BILL ANALYSIS Ó
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|SENATE RULES COMMITTEE | AB 2501|
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THIRD READING
Bill No: AB 2501
Author: Bonilla (D)
Amended: 4/24/14 in Assembly
Vote: 21
SENATE PUBLIC SAFETY COMMITTEE : 5-2, 6/24/14
AYES: Hancock, De León, Liu, Mitchell, Steinberg
NOES: Anderson, Knight
SENATE APPROPRIATIONS COMMITTEE : 5-1, 8/14/14
AYES: De León, Hill, Lara, Padilla, Steinberg
NOES Gaines
NO VOTE RECORDED: Walters
ASSEMBLY FLOOR : 50-18, 5/28/14 - See last page for vote
SUBJECT : Voluntary manslaughter
SOURCE : Attorney General Kamala Harris
Equality California
DIGEST : This bill prohibits the use of the panic defense to
support a finding of sudden quarrel or heat of passion, which is
necessary to reduce murder to manslaughter.
ANALYSIS :
Existing law:
1. Provides that murder is the unlawful killing of a human
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being, or a fetus, with malice aforethought.
2. Provides that murder is divided into two degrees, and that a
willful, deliberate and premeditated killing is first degree
murder.
3. Punishes murder in the first degree with life without the
possibility of parole or a term of 25 years to life, and
punishes murder in the second degree with a term of 15 years
to life.
4. Provides that a person who commits first degree murder that
is a hate crime shall be punished by a term of life without
parole.
5. Provides that manslaughter is the unlawful killing of a
human being without malice.
6. Provides that manslaughter is divided into three kinds,
voluntary, involuntary and vehicular, and that voluntary
manslaughter is the unlawful killing of a human being upon a
sudden quarrel or heat of passion.
7. States a killing occurs upon a sudden quarrel or heat of
passion if:
A. The defendant was provoked;
B. As a result of provocation, the defendant acted rashly
and under the influence of intense emotion that obscured
his/her reasoning or judgment; and
C. The provocation would have caused a person of average
disposition to act rashly and without due deliberation,
that is, from passion rather than from judgment.
1. Punishes voluntary manslaughter with imprisonment in the
state prison for three, six, or 11 years.
2. Defines a hate crime as a criminal act committed, in whole
or in part, because of one or more of the following actual or
perceived characteristics of the victim: disability, gender,
nationality, race or ethnicity, religion, sexual orientation,
and association with a person or group with one or more of
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these actual or perceived characteristics.
3. Defines "gender," for purposes of hate crimes, as "sex, and
includes a person's gender identity and gender-related
appearance and behavior whether or not stereotypically
associated with the person's assigned sex at birth."
This bill:
1. Provides that for the purposes of determining sudden quarrel
or heat of passion for voluntary manslaughter, the
provocation was not objectively reasonable if it resulted
from the discovery of, knowledge about, or potential
disclosure of the victim's or defendant's actual or perceived
gender, gender identity, gender expression, or sexual
orientation, including under circumstances in which the
victim made an unwanted nonforcible romantic or sexual
advance towards the defendant, or if the defendant and victim
dated or had a romantic or sexual relationship.
2. Provides that it shall not preclude the jury from considering
all relevant facts to determine whether the defendant was in
fact provoked for purposes of establishing subjective
provocation.
Prior Legislation
AB 1160 (Lieber, Chapter 550, Statutes of 2006) made legislative
findings and declarations expressing disapproval of the use of a
"panic defense" by defendants in order to appeal to the societal
bias of a juror based on the victim's actual or perceived gender
or sexual orientation, and required the court, upon the request
of a party, to instruct the jury that their decision should not
be influenced by bias against a victim.
