VOLUNTARY—Upon a sudden quarrel or heat of passion.

INVOLUNTARY—In the commission of an unlawful act not amounting to a felony, or in the commission in an unlawful manner, or without due caution and circumspection, of a lawful act which might produce death.

Prosecutors charge people with manslaughter for crimes in which someone kills someone without planning it. The old classic case of voluntary manslaughter was the husband who walks into his house and is shocked to see a stranger having sex with his wife. The husband kills the stranger five seconds later with a baseball bat or gun or whatever. Nothing was planned, it was the heat of passion.

Involuntary manslaughter involves doing something so dangerous (and a crime) that any reasonable person would think there is a good chance someone will die, driving down the interstate at 130 miles per hour (an unlawful act), getting in an accident and an innocent person dies in a crash.

Donald Trump knew that he had an armed and hostile crowd in front of him. He knew they were furious. He wasn’t worried about them being armed because “They aren’t here to hurt me.” Obviously, the implication is that Trump knew the crowd was prepared to hurt others. With that large a crowd, someone would assault someone. Trump didn’t care. He said to take the magnetometers away, he didn’t say disarm the crowd. He then sent them up to the Capitol after telling them to fight like hell. Trump was going to lead them. They planned on interrupting Congress knowing it would involve assaulting officers, a crime. People died. Indeed a woman was shot dead.

It doesn’t matter that the woman shot was “on Trump’s side.” (The official cause of death for Officer Sicknick was “stroke” but the medical examiner said “everything” that transpired that day played a role. It would present a causation problem that wouldn’t be needed because a woman was shot and killed, no need to address Officer Sicknick.)

Barbara McQuade, a former U.S. Attorney is a good enough attorney to put the evidence together and see a classic case of manslaughter. It would be obvious in other contexts. It is near impossible to truly consider in this context, a president? But it’s near impossible to find a better prosecutor than Barbara McQuade. She is right.

Will Donald Trump be charged with manslaughter? Of course not. It is at least as likely that the DOJ won’t charge Trump at all as it is he’ll be charged with even a minor crime, never mind manslaughter. It would be easier to charge Trump with seditious conspiracy, or some kind of felony obstruction of Congress.

That doesn’t mean that the fact that Trump could be charged with manslaughter if we were a more mature democracy shouldn’t be seriously discussed. Indeed it should be discussed a lot. It should be brought up in the hearing. It should be a word that the MAGAs hear, despite the fact that they won’t believe it and will scoff, they should hear it anyway. Something might seep in accidentally.

Trump certainly could be charged with manslaughter. Indeed, he almost certainly committed manslaughter, the evidence is in front of us. The elements line up. You can read the above, no legal degree required.

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[email protected], @JasonMiciak, with Nicole Hickman