Court Opinion

ID: 9797313
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-31 04:18:13.884752+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T08:54:26.497553
License: Public Domain

MOSK, J.
—I concur in the judgment.
I read the opinion of the court to be largely consistent with the substance of my dissenting opinion in People v. Blakeley (2000) 23 Cal.4th 82 [96 Cal.Rptr.2d 451, 999 P.2d 675], which anticipated what appears to be its central conclusions.
Thus, murder is the unlawful killing of a human being with malice aforethought, either in its express form as a deliberate and wrongful intent to kill or in its implied form as a wanton disregard for human life.
For its part, manslaughter is the unlawful killing of a human being without malice aforethought. As its conduct or consequences element, voluntary manslaughter has the requirement of an unlawful killing. As its mental state element, voluntary manslaughter has the requirement of a state of mind that amounts in fact to malice aforethought, but is deemed in law not to do so.
Like its voluntary counterpart, involuntary manslaughter has as its conduct or consequences element the requirement of an unlawful killing. But, unlike its voluntary counterpart, involuntary manslaughter (other than in its vehicular form) has as its mental state element the requirement of a state of mind that belongs to any underlying nonfelonious unlawful act*, or that attends the commission, in an unlawful manner, of a lawful but potentially deadly act, or that is without due caution and circumspection.
As a matter of law but not of fact, provocation reduces malice aforethought from the more culpable mental state of murder only to the. less *471culpable one of voluntary manslaughter, and thereby operates to reduce murder only to voluntary manslaughter.
By contrast, as a matter of fact as well as of law, the so-called doctrine of imperfect self-defense1 may reduce malice aforethought from the more culpable mental state of murder even to the less culpable one of involuntary manslaughter, and may thereby operate to reduce murder even to involuntary manslaughter. Its effect depends on whether, in fact, it precludes malice aforethought—if yes, it results in involuntary manslaughter; if no, it results in voluntary manslaughter. It does not treat intent to kill as material in and of itself. Why it does not do so is plain. The absence of intent to kill does not entail the absence of malice aforethought: a wanton disregard for human life may yet exist. Likewise, the presence of intent to kill does not entail the presence of malice aforethought: a bare intent to kill is not sufficient; one that is both deliberate and wrongful is necessary.

Which is a “judicially developed theory” not of voluntary manslaughter narrowly (maj. opn., ante, at p. 465) but of manslaughter broadly (see generally In re Christian S. (1994) 7 Cal.4th 768, 771, 773-783 [30 Cal.Rptr.2d 33, 872 P.2d 574]; People v. Flannel (1979) 25 Cal.3d 668, 672, 674-680 [160 Cal.Rptr. 84, 603 P.2d 1] (lead opn. of Tobriner, J.); id. at pp. 686-687 (conc. opn. of Richardson, J.)).