Updated October 2026 | The Bulldog Law | California Homicide Defense

Homicide is the killing of one human being by another. Murder is a homicide committed with malice aforethought. The first word describes an event; the second names a crime. Every murder is a homicide, but a homicide is not necessarily a crime at all: California law divides homicides into murder under Penal Code 187, voluntary, involuntary, and vehicular manslaughter under Penal Code 192, gross vehicular manslaughter while intoxicated under Penal Code 191.5, justifiable homicide under Penal Code 196 and 197, and excusable homicide under Penal Code 195. The last two carry no punishment. Which category a killing falls into depends almost entirely on the mental state of the person who caused it and the circumstances in which it happened, and the difference between the categories is the difference between life in prison, a few years, and walking out of the courtroom.

The Bulldog Law's homicide attorneys defend every one of those categories across California, and in most of our cases the fact of the death is not disputed; what is disputed is the box. A prosecutor who files murder is making a claim about malice, and the defense is frequently that the correct category is manslaughter, or that the homicide was justified. What follows is the legal meaning of homicide, the complete California map with the statute, the required mental state, and the sentence for each category, and how a case moves between them before trial. Call (888) 928-1609 or message our team.

Homicide is a classification, not a charge

When a person dies at the hands of another, the coroner or medical examiner classifies the manner of death as homicide, as distinct from natural, accident, suicide, or undetermined. That classification means a human agency caused the death; it does not mean a crime was committed, and coroners classify police shootings, self-defense killings, and lawful executions as homicides. The police and the district attorney then decide whether the homicide is criminal and, if so, which crime. There is no statute in California that makes "homicide" an offense; the charges are murder, manslaughter, or one of the vehicular statutes. Cornell's Legal Information Institute gives the general-law definition, which California follows. A person who reads that a case is being "investigated as a homicide" should understand that the investigation is into whether and which crime occurred, and that a person who caused a death in self-defense is, at that stage, the subject of a homicide investigation and may never be charged.

The California map

Every homicide in California lands in one of the categories below. The first column is what the law calls it, the second is the statute, the third is the mental state the prosecution must prove, and the last is the sentence. The mental state column is the heart of the chart: moving down the list is moving from intent to kill, to conscious disregard for life, to heat of passion, to criminal negligence, to no fault at all.

Murder: the malice line

Penal Code 187 defines murder as the unlawful killing of a human being, or a fetus, with malice aforethought. Malice is express when the person intended to kill and implied when the person intentionally did an act dangerous to human life, knew the danger, and acted with conscious disregard for life. Malice is what separates murder from every form of manslaughter, and it is the element our attorneys contest most often, because the facts that show a killing was intentional or reckless are frequently also consistent with panic, provocation, or an honest fear. Premeditation and deliberation, or one of the methods or felonies Penal Code 189 lists, raise the murder to first degree. Our page on murder under Penal Code 187 covers the degrees, the felony-murder rule as narrowed by Senate Bill 1437, and the defenses, and the death penalty and life-without-parole exposure that follow a special-circumstance finding are covered there and in our discussion of capital cases. A killing that was intended but not completed is attempted murder, which requires express malice and carries a life sentence when premeditated.

Manslaughter: no malice

Penal Code 192 defines manslaughter as the unlawful killing of a human being without malice, and the three subdivisions describe how a killing can be unlawful without being malicious. Voluntary manslaughter is a killing that would be murder but for provocation: a sudden quarrel or heat of passion that would cause an ordinary person to act rashly, with no cooling-off period. It also covers imperfect self-defense, an honest but unreasonable belief in the need to use deadly force, which negates malice without justifying the killing. Involuntary manslaughter is a killing by criminal negligence, or during the commission of a misdemeanor or a non-inherently-dangerous felony, and it is the category for most deaths from drug furnishing, unsafe conduct, and caretaker neglect. Our page on manslaughter versus murder compares the two in depth, our Penal Code 192 defense page covers the charges, and our discussion of negligent homicide covers the negligence standard. Vehicular manslaughter under Penal Code 192(c) and the intoxicated version under Penal Code 191.5 are the categories for driving deaths, with the important exception that a drunk driver with a prior DUI who was warned of the danger can be charged with second-degree murder on an implied-malice theory.

Justifiable and excusable homicide: no crime

The categories most people forget are the ones that end with no conviction. Penal Code 197 makes a homicide by a private person justifiable when it is committed in resisting an attempt to murder the person or to commit a felony or great bodily injury against them, in defending a home against someone who enters violently with intent to commit a felony or injure an occupant, in defending oneself or another when there is a reasonable fear of imminent death or great bodily injury, or in lawfully trying to apprehend a felon or keep the peace. Penal Code 196 covers peace officers, who may use deadly force when necessary to defend against an imminent threat of death or serious bodily injury or to apprehend a fleeing felon who poses such a threat.

