Definitions can vary among jurisdictions, but manslaughter is invariably the act of causing the death of another person in a manner less culpable than murder.
Traditionally, there were five categories which constituted adequate provocation: (1) observation of sexual marital infidelity, (2) assault and battery, (3) mutual combat, (4) witnessing harm to a loved one, and (5) resistance to an illegal arrest.
[2] Courts have since moved on to less restrictive rules which look at whether the provocation was of such a nature that it would cause an ordinary person to enter a heightened state of passion and lose their self-control.
[2] In some jurisdictions, a person who acted in self-defense with an honest but unreasonable belief that deadly force was necessary to do so can reduce a murder charge to one of voluntary manslaughter or deliberate homicide committed without criminal malice.
[5] In some U.S. jurisdictions, if a person is so reckless as to "manifest extreme indifference to human life", the defendant may be guilty of aggravated assault as well as of involuntary manslaughter.
[6] In some U.S. jurisdictions, malice may be found only if the defendant's actions reflect willful or depraved indifference to human life.
A common use of the vehicular manslaughter laws involves prosecution for a death caused by driving under the influence of intoxicating substances (determined by excessive blood alcohol content levels set by individual U.S. states), although an independent infraction (such as driving with a suspended driver's license), or negligence, is usually also required.
[16] In some U.S. states, assisted suicide is punishable as manslaughter, while others classify it as an independent criminal offense or as a form of murder.