Opinion ID: 165930
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Heading: Mental State Required for Voluntary Manslaughter

Text: 34 As an initial matter, we must determine what mental state is required for the federal crime of voluntary manslaughter. [D]etermining the mental state required for commission of a federal crime requires `construction of the statute and ... inference of the intent of Congress.' Staples v. United States, 511 U.S. 600, 605, 114 S.Ct. 1793, 128 L.Ed.2d 608 (1994) (quoting United States v. Balint, 258 U.S. 250, 253, 42 S.Ct. 301, 66 L.Ed. 604 (1922)) (ellipsis in original). Thus, determining the mental state required under the federal voluntary manslaughter statute is a question of statutory construction we review de novo. United States v. McVeigh, 153 F.3d 1166, 1193 (10th Cir.1998).
35 Voluntary manslaughter is one offense within a hierarchy of federal homicides. Both voluntary and involuntary manslaughter are established in a single statute, which provides: Manslaughter is the unlawful killing of a human being without malice. It is of two kinds: 36 Voluntary—Upon a sudden quarrel or heat of passion. 37 Involuntary—In the commission of an unlawful act not amounting to a felony, or in the commission in an unlawful manner, or without due caution and circumspection, of a lawful act which might produce death. 38 18 U.S.C. § 1112(a). In contrast, the more serious murder offenses are defined as follows: 39 Murder is the unlawful killing of a human being with malice aforethought. Every murder perpetrated by poison, lying in wait, or any other kind of willful, deliberate, malicious, and premeditated killing; or committed in the perpetration of, or attempt to perpetrate, any arson, escape, murder, kidnapping, treason, espionage, sabotage, aggravated sexual abuse or sexual abuse, child abuse, burglary, or robbery; or perpetrated as part of a pattern or practice of assault or torture against a child or children; or perpetrated from a premeditated design unlawfully and maliciously to effect the death of any human being other than him who is killed, is murder in the first degree. 40 Any other murder is murder in the second degree. 41 18 U.S.C. § 1111(a). 42 Unlike many modern penal codes, these federal homicide statutes fail to articulate expressly which mental states are required for each of the various offenses. In the case of voluntary manslaughter, the statute requires only the unlawful killing of a human being without malice ... [u]pon a sudden quarrel or heat of passion. 18 U.S.C. § 1112(a). Except for this express exclusion of malice, the statute is silent as to the mental state required for conviction. Moreover, the statute fails even to define the mental element it specifically excludes—malice. 43 Although our case law has consistently held that the distinguishing element among varying degrees of federal homicide is the defendant's mental state, see, e.g., United States v. Sarracino, 340 F.3d 1148, 1162 (10th Cir.2003), we have not yet fully articulated the precise mental state required for voluntary manslaughter. Therefore, our task is to determine, given this sparse statutory language and its placement within the hierarchy of federal homicides, what mental state Congress intended for voluntary manslaughter.
