Keeler v. Superior Court
Keeler v. Superior Court, Supreme Court of California, 2 Cal. 3d 619 (1970), is a criminal case in which a man who deliberately killed a viable fetus in a woman, was determined not to be guilty of murder because the murder statute was written in 1850 when "human being" meant a person born alive, so there was no fair warning (legality), there being no common law crimes in California whereby statutory definitions can be changed by judicial decisions to broaden categories of crimes.