Opinion ID: 2629772
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Applicability of Heat of Passion Mitigator to Defendant

Text: The prosecution argues that the jury's failure to mark the second degree murderheat of passion verdict form could not have rendered the trial fundamentally unfair because the evidence could not support a second degree murder heat of passion verdict. We agree.
Section 18-3-103(3), the statute describing murder in the second degree and the heat of passion mitigator, provides: (1) A person commits the crime of murder in the second degree if the person knowingly causes the death of a person. .... (3) (a) Except as otherwise provided in paragraph (b) of this subsection (3), murder in the second degree is a class 2 felony. (b) Notwithstanding the provisions of paragraph (a) of this subsection (3), murder in the second degree is a class 3 felony where the act causing the death was performed upon a sudden heat of passion, caused by a serious and highly provoking act of the intended victim, affecting the defendant sufficiently to excite an irresistible passion in a reasonable person; but, if between the provocation and the killing there is an interval sufficient for the voice of reason and humanity to be heard, the killing is a class 2 felony. Ramirez correctly asserts that this court has recognized that the General Assembly added subsection (3)(b) to the second degree murder statute in 1996 intending the issue of provocation to be a mitigator to second degree murder that would reduce a charge of second degree murder from a class two felony to a class three felony, rather than intending second degree murderheat of passion to be a separate offense. People v. Garcia, 28 P.3d 340, 345-46 (Colo.2001). Logically, as such, the prosecution does not bear the burden of proving adequate provocation beyond a reasonable doubt, but rather bears the burden of proving a lack of adequate provocation under subsection (3)(b). Id. at 346. Because provocation represents a mitigating factor, rather than a separate offense, as in Garcia, the instructions in this case inaccurately characterized second degree murderheat of passion. However, because in this case, the evidence was insufficient to support a jury finding of the heat of passion mitigator, neither the incorrect instruction nor the absence of a signature on the jury verdict form constitutes plain error.
For heat of passion to apply in this case, the victim's actions, taken in the light most favorable to the defendant, must have been  serious and highly provoking act[s] . . . affecting the defendant sufficiently to excite an irresistible passion in a reasonable person . § 18-3-103(3)(b) (emphasis added). Ramirez relies on People v. Harris, 797 P.2d 816 (Colo.App.1990), for the assertion that where the legislature has treated provocation as a mitigator and the jury fails to make a finding as to whether heat of passion applies, the absence of such a finding must operate against the prosecution, and the defendant should be resentenced with the benefit of the heat of passion mitigator. In Harris, the jury found the defendant guilty of first degree assault with intent to commit serious bodily injury by means of a deadly weapon and a crime of violence. Id. at 817. The judge instructed the jury to make a finding as to the applicability of the mitigation of heat of passion to the charge of first degree assault; however, the jury failed to complete a special verdict form indicating its finding on the issue and neither defendant, the trial court, nor the prosecution noticed the oversight prior to the discharge of the jury. Id. The court of appeals determined that a heat of passion defense admits the doing of the act charged but seeks to mitigate it. Id. at 818. It instructed that once a defendant introduces some credible evidence that the defendant committed the crime under a heat of passion, the burden shifts to the prosecution to demonstrate the non-existence of circumstances justifying the heat of passion defense. Id. The court determined that the defendant should be given the benefit of the heat of passion mitigator upon resentencing where the jury failed to make a finding as to that mitigator. Id. However, Harris differs from the present case: the court of appeals in Harris acknowledged that a defendant must present some credible evidence that the crime was committed in the heat of passion. Id.; see also People v. Suazo, 867 P.2d 161, 168 (Colo.App. 1993) (finding that because defendant introduced credible evidence that the offense was committed under a heat of passion, the absence of a jury determination of provocation must operate against the prosecution). Here, there is no such credible evidence. The victim's refusal of Ramirez's marriage proposal, request that Ramirez leave her home, and subsequent push toward the door when the defendant did not comply, do not, as a matter of law, fulfill the requirement that the victim's act be serious and highly provoking or sufficient to excite an irresistible urge in a reasonable person. Heat of passion is a legal theory that recognizes that sometimes circumstances conspire to cause even a