Now that we've covered murder, let's turn to manslaughter. You can think of manslaughter as a killing that is less blameworthy for some reason than murder; it's an unlawful killing without malice aforethought.

There are two types of manslaughter: voluntary and involuntary. We'll start by looking at voluntary manslaughter. 

I. Common Law

A. Voluntary Manslaughter

Under the common law, voluntary manslaughter is an intentional homicide in which the defendant's malice is mitigated by passion...