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I'm sure there's some degree of legal culpability when you're the one holding the gun. What's weird to me is that anything illegal can have the word "involuntary" in the title.
It is basically when someone is doing something illegal and stupid, but isn’t thinking about it killing someone. Then accidentally kills someone.
Voluntary manslaughter is then when you do something that you know will kill a person, but for some reason it isn’t murder.
For lots (most?) laws, ignorance isn’t an excuse… even though the specific charge may change.
It varies from state to state.
I've been watching a case out in California where it ended in conviction for voluntary manslaughter instead of murder.
The basic situation was two random guys who didn't know each other got into an argument outside a bar ending in one shooting and killing the other.
Under California law, the intent to kill was there, but it was an in the moment fit of rage, not planned or premeditated.
I was on a jury in Texas with a similar situation that ended in a murder conviction because under Texas law, the intent to kill in and of itself is murder regardless of planning or premeditation.
The sentences between the two cases were twenty years in California and thirty years in Texas, but either or both could've gone longer or shorter.
Same effective crime and punishment, different labels.
How long ago was this? Because if it was a similar situation, the lawyer for Texas should have easily made the argument necessary in (d) here.
It was 2019 and the defense attorney raised no such argument. He planned on appealing the guilty verdict and did so unsuccessfully. I think making that argument would've been an implicit admission of guilt making appeal impossible. We had guidelines of anywhere from 2-99 years or life.
Let me tell you, it was tough to get the "hang the black kid immediately" jurors DOWN to thirty. About three of the twelve just immediately said 99 years and took hours and hours to come down at all.
If memory serves, the true max before eligibility for parole was thirty years. With the thirty year sentence, he's eligible at fifteen years. Life or 99 would be eligible at thirty years.
Where the defendant got lucky was that it was over a weed deal gone bad. The gist is that the deceased showed up, and there was either an argument over price or the defendant tried to rob him and it went haywire.
Had the police been able to find evidence of marijuana, which they did not, it could've been a capital crime eligible for the death penalty - murder while in the commission of a felony.