What is the test for determining whether there is sufficient provocation for a killing to be deemed a voluntary manslaughter?

Even assuming a provocative act sufficient to arouse the passions of an ordinarily reasonable person, a killing is not voluntary manslaughter "if sufficient time has elapsed between the provocation and the fatal blow for passion to subside and reason to return." (People v. Moye (2009) 47 Cal.4th 537, 550.) In

Page 30

Moye, supra, the court found no legally sufficient evidence of provocation where the alleged provocation (a fight between the defendant, the victim and their friends) occurred the night before the killing. (Id. at p. 550.) In People v. Souza (2012) 54 Cal.4th 90, several hours elapsed between when the defendant learned that his mother had been forcibly removed from a house party earlier in the evening and when the defendant, his brother and a third man went to that party and opened fire on the party goers, killing three and wounding two others. "Even assuming defendant and his brother reasonably believed that a group of persons had assaulted their mother, . . . the amount of time that had elapsed between the allegedly provocative act and the crimes made defendant's actions consistent with planned revenge and such a desire for revenge cannot objectively satisfy the provocation requirement. [Citations.]" (Id. at p. 117.)