Court Opinion

ID: 9594600
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 00:31:22.852425+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:39:49.628033
License: Public Domain

Hunt, Chief Justice,
concurring.
I respectfully concur in the judgment only in this case, simply because I disagree with that part of Division 6 which holds that it is error (though not reversible) to refer to malice in a jury instruction on voluntary manslaughter, where malice murder is not an alternative verdict. I disagree because one may properly define voluntary manslaughter by contrasting it to malice murder and by showing that voluntary manslaughter, unlike malice murder, involves the absence of malice. An instruction that contains such a definition of voluntary manslaughter, carefully presented by the trial court to any reasonably intelligent jury, should not be confusing and should not be error.