Opinion ID: 1973139
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 6

Heading: Instructions on Adequate Provocation

Text: The defendant asked for instructions based on Commonwealth v. McCusker, 448 Pa. 382, 292 A.2d 286 (1972), to the effect that in deciding what constitutes adequate provocation, reliance may be placed on the cumulative impact of a series of related events. The presiding justice found that the instruction proposed by the defense amounted to comment on the evidence, which would be proper for defense counsel to argue to the jury, but would not be proper for the presiding justice's instructions. During its deliberation, the jury sent the following question to the presiding justice: Can the jury consider marital problems part of the legal provocation? The presiding justice, again refusing to comment on the evidence, responded by instructing in the language of 17-A M.R.S.A. § 203(2)(B) that provocation is adequate if it was reasonable for Mr. Flick to react to the provocation with extreme anger or extreme fear. . . . [E]xtreme anger or extreme fear of such intensity that it obscures the individual's reasoning and impels him to act with physical violence. The provocation must be such that you can say it is reasonable for the person to react to it by having the reason obscured, and being impelled to act with physical violence. The question here is not whether the issue of provocation can be generated by evidence of cumulative preceding events. The presiding justice did not refuse to instruct on provocation, or prevent counsel from presenting his argument to the jury. Flick argues, however, that the instructions erroneously suggested to the jury that they should not consider the prior incidents at all. We reject the defendant's characterization of the charge. The presiding justice properly followed the definition of adequate provocation in § 203(2), directing the jury to decide whether it was reasonable for Flick to react with extreme anger or fear. He directed the jury's attention to the question of whether Flick's reason was obscured by provocation at the moment of the killing, but he left the jury entirely free to consider the effects of preceding events in deciding what provocation would be adequate to make extreme anger or fear reasonable. The defendant was not prejudiced either by the instructions given or by any omission. We need not decide whether it would have been proper to exclude consideration of such prior events altogether. However, there are definite limitations on the type of conduct deemed legally adequate to mitigate the punishment for a felonious homicide.... State v. Hilliker, Me., 327 A.2d 860, 865 (1974) (decided before the adoption of the present Maine Criminal Code; emphasis in original). The presiding justice properly avoided suggesting to the jury that the prior marital problems could, in and of themselves, be considered provocation adequate to reduce murder to manslaughter. Such evidence could only be relevant, if at all, to the question whether it would be reasonable for the actor to react... with extreme anger or extreme fear to such other provocation as might have occurred. The jury here was free to consider the evidence for that purpose.