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State v. Ortiz6/10/2003
ry short of death, or when resulting from such unreasonable and highly reckless conduct as to 'evince a depraved heart' -- often amounts to murder, yet it may under certain circumstances amount only to voluntary manslaughter." Id. at 703. "Such killings, of course, under still other circumstances (e.g., self-defense, prevention of felony) may amount to no crime whatsoever." Id. at 703 n.2.
Thus, involuntary manslaughter occurs when, without malice aforethought, an unintentional death results from a voluntary act, one that a reasonable person, acting in a similar manner, would not expect to cause death or serious injury. See Hockenhull, 525 A.2d at 929; Kaner, 463 A.2d at 1351. Voluntary manslaughter, on the other hand, occurs when an intentional death results from a voluntary act -- that is, one that a reasonable person acting in a similar manner would expect to cause death or serious injury -- that occurs without malice aforethought, in the heat of passion, and is the product of adequate legal provocation. See Hockenhull, 525 A.2d at 929-30; Kaner, 463 A.2d at 1351.
In this case, an examination of the evidence presented at trial convinces us that the trial justice correctly denied defendant's requested instruction on involuntary manslaughter. The trial justice correctly denied defendant's first proffered theory to support an involuntary-manslaughter charge on the grounds that assault with a dangerous weapon is a felony and, thus, such conduct cannot form the basis for an involuntary-manslaughter charge. No evidence existed to support the notion that defendant had engaged in mere disorderly conduct when he cudgeled Correa to death. The trial justice denied defendant's second theory to support his request for an involuntary-manslaughter instruction, explaining that it appeared to him that, according to defendant's own explanation of what he did, his actions amounted to an honest yet unreasonably deadly manifestation of imperfect self-defense. The use of deadly force with an honest but mistaken belief that such conduct is required for self-defense is another name for the so-called doctrine of imperfect self-defense. As we explained in State v. Catalano, 750 A.2d 426, 429 (R.I. 2000):
"[t]he doctrine of imperfect self-defense * * * purports to reduce the crime of murder to voluntary manslaughter. * * * The theory underlying the doctrine is that when a defendant uses deadly force with an honest but unreasonable belief that it is necessary to defend himself, the element of malice, necessary for a murder conviction, is lacking."
We held both in Catalano, 750 A.2d at 429, and in State v. Wright, 558 A.2d 946, 951 (R.I. 1989), that Rhode Island does not recognize the doctrine of imperfect self-defense in response to a charge of murder.*fn7 The theory of imperfect self-defense does not entitle defendant to an involuntary-manslaughter jury instruction because a "killing committed in self-defense is, nevertheless, an intentional killing." United States v. Skinner, 667 F.2d 1306, 1310 (9th Cir. 1982); LaFave, § 7.11(a) at 718 n.6.
The defendant testified that he repeatedly struck Correa in the head with a board containing protruding nails after Correa initially attacked him with the board. He admitted that he hit Correa again and again with the nail board after Correa tried to grab him and pull him down after he started to walk away. The defendant admitted that, even when Correa was on the ground, he hit him yet again with the board, as Correa was trying to get up. The medical examiner testified that Correa suffered approximately thirty lacerations, contusions, and abrasions from these blows. He estimated that these injuries probably resulted from between four and fifteen different b
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