Talk:Voluntary manslaughter

Merge

This page is basically composed of exerpts of a book I've never heard of. This is a common part of the traditional homicide progression and can be sourced with original sources no problem. Still I support the merge.

Manney 01:47, 1 September 2006 (UTC)

I wholeheartedly support the merge; I think you could delete almost all of the article and still have on to understand the concept. Miss Dark 18:20, 24 September 2006 (UTC)

Redirect

Shouldn't this page be redirected to Manslaughter? JasonCNJ 02:07, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

What happened to this? Or what happened to the merge? In the history it says "removing merge tags, no consensus" at some point. Where's the log of the discussion? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Scraimer (talk • contribs) 02:31, 23 February 2007 (UTC).

Fixed Plagarism Issues and Corrected some Errors

I have edited the page extensively to broaden the definition to include the two most common definitions of voluntary manslaughter. I corrected the misconception that the killing has to be intentional. I removed the repeated quotation that bordered on a copyright issue. Source is California Penal Code Annotated Sec. 187 et Seq. Veniceslug1 04:28, 29 April 2007 (UTC)

Jurisdiction

This article seems to me to reflect U.S. law. I think that the solution is:

• Move this to Voluntary manslaughter (U.S.);
• Rewrite this article to identify:
  • General issues;
  • Which jurisdictions have the concept;
• Link to jurisdiction-specific articles (e.g. Voluntary manslaughter (England and Wales) which I will have a go at)

Any thoughts?Cutler 17:05, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

I got to this page because I was checking out the difference between U.S. CDC NVSS and FBI UCR SHR homicide stats and the DoJ BJS explanation of the two diffrent methodologies; all three agencies used the phrase "nonnegligent manslaughter" so when I entered "nonnegligent manslaughter" at WikiP I ended up here. Even tho' the CDC, FBI and BJS appear to be notable users of the term as a synonym for voluntary manslaughter, it strikes me as odd that "nonnegligent manslaughter" is not mentioned in the voluntary manslaughter or manslaughter articles. --Naaman Brown (talk) 22:42, 26 December 2016 (UTC)

Cutler I added a hat note that this was about U.S. law, and a link to the dab page - I don't know British law in detail, and it looks like the article you suggested is still a red link - if you do create the article ping me and we can move this one and summarize both jurisdictions here. Seraphim System ^(talk) 13:48, 31 January 2018 (UTC)

Provocation

The section "Provocation" is a little confusing. It describes provovation, then says it makes the difference between voluntary manslaughter and murder. Then the last line says it's no longer a recognized defense. That's unclear to me. If it cannot be used, why would it make any sort of difference between levels of homocide? The element of provocation is irrelevant? I think it would be good for someone familiar with the topic to clear up that paragraph so it's clear to a commoner of middling intelligence (like me). Jbarta (talk) 16:37, 4 December 2008 (UTC)

Aforethought

Was wondering if you could settle an argument? If a homicide is planned, but done under extreme emotional duress, is it manslaughter or murder? ✍ (talk) 14:12, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

Intent to Kill

Under Voluntary manslaughter#Intent to Kill, it says: However, there are occasions when intent to kill is not present, although malice is, for example, when a person responds to oral provocation by engaging in physical altercation. The provocation is sufficient so that his response is justified.

It sounds wrong to me to say "his response is justified" - that sounds more like no crime was committed (e.g. on the grounds of self-defence). --Chriswaterguy talk 03:54, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

"oral provocaton" would rarely be sufficient to reduce murder to manslaughter.

Rule of provocation

Manslaughter is traditionally defined as the unlawful killing of a human being without malice aforethought. Manslaughter is divided into two forms voluntary manslaughter and involuntary manslaughter. Voluntary manslaughter is essentially a mitigated form of common law murder. That is voluntary manslaughter involves murderous conduct accompanied by certain mitigating factors that significantly reduces the culpability of the perpetrator. Most frequently these circumstances are collectively fall under the rule of provocation. Under the rule a killing will be reduced from murder to manslaughter if the slayer killed in a sudden heat of passion caused by adequate provocation, For the rule to apply four requirements must be met. First, the provocation must be adequate. Second the perpetrator must have acted under heat of passion. Third it must have been a sudden heat of passion. Fourth there must be causal links between the provocation, passion and killing.

Adequate provocation - the provocation must be sufficient to cause a reasonable person to lose his self control. The test is an objective one - would a reasonable person under the existing circumstances become sufficiently upset by what happened to lose his self control to the extent that his actions were guided by passion rather than reason? Passion in this context passion means a compelling and barely controllable emotion.

The perpetrator acted under the heat of passion - Even if the conduct was sufficiently provocative, the crime will not be reduced to manslaughter if the perpetrator’s passions were not in fact inflamed.

The killing must have been in a sudden heat of passion - the slaying must have followed the provocation before there had been sufficient time for passions to have cooled. Again the test is an objective one. If sufficient time had passed for a reasonable person to have regained his composure the slayer would be guilty of murder even his passions were in fact still inflamed.

Causal links - The provocation must engender the passion and the heat of passion must cause the killing. 102

Voluntary manslaughter is typically referred to as an intentional killing. However, voluntary manslaughter includes not only cases in which the slayer intended to kill the victim but also cases where the slayer acted with the other forms of malice sufficient for common law murder. For example, if the victim committed a non trivial battery against the slayer which was capable of arousing and did in fact arouse the passions of the slayer to the extent that he intended to inflict grievous bodily injury and in fact did so causing the victim’s death the rule of provocation would apply and the crime would be voluntary manslaughter.

US centric?

The terminology used throughout this article (and related) APPEARS (to me a layman) to be US. I have no objection to that, but should the article not at least state in which jurisdictions the terminology and concepts apply? Pincrete (talk) 19:27, 27 December 2015 (UTC)

Yeah... The guy who wrote this entry took the criminal code of their jurisdiction, and imposed it as a universal truth, while other jurisdiction use different etymology for described crimes and use the terms "Voluntary Manslaughter" in another way to make a clear distinction with a killing that neither constitutes murder (neither in 1st or 2nd degree) while also not being an "Involuntary Manslaughter"...

Shows how low Wikipedia is going...

Yes it should state the jurisdiction is American law.Seraphim System ^(talk) 20:35, 27 January 2018 (UTC)

Too complex

The article does not adequately explain the definitions in a language that is understandable by people that have not got a law degree Aethalides (talk) 19:22, 27 January 2018 (UTC)

I think the background links need improvement and more links can be added to the cases. I'm developing background and historical links for provocation - and it might be possible to summarize those issues briefly here also like what adequate provation is and what the reasonable person test is.Seraphim System ^(talk) 20:31, 27 January 2018 (UTC)

Recent addition of Depiction of Moses

Is that really appropriate for this article? At the risk of introducing a bias against old testament believer? Aethalides (talk) 22:12, 9 January 2019 (UTC)