No Premeditation, No Murder
Video Transcribed: Can I be charged with manslaughter? Hi, I’m Ty Smith, an attorney in Oklahoma with Wirth Law.
Murder and manslaughter get mixed up a bit. A lot of people understand what murder is. That’s where you intentionally plan to kill someone. But I did a video about that already, so I’m not going to rehash that. Manslaughter’s a bit harder to pin down for laypeople. And so here I am to help you. Manslaughter requires that you killed someone without any premeditation really. And in Oklahoma, it’s broken down into two degrees just like murder. First-degree manslaughter is what they call heat of passion manslaughter. So it’s like during a fight, you’re fighting someone and it goes a bit too far and you accidentally kill them, potentially on the hook for manslaughter. The classic example is you find your wife in bed with another man and you kill that guy. The heat of passion, certainly.
Now you can also get manslaughter one, you remember there was felony murder. Well, it’s not called this, but there’s misdemeanor manslaughter. This is where you kill someone accidentally while committing a misdemeanor. Maybe it’s the distribution or something basic, some type of misdemeanor, and you kill someone. You have the potential to get a manslaughter one charge. Now, manslaughter is a very broad range, probably the broadest range in law. The minimum is four years. The maximum is life. And once more, life is generally considered 45 years, and you have to serve 85% of that before you’re eligible for parole.
Now, we also have manslaughter two. This is where you kill someone through your negligent conduct and it’s not going to be considered manslaughter one. So it’s a catchall is what that is. You negligently killed someone and your actions weren’t exactly the most reasonable perhaps. And this one, the bottom drops off on punishment. This one is only two to four. Only two to four years in prison. That is, I say only, it’s in comparison to four to life, two to four sounds like a drop in the bucket.
So if you want to talk to an attorney about matters involving criminal law or family law, I do family law too, and I’d be glad to speak to you about it. Once more, I’m OKC criminal defense lawyer Ty Smith with Wirth Law. You can find me at theoklahomacityattorney.com. And you can also call my office at (405) 888-5400 and I’d be glad to speak with you.
