Is a defendant who commits an intentional and unlawful killing but who lacks malice guilty of voluntary manslaughter?

California, United States of America


The following excerpt is from People v. Tyson, C079403 (Cal. App. 2019):

A defendant who commits an intentional and unlawful killing, but who lacks malice, is guilty of voluntary manslaughter. ( 192.) In limited, explicitly defined circumstances -- the defendant acts in a sudden quarrel or heat of passion, or when the defendant kills in imperfect self-defense -- this conduct reduces an intentional, unlawful killing from murder to voluntary manslaughter. Voluntary manslaughter of these two forms is a lesser included offense of intentional murder. (People v. Breverman (1998) 19 Cal.4th 142, 154 (Breverman).) The trial court has an obligation to give instructions on lesser included offenses when the evidence raises a question as to whether all of the elements of the charged offense were present, but not when there is no evidence that the offense was less than that charged. (Id. at pp. 154-155.)

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