What is the test for instructing a jury that heat of passion reduces murder to voluntary manslaughter?

California, United States of America


The following excerpt is from People v. Holmes, C086438 (Cal. App. 2020):

A trial court that seeks to clarify instructions or explain the law must do so correctly. (See People v. King (2010) 183 Cal.App.4th 1281, 1316 ["A court may only instruct as to correct statements of the law"].) Here, if the trial court was going to explain how heat of passion or imperfect self-defense operate to reduce murder to voluntary manslaughter, the trial court should have told the jury that those circumstances negate both express and implied malice and that voluntary manslaughter could be based on intent to kill or conscious disregard for human life. By instructing the jury that heat of passion and imperfect self-defense take away intent to kill, the trial court effectively took the option of voluntary manslaughter based on conscious disregard for human life off the table.

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