VA · jury_instructions
Va. Model Jury Instr. Crim. No. 37.200
Malice—Definition
Malice is that state of mind which results in the intentional doing of a wrongful act to another
without legal excuse or justification, at a time when the mind of the actor is under the control of
reason. Malice may result from any unlawful or unjustifiable motive including anger, hatred, or
revenge. You may, but are not required, to infer malice from any deliberate, willful, and cruel act
against another, however sudden.
Heat of passion excludes malice when that heat of passion arises from provocation that
reasonably produces an emotional state of mind such as hot blood, rage, anger, resentment, terror,
or fear so as to cause one to act on impulse without conscious reflection. Heat of passion must be
determined from circumstances as they appeared to the defendant, but those circumstances must
be such as would have aroused heat of passion in a reasonable person.
If a person acts upon reflection or deliberation, or after his passion has cooled, or there has
been a reasonable time or opportunity for cooling, then the act is not attributable to heat of
passion.
History
Virginia Model Jury Instructions – Criminal, Release 26, October 2025. The unannotated set, posted by the Supreme Court of Virginia at vacourts.gov; the book states that it is made available with the permission of the publisher, Matthew Bender & Company, Inc.
Provenance
- Source
- vacourts.gov
- Retrieved
- 2026-10-11
- Edition
- crim-2025-10-01
- Content hash
b8cad3f89fff9598d40895e1548760e313a3edd0607f2aee8870efdec03b6cf2
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