People v. Berry[1] is a voluntary manslaughter case that is widely taught in American law schools for the appellate court's unusual interpretation of heat of passion doctrine.

Although the defendant had time to "cool down" between his wife's verbal admission of infidelity and the killing, the California Supreme Court held that the provocation in this case was adequate to reduce a murder charge to manslaughter.

The case has also been discussed or mentioned in more than forty separate academic journal articles relating to murder, female victims of domestic violence, and rape.

[3] Voluntary manslaughter is a form of homicide where a defendant's culpability is mitigated by an "adequate provocation", thereby resulting in a lesser sentence than a murder charge.

[7][5] Prosecutors argued that manslaughter was not applicable because there had been a "cooling period" between the initial admission and the homicide, but the court rejected the argument writing that "the long course of provocatory conduct...reached its final culmination in the apartment when Rachel began screaming".

He also testified that the long course of psychological torment she inflicted on Berry would have produced the same type of blind, uncontrollable rage traditionally associated with "heat of passion" defenses.

Transcripts of testimonies from the trial, which have been reviewed by law professor Donna Coker contain additional facts that the California Supreme Court did not include in their decision.

The defendant, Berry, had a history of intimate violence and before his marriage to Pessah, had stabbed his second wife eleven times after she called out another man's name during sex.