44 It is certainly true that federal crimes are defined by statute rather than by common law. United States v. Oakland Cannabis Buyers' Coop., 532 U.S. 483, 490, 121 S.Ct. 1711, 149 L.Ed.2d 722 (2001). However, the Supreme Court has repeatedly held that statutory silence as to mental state in a federal criminal statute does not necessarily mean that Congress intended to dispense with a conventional mens rea element. Staples, 511 U.S. at 605, 114 S.Ct. 1793. To the contrary, some indication of congressional intent, express or implied, is required to dispense with mens rea as an element of the crime. Id. at 606, 114 S.Ct. 1793; see United States v. United States Gypsum Co., 438 U.S. 422, 438, 98 S.Ct. 2864, 57 L.Ed.2d 854 (1978) (Certainly far more than the simple omission of the appropriate phrase from the statutory definition is necessary to justify dispensing with an intent requirement.); 1 Charles Alan Wright, Federal Practice and Procedure § 125, at 567-68 (3d ed.1999) (hereinafter Wright ) ([C]riminal intent is an element of some crimes though not mentioned in the statute.); id. at 568 n. 41 (citing Morissette v. United States, 342 U.S. 246, 72 S.Ct. 240, 96 L.Ed. 288 (1952), for proposition that offenses ... carried over from the common law ... incorporate a mental element without special statutory provision.). 2 45 The federal homicide statutes simply adopt the language of the traditional common-law offenses of murder and manslaughter. United States v. Browner, 889 F.2d 549, 551 (5th Cir.1989). Therefore, we must construe the statutes in light of the background rules of the common law, in which the requirement of some mens rea is firmly embedded. See Staples, 511 U.S. at 605, 114 S.Ct. 1793 (utilizing common law principles to determine the mental state element of a federal firearms statute). This accords with our general practice that where a federal criminal statute uses a common-law term of established meaning without otherwise defining it, [we] give that term its common-law meaning. United States v. Gauvin, 173 F.3d 798, 802 (10th Cir.1999) (quotation omitted); see also Morissette, 342 U.S. at 263, 72 S.Ct. 240 (And where Congress borrows terms of art in which are accumulated the legal tradition and meaning of centuries of practice, it presumably knows and adopts the cluster of ideas that were attached to each borrowed word in the learning from which it was taken and the meaning its use will convey to the judicial mind unless otherwise instructed.). 46 Similarly, we have looked to the common law to express the mental state requirements of other degrees of federal homicide. See, e.g., United States v. Pearson, 203 F.3d 1243, 1271 (10th Cir.2000) (using common law to define the mens rea of second degree murder under otherwise silent 18 U.S.C. § 1111). We will do the same here, turning to the common law to help us distill the mental state intended for voluntary manslaughter under 18 U.S.C. § 1112.
47 Manslaughter developed at common law as a less culpable form of homicide for which a lesser sentence seemed justified. Initially, all homicides were unlawful and punished by death, with exception only for a narrow class of homicides committed in the enforcement of justice. Mullaney v. Wilbur, 421 U.S. 684, 692, 95 S.Ct. 1881, 44 L.Ed.2d 508 (1975). In response to this widespread use of capital punishment, ecclesiastic jurisdiction developed to reduce what would have been death to a one-year sentence, a branded thumb, and the forfeiture of all of one's goods. Id. Later, however, English rulers grew concerned with the accretion of ecclesiastic jurisdiction at the expense of the secular and enacted a series of statutes limiting ecclesiastic jurisdiction's benefits only to those unlawful homicides committed without malice—homicides designated as manslaughter. Id. at 692-93, 95 S.Ct. 1881. 48 The common law defined manslaughter as the unlawful killing of another without malice, Stevenson v. United States, 162 U.S. 313, 320, 16 S.Ct. 839, 40 L.Ed. 980 (1896), and recognized two types, voluntary and involuntary manslaughter. See Mullaney, 421 U.S. at 694 n. 14, 95 S.Ct. 1881. The presence or absence of malice marked the boundary which separated the crimes of murder and manslaughter. Id. Today, malice still distinguishes federal murder from federal manslaughter. Compare United States v. Lofton, 776 F.2d 918, 920 (10th Cir.1985) (articulating malice as element of both first and second degree murder), with 18 U.S.C. § 1112 (defining both voluntary and involuntary manslaughter as without malice).
