What is the current state of the law on the issue of premeditation and voluntary manslaughter for a defendant in a second degree murder case?

Here, a period of two months elapsed between the March 2017 provocation and the May 2017 killing. There is no evidence of any repeated or ongoing pattern of provocation by the victim during that period. (Cf. People v. Berry (1976) 18 Cal.3d 509, 514 [victim "continually provoked defendant" over a two-week period before killing]; People v. Wright (2015) 242 Cal.App.4th 1461, 1490 [involving a "provocatory course of conduct lasting several months"].) Nor is there any other evidence tending to show that an ordinary person in defendant's position would still, in May 2017, have had his or her reason obscured by the March 2017 confrontation with the victim. To the contrary, on the record presented, as a matter of law, an ordinary person's passions would have cooled by then. The proffered testimony therefore did not support a defense argument that the jury should return a voluntary manslaughter verdict.

The proffered testimony also did not tend to support any defense argument in favor of a second degree murder verdict. Nothing in the evidence showed that defendant "'formed the intent to kill as a direct response'" to his March 2017 confrontation with the victim, or that he "'had acted immediately,'" as required to raise a reasonable doubt on the issue of premeditation. (People v. Fenenbock (1996) 46 Cal.App.4th 1688, 1705,

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