What is the test for determining whether a murder is a murder in the first or second degree?

California, United States of America


The following excerpt is from People v. Bruno, C086297 (Cal. App. 2021):

in an improper or erroneous manner." ' (People v. Centeno (2014) 60 Cal.4th 659, 667 [338 P.3d 938] [].)" (People v. Dalton (2019) 7 Cal.5th 166, 251-252.)

When considering whether a murder was one in the first or second degree, that "the deliberation which must precede the killing in order to make the murder one of the first degree need not have existed for any given length of time is thoroughly settled." (People v. Machuca (1910) 158 Cal. 62, 64.) Here, both the intersection analogy and the baseball analogy fairly communicated to the jury that to reach a finding of deliberation and premeditation, the jury's focus should be on the degree of consideration and questioning involved, rather than the amount of time that elapsed when defendant first decided to act and then did act.

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