How have courts treated the "reasonable person" standard in the context of the reasonable person test?

California, United States of America


The following excerpt is from People v. Chandra, A138401, A143741 (Cal. App. 2015):

Defendant's objection to this argument is two-fold. First, he argues that the prosecutor improperly encouraged jurors to impose their own subjective judgment rather than applying an objective standard. In People v. Mendoza (2007) 42 Cal.4th 686, 703, the court explained, "The 'reasonable person' is a hypothetical individual who is intended to represent a sort of 'average' citizen. Therefore, it is one thing to refer to the jurors as members of society in the course of explaining the reasonable person standard as a means of determining whether a killing was caused by an event or situation that probably would cause a reasonable person to lose self-control and kill. Accordingly, it was not misconduct for the prosecutor to tell the jury 'And who is the ordinarily reasonable person? You folks are.' It is another thing, however, to imply that the jurors, as individuals, can substitute their own subjective standard of behavior for that of the objective, reasonable person. Statements such as, 'Would any of you do what he did here and say that's reasonable? Would any of you do that? No. Would any of you put a gun to people's heads? Would any of you do what he did here?' appear to encourage jurors to impose their own subjective judgment in place of applying an objective standard. It is here that the prosecutor went too far, committing misconduct." Viewing the prosecutor's statements in this case in context, we do not believe his argument can reasonably be understood to encourage subjective reasoning. The prosecutor spoke repeatedly of what an "average person" would do under the circumstances, and asked, in effect, what would "you, as an average person," do? This was hardly an invitation for the jurors to apply their own individual standards.

Defendant also notes, correctly, that the argument incorrectly states the law insofar as it suggests that to find voluntary manslaughter the law requires a showing that an average person would have shot and killed the victim under the circumstances shown by the evidence. However, all that is required is that an average person in the same situation would have acted "rashly and without due deliberation." (CALCRIM No. 570; People v. Najera (2006) 138 Cal.App.4th 212, 223 ["The focus is on the provocationthe surrounding circumstancesand whether it was sufficient to cause a reasonable person to act rashly. How the killer responded to the provocation and the reasonableness of the

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