reasonable person to react passionately and violently. Those circumstances do not exonerate the offender, but do mitigate the consequences of the violent acts. However, the refusal of a marriage proposal, and the request or even demand to leave one's home cannot under any construction rise to the level of provocation that would justify a reasonable person in using violence. We have previously reached similar conclusions. In Coston v. People, 633 P.2d 470, 472-73 (Colo.1981), this court held that (1) evidence of a defendant's long-standing, though illicit, sexual relationship with the victim, (2) his jealousy over her when she began another affair, and (3) her attempt to terminate their relationship, in combination, did not constitute adequate provocation to warrant a heat of passion mitigating instruction to reduce murder to manslaughter. Specifically, this court concluded that the victim's decision to terminate her relationship with the defendant in this case does not amount to the sort of serious and highly provoking act which is sufficient to excite an irresistible passion in a reasonable person. Id. at 473. Additionally, in People v. Dooley, 944 P.2d 590, 593 (Colo.App.1997), the court of appeals held that the defendant failed at a minimum to establish any evidence that the victim's acts were sufficient to excite an irresistible passion in a reasonable person sufficient to justify a heat of passion instruction. The defendant and the victim involved were engaged in an intermittently romantic relationship over a one-year period, as the victim spent most of the year moving back and forth between the defendant's household and that of her husband, despite the defendant's displeasure at the situation. Id. at 592. The victim then acquired a separate apartment; during the defendant's visit, the victim denied the defendant's request to come and sit by him, stating that she did not want to be his whore anymore. Id. at 593. She then walked into the kitchen and sat down at a typewriter; the defendant followed her into the kitchen, ripped the paper out of the typewriter, and then stabbed the victim thirty-three times, killing her. Id. Courts across the country examining the issue have also generally concluded that a victim's rejection of the defendant's affections is not sufficient to constitute a highly provoking act that would excite an irresistible urge in a reasonable person. See, e.g., State v. Haque, 726 A.2d 205, 209 (Me.1999) (holding that a victim's concurrent refusal to marry the defendant, her desire to terminate their relationship, and her statement that we [are] just too different, did not constitute a legally adequate provocation as a matter of law and, therefore, did not generate a defense of adequate provocation); Turben v. State, 726 N.E.2d 1245, 1248 (Ind.2000) (determining that the combination of the defendant's stormy marriage, an argument between the defendant and the victim on the night of the murder, the victim's statement that she was obtaining a divorce, the victim's throwing a baby bottle at the defendant, and the defendant's explosive mood disorder did not inflame sudden heat sufficient to mitigate murder to voluntary manslaughter); State v. Arnold, 706 So.2d 578, 581, 584 (La.Ct.App.1998) (determining that heat of passion did not exist where the defendant's girlfriend had visited another man, the girlfriend's sister was arguing with the defendant, and the girlfriend's brother requested that the defendant leave the residence and grabbed defendant's arm); State v. Pulsifer, 724 A.2d 1234, 1239 (Me.1999) (deciding the trial court correctly rejected defendant's adequate provocation defense where the defendant claimed extreme anger and fear resulting from the efforts of others to interfere with his romantic relationship because those acts would not cause a reasonable man to stab the woman who is the object of his affection); State v. Locklair, 341 S.C. 352, 535 S.E.2d 420, 422, 424-25 (2000) (holding that evidence that the victim, defendant's ex-girlfriend, refused defendant's pleas to get back together with him, and that the victim's mother threw a cigarette case at defendant immediately before he shot the victim was not sufficient to constitute legal provocation); Gaston v. State, 930 S.W.2d 222, 225-26 (Tex. Ct.App.1996) (concluding that defendant's wife's nagging, taunting, and promising a divorce and property squabble did not provide the necessary evidence of provocation to support a voluntary manslaughter instruction); Commonwealth v. Brown, 387 Mass. 220, 439 N.E.2d 296, 301 (1982) (noting that where the defendant's wife choked defendant with his shirt and supposedly admitted to suspected adulterous acts claiming that she could do what she wanted with her vagina, the facts did not rise to the level of a sudden provocation sufficient to reduce murder to manslaughter); Washington v. State, 989 P.2d 960, 966, 968 (Okla.Crim.App.1999) (indicating that the victim's proclamation that she no longer loved the defendant and that she wanted nothing to do with him was insufficient to constitute adequate provocation to justify a first degree heat of passion manslaughter instruction).