Massa, J.
Amanda Carmack appeals her conviction after being sentenced to life without parole for the murder of her ten-year-old stepdaughter, S.C. On direct review, Carmack challenges the sufficiency of the evidence, arguing the State failed to satisfy its evidentiary burden in negating the mitigating factor of “sudden heat,” a condition necessary to reduce her conviction to voluntary manslaughter. In reviewing the evidence supporting the judgment, we hold the State met its evidentiary burden to disprove the existence of sudden heat because of the lack of adequate provocation, accompanied by a sustained cooling-off period. Accordingly, we affirm the trial court’s conviction and Life Without Parole sentence.
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At the outset, the State urges us to hold as a matter of law that frustration with a child’s behavior can never trigger sudden heat mitigating murder to manslaughter. Though courts in sister states have so concluded, see, e.g., State v. Brown, 836 S.W.2d 530, 554 (Tenn. 1992) and State v. Taylor, 452 N.W.2d 605, 606 (Iowa 1990), we need not make new law in this case. Indeed, the record here is so bereft of evidence of sudden heat that if there be any error, it was giving the jury this option in the first place, notwithstanding the cautious virtue of protecting the appellate record. The evidence is wholly lacking provocation to trigger sudden heat, while also revealing a sustained “cooling-off” period between the alleged frustration and ultimate murderous act. Accordingly, we affirm Carmack’s murder conviction and LWOP sentence.
The State satisfied its evidentiary burden in negating the mitigating factor and voluntary manslaughter requirement of “sudden heat.”
We start our analysis with the relevant degrees of homicide in Indiana. First, one commits murder if she “knowingly or intentionally” kills another human. I.C. § 35-42-1-1. Second, if one “knowingly or intentionally kills another human being while acting under sudden heat,” she commits voluntary manslaughter—a Level 2 felony. I.C. § 35-42-1-3(a). The existence of sudden heat is a “mitigating factor”—not an affirmative defense—and it “reduces what otherwise would be murder to voluntary manslaughter.” I.C. § 35-42-1-3(b); Isom v. State, 651 N.E.2d 1151, 1152 (Ind. 1995). Once sudden heat has been “injected” into the heart of the case, “the burden is on the State to negate its existence.” Bane v. State, 587 N.E.2d 97, 100 (Ind. 1992), reh’g denied. When injecting the issue, the defendant must point to some evidence in the record supporting sudden heat. Watts v. State, 885 N.E.2d 1228, 1234 n.2 (Ind. 2008). Because sudden heat functions as an “evidentiary predicate,” Bane, 587 N.E.2d at 100, it requires the jury to decide whether the record evidence supports it. Id.
Sudden heat exists when a defendant is “provoked by anger, rage, resentment, or terror, to a degree sufficient to obscure the reason of an ordinary person, prevent deliberation and premeditation, and render the defendant incapable of cool reflection.” Brantley, 91 N.E.3d at 572 (quoting Isom v. State, 31 N.E.3d 469, 486 (Ind. 2015)). The issue of whether adequate provocation legally exists is an objective—not a subjective— measure. See Stevens v. State, 691 N.E.2d 412, 426 (Ind. 1997); Suprenant v. State, 925 N.E.2d 1280, 1282–83 (Ind. Ct. App. 2010). Indeed, “[e]vidence of sudden heat may be found in either the State’s case or the defendant’s.” Brantley, 91 N.E.3d at 572. And because juries are in the unique position to assess the veracity of evidence, they must decide whether the evidence contained in the record “constitute[s] sudden heat sufficient to warrant a conviction for voluntary manslaughter.” Id. (internal quotations omitted).
Premeditation, unlike sudden heat, is “the deliberate formation of an intent to perform a future act,” Currin v. State, 497 N.E.2d 1045, 1047 (Ind. 1986), where a defendant has conceivably “mulled over in the mind” prior to the act. Henderson v. State, 264 Ind. 334, 337, 343 N.E.2d 776, 778 (1976). Yet premeditation “may be as instantaneous as successive thoughts,” as the precise duration between the inception of intent and the killing “need not be appreciable to constitute premeditation.” Currin, 497 N.E.2d at 1047. Thus, whether premeditation exists is a question whose answer may be reasonably inferred from the particular circumstances of a crime. Id.
We find support for this “instantaneous” school of premeditation. See Wright v. State, 168 N.E.3d 244, 268 n.17 (Ind. 2021). Some of our nineteenth century precedents subscribed to that venerable notion. See, e.g., Koerner v. State, 98 Ind. 7, 10 (1884) (“It is as much premeditation, if it be entered into the mind of the guilty agent a moment before the act, as if it entered ten years before.”). And one of our recent decisions confirmed that ancient view. See Wright, 168 N.E.3d at 268. Conversely, some cases have reached the opposite conclusion. See, e.g., Barker v. State, 238 Ind. 271, 279, 150 N.E.2d 680, 684 (1958) (finding it “difficult to conceive” that “premeditation may be practically simultaneous with the act of killing”). Even so, the distinction drawn by our precedents is likely inapposite: Indiana’s murder statute does not require premeditation. See Wright, 168 N.E.3d at 268 n.17; compare I.C. § 35-13-4-1 (Burns 1975) (repealed 1976) (murder defined as a killing accomplished “purposefully and with premediated malice”), with I.C. § 35-42-1-1 (murder defined as the “knowing or intentional killing of another human being”). That said, premeditation as a concept is still accorded credence in Indiana when courts endeavor to approximate and define “sudden heat.” See, e.g., Brantley, 91 N.E.3d at 572. And its presence here, even if nearly instantaneous, negates any notion of sudden heat.
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The State also argues that, even if S.C.’s behavior were found to be provocative, “there was nothing sudden about the anger and rage Carmack experienced at the time the killing took place.” Appellee’s Br. at 21. We agree: there was an adequately sustained “cooling-off” period, which would also foreclose a finding of voluntary manslaughter here.
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The record supports a clear break in the chain to defeat sudden heat: the bracelet incident. See Suprenant, 925 N.E.2d at 1284. When S.C. took her stepsister’s bracelet, Carmack did not kill her instantly, but contacted Kevin—first by text message, then by video call around 3:30 p.m. Assuming the onset of provocation was the act of stealing the bracelet, the only thing “sudden” about her response was contacting Kevin. And the contents of the conversation reveal the parents discussed the matter with S.C., and Kevin told Carmack to wait to impose any punishment until he came home. That delayed corrective measure, however, frustrated Carmack, according to Kevin. It was not until later that evening between 8:00 and 9:00 p.m. when Kevin received a text from Carmack, which read, “I think we have a problem.” Tr. Vol. I, p. 210. Similar to Boone, in which the defendant contemplated her lethal plans, the jury here could have found that Carmack had ample time to consider her actions. See 728 N.E.2d at 138. For this reason, this break supports a reasonable finding by the jury that Carmack’s decision to contact Kevin was a deliberate break in the chain of alleged provocation. Reviewed cumulatively, this evidence shows a cooling-off period sufficient to sustain the jury’s conclusion there was no sudden heat.
Because we find the State sufficiently carried its evidentiary burden in negating the mitigating factor and voluntary manslaughter requirement of “sudden heat,” we affirm Carmack’s murder conviction and LWOP sentence.
Rush, C.J., and Slaughter, Goff, and Molter, JJ., concur.