If you are being charged with murder or manslaughter in North Carolina, you could literally be in a fight for your life. You may be facing life in prison or death by lethal injection. If you have been arrested for any of these offenses, you must do everything you can to fight back to get the charges dismissed or at least reduced to a lesser offense with less severe penalties. You have one chance to do this right, and you will need the help of an Types of Manslaughter Charges in North Carolina
The key difference between murder and manslaughter charges in North Carolina is that manslaughter is not committed with malicious intent. As with murder, there is more than one type of manslaughter crime:
- Voluntary manslaughter. Voluntary manslaughter is the killing of a person with intent in circumstances where a reasonable person would become emotionally or mentally disturbed. A person could be charged with this crime if he committed a murder in the heat of passion or in an imperfect self-defense situation where he believed force was necessary to defend himself, but it was not objectively reasonable.
- Involuntary manslaughter. This crime involves an unintentional murder committed without intent and not in the heat of passion. You could be charged with this offense if you were criminally negligent, engaged in reckless conduct, or were committing a non-felony crime at the time of the killing.
- Vehicular manslaughter. You could be charged with vehicular manslaughter if you killed someone with a vehicle through your negligence or reckless actions.
Penalties for Murder and Manslaughter in North Carolina
The severity of the punishment that you face will be based on the circumstances of the crime. Aggravating factors, such an especially heinous crime, will increase your sentence, and mitigating factors can reduce the severity of your penalty. Here are the possible sentences for murder and manslaughter:
- First-degree murder. Class A felony punishable by life in prison with no parole or death by lethal injection
- Second-degree murder. Class B1 felony with a prison sentence of 192 months to life in prison or Class B2 felony with a minimum sentence of 125 months in prison
- Felony murder. Class A felony with the same penalties as first-degree murder
- Voluntary manslaughter. Class D felony with a minimum sentence of 51 months in prison
- Involuntary manslaughter. Class F felony with a 13-month minimum prison sentence
- Vehicular manslaughter. Class F felony with the same penalties as involuntary manslaughter
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