Penal Code 195 makes a homicide excusable when it is committed by accident and misfortune during a lawful act by lawful means with usual and ordinary caution and no unlawful intent, or in the heat of passion on sudden and sufficient provocation or sudden combat, provided no undue advantage was taken, no dangerous weapon was used, and the killing was not done in a cruel or unusual manner. California's self-defense, stand-your-ground, and castle doctrine rules decide when the justification applies, and the lawful resistance statutes set out what a person may do to prevent an offense. Once the defense produces evidence of justification, the prosecution must disprove it beyond a reasonable doubt, and a jury that is not convinced the killing was unjustified must acquit.

How a case moves between the boxes

A homicide case rarely stays in the category the prosecutor first chose. The charging decision is made early, on police reports and before the defense investigation, and a filed murder charge is a starting position. The defense works the case in three directions at once. Downward, by developing the evidence of provocation, fear, intoxication, or mental condition that defeats malice and reduces murder to manslaughter, or the evidence that the defendant was not the actual killer and did not act with the major-participant recklessness the felony-murder rule now requires.

Outward, by developing the self-defense or defense-of-others evidence that makes the homicide justifiable and the accident evidence that makes it excusable. And at the foundation, by contesting identity, causation, and the reliability of the forensic and witness evidence that the death was caused by the defendant at all. Juries are instructed on every lesser homicide the evidence supports, so a murder trial in California is usually a trial about which box the killing belongs in, and the negotiated resolutions follow the same shape: a murder charge resolved as voluntary manslaughter with a fixed term is one of the most common outcomes in the homicide practice of our attorneys.

Frequently asked questions

What is the difference between homicide and murder?

Homicide is the killing of one human being by another. It is a description of an event, not a crime, and it includes killings that are lawful. Murder is one kind of unlawful homicide: a killing with malice aforethought, defined in California by Penal Code 187. Every murder is a homicide, but many homicides are not murders. A homicide can be murder, voluntary manslaughter, involuntary manslaughter, vehicular manslaughter, justifiable (self-defense, defense of others, lawful police action), or excusable (a true accident without negligence).

Is homicide a crime?

Not by itself. Homicide is the medical and legal word for a death caused by another person, and a coroner classifies a death as a homicide without deciding whether anyone committed a crime. Whether the homicide is criminal depends on the circumstances. A person who kills in lawful self-defense has committed a homicide and no crime. A person who kills with malice has committed murder. The criminal statutes in California are murder (Penal Code 187), manslaughter (Penal Code 192), and vehicular manslaughter while intoxicated (Penal Code 191.5); there is no offense simply called homicide.

What are the types of homicide in California?

California law sorts homicides into criminal and non-criminal. Criminal homicide is murder (first or second degree) and manslaughter (voluntary, involuntary, or vehicular), plus gross vehicular manslaughter while intoxicated under Penal Code 191.5. Non-criminal homicide is justifiable homicide under Penal Code 196 and 197, which covers killings by peace officers in the performance of duty and killings by private persons in lawful self-defense or defense of others, and excusable homicide under Penal Code 195, which covers a killing by accident while doing a lawful act with ordinary care, or in the heat of a sudden combat without a dangerous weapon or cruel manner.

Is manslaughter a homicide?

Yes. Manslaughter is the unlawful killing of a human being without malice, under Penal Code 192, and it is a criminal homicide. Voluntary manslaughter is a killing in a sudden quarrel or heat of passion or in an honest but unreasonable belief in the need for self-defense; involuntary manslaughter is a killing during an unlawful act that is not a felony or during a lawful act done without due caution; and vehicular manslaughter is a killing while driving with gross or ordinary negligence. The sentences range from probation to 11 years, far below the life sentences for murder.

What is justifiable homicide?

A killing the law does not punish because it was legally justified. Under Penal Code 197, a private person's homicide is justifiable when committed in resisting an attempt to murder them or to commit a felony against them or their home, when defending themselves or another against a reasonable fear of imminent death or great bodily injury, or when lawfully trying to apprehend a person for a felony or keep the peace. Under Penal Code 196, a peace officer's homicide is justifiable when necessary to defend against an imminent threat of death or serious injury or to apprehend a fleeing felon who poses such a threat. A justifiable homicide ends in no charge or an acquittal, not a conviction.

What is the sentence for homicide in California?

There is no single sentence because homicide is not one crime. First-degree murder is 25 years to life, or life without parole or death with a special circumstance; second-degree murder is 15 years to life; voluntary manslaughter is 3, 6, or 11 years; involuntary manslaughter is 2, 3, or 4 years; vehicular manslaughter with gross negligence is up to 6 years; gross vehicular manslaughter while intoxicated is 4, 6, or 10 years. Firearm enhancements, prior strikes, and special circumstances change those numbers, and justifiable or excusable homicide carries no sentence at all.

Related reading from our attorneys

• Murder under Penal Code 187
• Manslaughter versus murder: the differences
• California self-defense, stand your ground, and the castle doctrine

Under investigation for a death? The category is the case

The Bulldog Law's criminal defense attorneys defend murder, manslaughter, and vehicular homicide cases across California, and we are retained in many of them before any charge is filed, when the category is still being decided. Call (888) 928-1609 or reach us online.