Punishment for Voluntary Manslaughter – PC 192 (a)
You recently came home to find the babysitter inappropriately touching your 7-year-old daughter. Enraged by what you witnessed, you grabbed your handgun and shot the babysitter to death.
Will the district attorney charge you with murder or voluntary manslaughter? In this situation, the district attorney will likely charge you with second-degree murder. However, your criminal defense attorney will argue that your actions constituted voluntary manslaughter for the reasons stated below.
If your criminal defense attorney is unable to convince the DA to reduce the charge to voluntary manslaughter, the case could proceed to trial. At trial, the jury will decide whether the prosecutor has proven the elements of murder, voluntary manslaughter or neither.
Voluntary Manslaughter in California (PC 192(a))
California Penal Code section 192(a) defines voluntary manslaughter as “the unlawful killing of a human being without malice upon a sudden quarrel or heat of passion.”
The term “upon a sudden quarrel or heat of passion” requires the following three elements:
- You were provoked;
- Due to the provocation, you acted emotionally or “in the heat of the passion”; AND
- The provocation would have caused a reasonable person in the same situation to have acted in the same manner.
PC 192(a) requires that you acted emotionally without any time to “cool off.” You will likely be charged with murder if you were provoked but had time to regain your composure prior to acting in an emotional manner.
What type of provocation will lead to a manslaughter conviction? If you cannot show “sufficient” provocation, you may be convicted of murder. “Sufficient” provocation requires that a reasonable person in your situation would have reacted in the same manner. If the hypothetical “reasonable person” would have reacted differently, you may be convicted of murder since the provocation was likely insufficient for a manslaughter conviction.
Punishment for Voluntary Manslaughter
If you are convicted of voluntary manslaughter under California Penal Code section 192(a), you may face up to 11 years in state prison and up to $10,000 in court fines.
If convicted, your Wallin & Klarich attorney will argue that you should receive probation in lieu of prison time. If placed on probation, you may face up to one year in county jail, of which you will serve 50 percent of the time. You will likely be placed on formal probation and assigned a probation officer.
Common terms of probation may include, but are not limited to, the following:
- Submit to search and seizure;
- Do not violate any other law;
- Loss of your right to purchase, own, or possess a firearm according to California Penal Code section 12021 (“felon with a firearm” law);
- Community service; AND
- Participation in counseling services, such as anger management classes.
In California, voluntary manslaughter is considered a felony “strike” offense. If you are convicted under PC 192(a), you will receive a strike on your criminal record. If you are convicted of a second felony strike offense, the sentence for that crime will double. If you are convicted of a third felony strike offense, you may face a sentence of 25 years to life in prison.
What Wallin & Klarich Can Do for You?
The experienced attorneys at Wallin & Klarich have been successfully defending clients charged with voluntary manslaughter for over 40 years. Because of our decades of experience, we can help you raise all legal defenses to an accusation of voluntary manslaughter. We will aggressively defend you from the first day you retain our office in order to help you stay out of jail. When you are accused of voluntary manslaughter, there is too much at stake to entrust your legal representation to anyone other than an experienced Wallin & Klarich voluntary manslaughter attorney.
Our offices are located in Orange County, Los Angeles, San Diego, Riverside, San Bernardino, Ventura, West Covina, Victorville, Torrance and Sherman Oaks. Give us a call today at (877) 4-NO-JAIL or (877) 466-5245 to discuss your case. We will get through this together.
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