49 Serawop's basic argument is that § 1112 incorporates the common law understanding of voluntary manslaughter as a homicide that would constitute murder but for the fact that the killing was committed in the heat of passion. Therefore, we start with an overview of the mens rea element of murder. 50 Second degree murder is the catch-all murder offense. See 18 U.S.C. § 1111 (defining second degree murder as [a]ny other murder not enhanced to first degree). Our case law defines second degree murder as an unlawful killing with malice. Pearson, 203 F.3d at 1270 (interpreting 18 U.S.C. § 1111(a)). In Pearson, we defined the mental element of second degree murder as requiring either (1) general intent to kill, 3 (2) intent to do serious bodily injury, (3) depraved heart recklessness; 4 or (4) a killing in the commission of a felony that is not among those specifically listed in the first degree murder statute. Id. at 1271. These mental states make up the core murder intent. 51 First degree murder, on the other hand, is a more serious offense that requires proof of something in addition to this basic murder intent. See Wood, 207 F.3d at 1228. While second degree murder requires only a general intent, meaning that the defendant is aware that the result is practically certain to follow from his conduct, whatever his desire may be as to that result, Welch, 327 F.3d at 1095 n. 13; accord Soundingsides, 820 F.2d at 1242, first degree murder requires additional proof of a specific intent—including premeditation, deliberation, or a killing in the commission of certain enumerated felonies. Wood, 207 F.3d at 1228; see also United States v. Bailey, 444 U.S. 394, 405, 100 S.Ct. 624, 62 L.Ed.2d 575 (1980). 52 Despite these distinct mental state requirements for these different degrees of murder, we have always said that malice is an element of both first and second degree murder. Lofton, 776 F.2d at 920. Although we have sometimes been less than precise in our language—suggesting in Pearson, for example, that second degree murder's malice element is satisfied simply by establishing one of the enumerated mental states—malice is actually a legal term of art. See Browner, 889 F.2d at 551. 53 Malice is not satisfied simply by killing with an intentional or reckless mental state; instead, malice specifically requires committing the wrongful act without justification, excuse, or mitigation. See 50 Am.Jur.2d Homicide § 37 (1999) ([Malice] is said to include all those states and conditions of mind which accompany a homicide committed without legal excuse or extenuation. ) (emphasis added); Black's Law Dictionary 976 (8th ed.2004) (defining malice as intent, without justification or excuse, to commit a wrongful act) (emphasis added); 40 C.J.S. Homicide § 33 (1991) (Malice has been defined as consisting of the intentional doing of a wrongful act toward another without legal justification, excuse, or mitigation. ) (emphasis added). The Supreme Court has also described malice as lack of provocation. Patterson v. New York, 432 U.S. 197, 216, 97 S.Ct. 2319, 53 L.Ed.2d 281 (1977). 54 Thus, when we say that a murder must be committed with malice, we mean not just that it requires a particular murderous intent but, more to the point, that it must also be without legal justification, excuse, or mitigation. This is why, in Lofton, we held that to establish malice the prosecution must prove beyond a reasonable doubt the absence of heat of passion when it is an issue in the case. Lofton, 776 F.2d at 920. Heat of passion is one legal excuse pursuant to which what would otherwise constitute murder is mitigated to a less culpable offense of manslaughter —because with heat of passion, malice in the sense of lack of provocation no longer exists. 5 See id.
55 This takes us directly to the issue at hand, determining what without malice ... [u]pon a sudden quarrel or heat of passion means in the context of 18 U.S.C. § 1112(a) and what mental state is intended by this language. The common law recognized heat of passion as one mitigating factor pursuant to which an otherwise intentional or reckless killing would constitute the less serious offense of voluntary manslaughter and be, because of that mitigating circumstance, without malice. See Mullaney, 421 U.S. at 693, 95 S.Ct. 1881; see also 2 Wharton's CRIM. LAW § 155 (15th ed.) (As a concession to human frailty, a killing [in the heat of passion], which would otherwise constitute murder, is mitigated to voluntary manslaughter.) (emphasis added); 2 Wayne R. LaFave, Substantive Criminal Law § 15.2, at 493 (2d ed.2003) (hereinafter LaFave ) (The usual view of voluntary manslaughter thus presupposes an intent to kill (or perhaps to do serious injury or to engage in very reckless conduct), holding that in spite of the existence of this bad intent the circumstances may reduce the homicide to manslaughter.) (emphasis added). As the Fifth Circuit explained: 56 [t]he separate offense of voluntary manslaughter emerged [at common law] as an intentional killing that is nonetheless deemed to be without malice because it occurs in what the