Sometimes, legally the two are indistinguishable.

Yup, it's called "gross negligence", which often has the same legal implications of malice.

As an analogy, lending your car to a friend which turns out to have faulty brakes is negligent. But lending it to him when your mechanic told you the brakes don't work is probably grossly negligent, and will often have the the same repercussions as if you cut the brakes yourself.