Despite major differences among the world’s legal traditions, there are certain universals, crimes that are recognized as such by every culture on earth: taking the life of another human being, stealing the property of another, committing violent acts against others. The difficulty faced by the translator/interpreter is that these crimes are defined and categorized differently in the various legal systems. This paper examines one of these ‘universal’ crimes, viz. homicide, and explores the related terms in English, as used in the United States, and in Spanish, drawn from penal codes and other references from Spanish-speaking countries, with a view to developing a terminology glossary suitable for use by court interpreters.