## Facts

- Walter G. Borchers, Jr., a separated and divorcing insurance broker, began a relationship with his fiancée, “Dotty,” in May 1956 and became engaged soon after.
- The relationship was marked by continuing emotional conflict, including Dotty’s admissions of sexual infidelity during the engagement.
- Dotty repeatedly engaged in suicide-related behavior and statements, including attempting to jump from a moving car and expressing a desire to be dead.
- On the night of October 9, 1956, Dotty allegedly taunted Borchers and repeatedly urged him to shoot and kill her.
- Borchers shot and killed Dotty on October 9, 1956.
- A jury convicted Borchers of second-degree murder and found him sane at the time of the offense.
- On Borchers’s motion for new trial (limited to sanity), the trial judge denied a new trial but, in lieu of granting one, reduced the verdict from second-degree murder to voluntary manslaughter.
- The prosecution appealed the order reducing the conviction.

## Issues

1. Whether the trial court had authority, when ruling on a new-trial motion, to reduce a jury’s second-degree murder verdict to voluntary manslaughter in lieu of granting a new trial.
2. Whether the evidence permitted the trial court to find the killing occurred in heat of passion due to long-continued provocation, thereby negating malice required for second-degree murder.

## Decision

- The California Supreme Court affirmed the order reducing the conviction from second-degree murder to voluntary manslaughter.
- The court held the trial judge could, in lieu of granting a new trial, reduce the degree of the offense if the evidence supported only the lesser degree.
- The court concluded the record supported the trial judge’s determination that cumulative provocation and emotional strain were sufficient to negate malice and support voluntary manslaughter.
- The prosecution showed no legal error warranting reversal of the reduction order.

## Legal Principles

- A trial court may, when ruling on a motion for new trial, reduce the degree of the offense in lieu of granting a new trial if the evidence supports conviction only of the lesser degree.
- Voluntary manslaughter is established when a killing occurs upon a sudden quarrel or heat of passion induced by adequate provocation, which negates malice aforethought.
- Adequate provocation may arise from a course of conduct and long-continued provocatory circumstances producing intense passion, not solely from a single instantaneous event.
- On appeal from an order reducing the degree of offense, the question is whether the trial court’s action was legally permissible and supported by the evidence; the reviewing court does not substitute its judgment for the trial judge’s evaluation of the evidentiary record.

## Conclusion

The court upheld the trial judge’s statutory authority to reduce a second-degree murder verdict to voluntary manslaughter and found the evidence of prolonged emotional turmoil, infidelity-related conflict, suicidal conduct, and the victim’s alleged goading supported a heat-of-passion killing without malice.


People v. Borchers, 325 P.2d 97 (Cal. 1958)