courts called the heat of passion, a passion of fear or rage in which the defendant loses his normal self-control as a result of circumstances that would provoke such a passion in an ordinary person, but which did not justify the use of deadly force. Again, the federal statute simply declares the language of the common-law offense, and so when the defendant ... actuated by a sudden passion of fear or rage arising from attendant circumstances that would provoke such passion in an ordinary person, kills intentionally (or with one of the other mental states that constitutes malice), the killing is nevertheless deemed to be in the absence of malice under the federal statute. The malice that would otherwise attach is negated by the fact that the intentional killing occurred in the heat of passion in response to a sufficient provocation. 57 Browner, 889 F.2d at 552 (citations omitted). 58 We agree with the Fifth Circuit that this common law understanding is carried into § 1112 where [v]oluntary manslaughter encompasses all of the elements of murder: it requires proof of the physical act of unlawfully causing the death of another, and of the mental state that would constitute malice, but for the fact that the killing was committed in adequately provoked heat of passion or provocation. Id. at 553. Thus, the only difference between second degree murder and voluntary manslaughter in the homicide hierarchy is that voluntary manslaughter is committed in the heat of passion, and the presence of this mitigating factor negates the malice that would otherwise attach given an intentional or reckless mental state. 6 See id. 59 While our court has not yet reached this issue directly, our case law directly supports this understanding. We have, without much detailed discussion, consistently noted that heat of passion in the voluntary manslaughter context has the effect of negating malice. Lofton, 776 F.2d at 920 (The heat of passion defense is directly at odds with malice ... the defense serves to negative malice.) (quotation and citation omitted); United States v. Scafe, 822 F.2d 928, 932 (10th Cir.1987) (Malice is negated by heat of passion.). 60 Although we have used this language of negation in reference to malice, we have never suggested that heat of passion eliminates the requirement of an intentional or reckless killing implicit in the common law and in the structure of the homicide hierarchy. To the contrary, we have frequently referred to voluntary manslaughter as a general intent crime. See, e.g., Soundingsides, 820 F.2d at 1242; United States v. Hatatley, 130 F.3d 1399, 1405 (10th Cir. 1997); see also United States v. Fortier, 180 F.3d 1217, 1228 (10th Cir.1999). Thus, malice is negated in the voluntary manslaughter context only in the sense that the killing is no longer without excuse as it would have to be to establish malice for second degree murder. 7 61 At least two other circuits have similarly construed 18 U.S.C. § 1112 as incorporating this common law understanding and requiring the mens rea of an intentional or reckless killing as an element of voluntary manslaughter. See United States v. Paul, 37 F.3d 496, 499 (9th Cir.1994) (striking down a jury instruction for voluntary manslaughter similar to the instruction given in the instant case that did not require the jury to find that the defendant had the mental state of intending to kill, stating [i]f the defendant killed with the mental state required for murder (intent to kill or recklessness with extreme disregard for human life), but the killing occurred in the heat of passion caused by adequate provocation, then the defendant is guilty of voluntary manslaughter. The finding of heat of passion and adequate provocation negates the malice that would otherwise attach.) (emphasis added) (citations omitted); United States v. Velazquez, 246 F.3d 204, 212 (2nd Cir.2001) (approving language that voluntary manslaughter requires a mental state that would be malice except for heat of passion or provocation) (emphasis added). 62 In addition, two other circuit decisions contain language suggesting that they also agree that a voluntary manslaughter conviction under 18 U.S.C. § 1112 requires proof of the defendant's intent to cause the death of the victim. See Wakaksan v. United States, 367 F.2d 639, 645 (8th Cir. 1966) (An essential element of [voluntary manslaughter] was to establish that the appellant intentionally caused the death of the victim.); cf. United States v. Alexander, 471 F.2d 923, 942, 944 n. 54 (D.C.Cir. 1973) (interpreting District of Columbia manslaughter statute). 63 Therefore, taking this all together, we read the statutory language of 18 U.S.C. § 1112 in accordance with our sister circuits' interpretations and with the history of the common law. Voluntary manslaughter requires proof beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant acted, while in the heat of passion or upon a sudden quarrel, with a mental state that would otherwise constitute second degree murder—either a general intent to kill, intent to do serious bodily injury, or with depraved heart recklessness.