What Is Involuntary Manslaughter?

In its 2023 crime report, the Federal Bureau of Investigation found that murders were down almost 12% year over year. In 2024, they kept going down and reached about 16,700. One of the main differences between murder and accidental manslaughter is what the person who killed meant to do.

Accidentally killing people can happen when there is negligence or noncompliance with the law. This is called manslaughter and it does not involve an intention to kill. Death from manslaughter is still terrible no matter the intention of the offender. If someone else was hurt, they could file a personal injury claim.

According to personal injury lawyer Jason Ewing, you are entitled to recover any compensation for your future medical needs and impaired mobility that are incidental to your serious injury.

Let’s understand what constitutes involuntary manslaughter and what would happen if you were guilty of it.

Key Elements of Involuntary Manslaughter

To establish involuntary manslaughter, a person must show that another acted without care or responsibility.

A person may face felony charges if he or she did not act as a typical, sensible person would. His or her carelessness must have caused a person’s death.

According to manslaughter defense lawyer Joseph Tully, killing another person unintentionally while committing a non-dangerous crime or a lawful act that may produce death without due caution is a felony punishable by up to 4 years in county jail and a fine of up to $10,000.

Types of Involuntary Manslaughter

Depending on the defendant’s behavior, Involuntary manslaughter can be divided into two primary categories:

1. Criminally Negligent Manslaughter

This occurs when the conduct of a defendant displays contempt for other people’s safety. In this category, negligence on the part of the defendant is the immediate cause of another’s death. Often, the defendant’s negligence causes harm to the victim.

High courts of the different states, for instance, have held that the death of a person may be caused by criminal negligence where one fails to exercise reasonable care over the maintenance of his property; e.g., broken stairs in the house might lead to another person getting hurt or dying.

2. Reckless Behavior Manslaughter

Involuntary manslaughter due to reckless behavior is when someone does something on purpose that puts other people at a high risk of death or major injury, even though death wasn’t the goal. The defendant may have known about the risk but decided not to care about it.

For example, a driver who speeds or drives under the influence of alcohol or drugs is another illustration of reckless behavior. If a driver kills someone while being careless, the death may be acknowledged as accidental manslaughter since the driver was negligent.

Legal Consequences and Penalties

Manslaughter is a serious offense, yet it is often considered a mere accident.

Prison terms for offenses classified as involuntary manslaughter vary from two to over ten years, depending on each individual case. At that point, if someone were what the law considers injured, the damages potentially could run into the thousands or millions. Subsequently, the victim’s relatives may file a lawsuit to recover damages in court.

Involuntary manslaughter can drastically change your life. It becomes almost impossible to find a house if you have a criminal record. You cannot pay your bills if you can’t land a job following a felony conviction for involuntary manslaughter.

Distinctions Between Involuntary Manslaughter and Other Homicide Charges

There are varied definitions of “involuntary manslaughter,” depending on the place the crime was committed. It usually entails a death that was caused by carelessness or lack of skill.

The term of the crime suggests that the killing was not planned, unlike voluntary manslaughter.

Some people think that vehicular homicide can be penalized as involuntary manslaughter if the driver was careless.

In the serious crime of involuntary manslaughter, the individual who did it is partly to blame and mostly liable. People who are found guilty of involuntary homicide are more careful and responsible every day since they know what could happen to them.