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KRS 507.040

Manslaughter in the second degree

Applied in 65 court decisions — leading case State v. Courchesne (2010)

Most recently applied in King v. Commonwealth (March 2017)

Effective: July 15, 2024 History: Amended 2024 Ky

How often courts cite this section

19761980199020002010201740
citing decisions per year

Court decisions citing this, by year. The dip in the last several years is a data-coverage gap, not a real trend — our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so recent citations are undercounted.

(1) A person is guilty of manslaughter in the second degree when he or she wantonly causes the death of another person, including but not limited to situations where the death results from the person's:

(a) Operation of a motor vehicle;

(b) Leaving a child under the age of eight (8) years in a motor vehicle under circumstances which manifest an extreme indifference to human life and which create a grave risk of death to the child, thereby causing the death of the child;

(c) Unlawful distribution for remuneration of a Schedule I or II controlled substance when the controlled substance is the proximate cause of death; or (d) Knowing distribution of fentanyl or a fentanyl derivative to another person without remuneration, and the injection, ingestion, inhalation, or other introduction of the fentanyl or fentanyl derivative causes the death of the person.

(2) Manslaughter in the second degree is a Class C felony.

Official source: Kentucky General Assembly. Reproduced from public-domain Kentucky statutes; confirm against the official source for the current text. Not legal advice.