Criminal Law: Manslaughter

True or False: Manslaughter occurs when there’s an intentional killing

True

Common Law: Manslaughter

Unlawful killing of a human being by another human being without malice aforethought

Common Law: Voluntary Manslaughter

An intentional killing in which defendant takes a life in “sudden heat of passion” as a result of “adequate provication”

True or False: Could Diminished capacity may lead murder to be changed to manslaughter

True

Common Law: Manslaughter: Provocation (4 Parts)

• Provocation must “inflame the passion of a reasonable man and tend to cause him to act for the moment from passion rather than reason”

• Most jurisdiction find that words alone are insufficient

• Killing must occur in sudden heat of passion - defendant could not have had reasonable time to cool off

• Consider a defendant’s personal characteristics IF it is relevant in measuring the gravity of the provocation

MPC: Manslaughter - Extreme Mental or Emotional Disturbance

• The defendant kills under the influence of an “extreme mental or emotional disturbance” for which there is a “reasonable explanation or excuse”

• Reasonableness of actions should be determined from the perspective of a person “in the actor’s situation under the circumstances as he believes them to be”

• Words alone can qualify

• No provocation requirement

MPC: Manslaughter - Extreme Mental or Emotional Disturbance - Excuse

Excuse is for the emotional disturbance not for the act itself

MPC: Recklessness

Reckless conduct that does not manifest an extreme indifference to human life is manslaughter

• Can’t include subjective (ex: disability)

• Provocation stems from the situation

Common Law: Two kinds of involuntary manslaughter

• Killing another person in a criminally negligent manner (ex: low educated parents not taking child under the doctor until it’s too late)

• Unlawful Act doctrine (misdemeanor-manslaughter) (ex: pushes someone in battery - they’re drunk, the person hits their head, and they die)

Common Law: Two kinds of involuntary manslaughter - Criminally Negligent

Defendant should be aware, but is not aware, that his conduct creates a substantial and unjustifiable risk of social harm

Common Law: Two kinds of involuntary manslaughter - Unlawful Act Doctrine (Misdemeanor-Manslaughter)

Deaths that occur during unlawful acts that do not trigger the felony-murder rule fall within the unlawful act doctrine

• Not a felony

Common Law: Two kinds of involuntary manslaughter - Unlawful Act Doctrine (Misdemeanor-Manslaughter) - Limitations

• Some apply to all misdemeanors

• Inherently wrong/dangerous misdemeanors

MPC: Recklessness (2 Parts)

• Reckless conduct that doesn’t manifest an extreme indifference to human life is manslaughter

• Recklessness involves the defendant being aware that he is taking a substantial and unjustifiable risk to human life

^^ Does it pose a threat to human life

• Doesn’t manifest to extreme indifference to human life (thin life)

MPC: Negligent Homicide

A criminally negligent killing (MPC definition of negligence)