voluntary and involuntary manslaughter?

Voluntary manslaughter refers to a situation where the defendant committed an unlawful homicide with criminal intent or malice aforethought, while involuntary manslaughter refers to a scenario where a defendant has committed an unlawful homicide but without the requisite criminal intent. Instead of malice, the intent required for involuntary manslaughter is either recklessness or criminal negligence. Recklessness involves a blatant disregard for the dangerousness of a situation. Criminal negligence can encompass a wide variety of scenarios, but basically involves either extreme carelessness or incompetence. In fact, criminal negligence can be very fact-specific, because the carelessness or incompetence of a defendant may depend largely upon that defendant's personal background. For example, professionals are held to a different standard than non-professionals. The Court of Criminal Appeal determined gross negligence involuntary manslaughter involved a defendant with a duty to the deceased, a breach of that duty, the breach of the...
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