P.

Filed 6/3/13

IN THE SUPREME COURT OF CALIFORNIA

THE PEOPLE, )

) Plaintiff and Respondent, ) ) S196365 v. ) ) Ct.App. 4/1 D057570

AMALIA CATHERINE BRYANT, )

) Riverside County Defendant and Appellant. ) Super. Ct. No. SWF014495 ____________________________________)

During an altercation in an apartment they shared, defendant Amalia Catherine Bryant stabbed her boyfriend once in the chest, killing him. The jury convicted her of second degree murder. On appeal, the Court of Appeal reversed the murder conviction, concluding that the trial court erred by failing to sua sponte instruct the jury on voluntary manslaughter as a lesser included offense of murder on the theory that defendant killed without malice in the commission of an inherently dangerous assaultive felony. We granted review to decide whether such a theory of voluntary manslaughter exists and whether the trial court should have instructed sua sponte on that theory. We conclude that such a killing is not voluntary manslaughter and that the trial court therefore did not…

Defendant was charged with murder after fatally stabbing her boyfriend during an argument. Defendant testified that she “thrust [a] knife at” the victim as he lunged at her, causing the knife to enter his chest, but the stabbing “wasn’t deliberate.”

The trial court instructed the jury on first and second degree murder. The court also instructed the jury on voluntary manslaughter, a lesser offense necessarily included within the greater crime of murder, based on two theories: that defendant killed her boyfriend in a sudden quarrel or heat of passion, and that she killed him in an unreasonable, but genuine, belief in the necessity of self-defense. The jury convicted defendant of second degree murder.

The Court of Appeal reversed the judgment, holding that the trial court should have instructed the jury on a third theory of voluntary manslaughter. In the Court of Appeal’s view, a killing without malice committed during an inherently dangerous assaultive felony is voluntary manslaughter, and here the jury could reasonably have concluded that the killing occurred during an assault with a deadly weapon (Pen. Code, § 245, subd. (a)(1)). 1 Today this court’s majority rejects that…

During an altercation in an apartment they shared, defendant Amalia Catherine Bryant stabbed her boyfriend once in the chest, killing him. The jury convicted her of second degree murder. On appeal, the Court of Appeal reversed the murder conviction, concluding that the trial court erred by failing to sua sponte instruct the jury on voluntary manslaughter as a lesser included offense of murder on the theory that defendant killed without malice in the commission of an inherently dangerous assaultive felony. We granted review to decide whether such a theory of voluntary manslaughter exists and whether the trial court should have instructed sua sponte on that theory. We conclude that such a killing is not voluntary manslaughter and that the trial court therefore did not err in failing to so instruct the jury. Accordingly, we reverse the judgment of the Court of Appeal.

I.

On November 24, 2005, neighbors responded to the apartment in which defendant lived with her boyfriend Robert Golden to find defendant screaming and Golden lying facedown in the front doorway. Defendant was pleading with Golden to “wake up.” Golden had a stab wound to the chest and no pulse; he was…