Opinion ID: 2607866
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: History of Mitigating Factor

Text: Before addressing how a jury should be charged in a case where the influence of extreme emotional disturbance may reduce an intentional criminal homicide from murder to manslaughter, we pause to examine the history of the mitigating factor. The defense of extreme emotional disturbance is a modification of the defense of provocation or heat of passion. The provocation defense is very old. The distinction between a slaying in cold blood and one in the heat of passion existed in Anglo-Saxon criminal law and survived the Norman conquest of 1066. [4] The Doctrine of Provocation became firmly established in the law in 1628 when Coke adopted the distinction between homicide committed after deliberation and homicide committed in the course of a sudden quarrel. [5] Coke defined murder as necessitating malice aforethought, as distinguished from manslaughter, which he understood occurs upon a sudden occasion and was, therefore, called chance-medley. [6] Then, as now, manslaughter, understood as chance-medley, depended on the presence of heat of passion caused by adequate provocation. As originally conceived, the only adequate provocation for heat of passion was mutual combat. Hence, heat of passion was difficult to distinguish from self defense. Other provocations were gradually recognized as legally adequate, including assault and adultery. In some jurisdictions, illegal arrest, injuries to third parties, and words conveying information of the occurrence of a legally sufficient ground have also been recognized. [7] In the mid-nineteenth century, the judgment as to whether a provocation was adequate for the heat of passion defense was made by the judge as a determination of law; [8] however, judges gradually began to leave borderline cases to the jury. The reasonable man standard of review for provocation was devised as a manner of instructing the jury on marginal cases. It was also a device for enabling the jury to serve as community conscience or standard of measure for reasonable behavior. The reasonable man test for provocation contained four elements: (1) there had to be a provocation that would arouse a reasonable man to the heat of passion; (2) the defendant must actually have been aroused to the heat of passion; (3) a reasonable man would not have cooled off; and (4) the defendant did not, in fact, cool off. [9] This has been said to be an objective test, meaning that neither the mental nor physical peculiarities of the accused are evaluated in determining whether his loss of self-control was reasonable. [10]