FISCAL EFFECT : Appropriation: No Fiscal Com.: Yes
Local: Yes
According to the Senate Appropriations Committee, potential
future increase in state incarceration costs (General Fund) to
the extent the provisions of this bill result in convictions for
the more serious offense of second-degree murder vs. voluntary
manslaughter. One additional commitment to state prison every
two or three years would result in additional state costs in the
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range of $90,000 to $120,000 after 10 years, assuming an
in-state contract bed cost of about $30,000 per year.
SUPPORT : (Verified 8/13/14)
Attorney General Kamala Harris (co-source)
Equality California (co-source)
California Communities United Institute
California Police Chiefs Association
Children's Hospital Los Angeles
City of West Hollywood
East Bay Stonewall Democratic Club
Gay Men's Chorus of Los Angeles
LGBTQ Connection
Lyon-Martin Health Services
Mental Health America of Northern California
National Association of Social Workers, California Chapter
One Family Coalition
Sacramento LGBT Center
Transgender Law Center
OPPOSITION : (Verified 8/13/14)
All Of Us Or None
California Attorneys for Criminal Justice
California Public Defenders Association
Taxpayers for Improving Public Safety
ARGUMENTS IN SUPPORT : Equality California states, "A panic
defense allows a criminal defendant to claim that violence
against the LGBT community is understandable or acceptable due
to the victim's sexual orientation or gender identity B 2501
makes it very clear that it is never acceptable, and that there
is no place for prejudice against people who are lesbian, gay,
bisexual, or transgender. AB 2501 ensures that defendants
cannot use the so-called "panic defense" in an attempt to lower
a charge from murder to manslaughter or to escape conviction."
ARGUMENTS IN OPPOSITION : California Attorneys for Criminal
Justice opposes this bill, stating:
The crux of the debate surrounding this bill is when
California should punish someone for murder instead of
voluntary manslaughter; or more specifically, should
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California narrow eligibility for voluntary manslaughter?
Both murder and manslaughter involve an unlawful killing.
Both result in state prison sentences. Murder, however,
carries a much longer sentence because it requires an act
that is "premeditated" and with "deliberation."
Under current law, someone who kills another and who as a
result of "provocation" acts "rashly" and "under the
influence of intense emotion that obscured her reasoning"
may be convicted of manslaughter instead of murder.
(People v. Gutierrez (2002) 28 Cal.4th 1083, 1144, 124
Cal.Rptr.2d 373, 52 P.3d 572.)
Unfortunately AB 2501 undermines core legal principles of
the theory of manslaughter and potentially exposes someone
who acts without "premeditation" and "deliberation" to a
charge of murder and a potential life sentence. Despite
the valid objectives of the proponents, any new law must
not flip cornerstone legal concepts awry.
ASSEMBLY FLOOR : 50-18, 5/28/14
AYES: Alejo, Ammiano, Bloom, Bocanegra, Bonilla, Bonta,
Bradford, Brown, Buchanan, Ian Calderon, Campos, Chau,
Chesbro, Cooley, Dababneh, Dickinson, Eggman, Fong, Fox,
Garcia, Gatto, Gomez, Gordon, Roger Hernández, Holden,
Jones-Sawyer, Levine, Lowenthal, Maienschein, Medina, Mullin,
Muratsuchi, Nazarian, Pan, Perea, John A. Pérez, V. Manuel
Pérez, Quirk, Quirk-Silva, Rendon, Ridley-Thomas, Rodriguez,
Salas, Stone, Ting, Weber, Wieckowski, Williams, Yamada,
Atkins
NOES: Achadjian, Bigelow, Conway, Dahle, Donnelly, Beth Gaines,
Grove, Hagman, Jones, Logue, Mansoor, Melendez, Nestande,
Olsen, Patterson, Wagner, Waldron, Wilk
NO VOTE RECORDED: Allen, Chávez, Daly, Frazier, Gonzalez,
Gorell, Gray, Hall, Harkey, Linder, Skinner, Vacancy
JG:d 8/15/14 Senate Floor Analyses
SUPPORT/OPPOSITION: SEE ABOVE
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