface-plat maps are akin to the County Clerk's Index bo