Existing law makes it unlawful, under circumstances or conditions likely to produce great bodily harm or death, to willfully cause or permit a child to suffer, or to inflict thereon unjustifiable physical pain or mental suffering, or, having the care or custody of a child, to willfully cause or permit the person or health of that child to be injured, or to willfully cause or permit that child to be placed in a situation where their person or health may be endangered and a violation of these provisions punishable as a misdemeanor or felony.

Existing law defines murder as the unlawful killing of a human being, or a fetus, except as specified, with malice aforethought. Existing law punishes a person guilty of first-degree murder by death, imprisonment in the state prison for life without the possibility of parole, or imprisonment in the state prison for a term of 25 years to life, and of 2nd-degree murder by imprisonment in the state prison for a term of 15 years to life. Existing law requires a person who personally uses a firearm to commit, among other certain specified felonies, murder to be punished by an additional and consecutive term of imprisonment in the state prison for 25 years to life if the person discharged the firearm and proximately caused great bodily injury or death.