Court Opinion

ID: 9540515
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 16:17:01.937924+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T14:59:55.756397
License: Public Domain

DICKSON, Justice,
concurring and dissenting.
While the cases cited in the majority opinion support the general rule that “words alone” are not sufficient provocation to reduce murder to manslaughter, they primarily arise from claims of “fighting words” as provocation. Such cases do not involve sexual infidelity, the discovery of which can support a claim of provocation.
In Henning v. State (1886), 106 Ind. 386, 401, 6 N.E. 803, 813, this Court stated:
We think it abundantly settled that no man can deliberately take a woman’s life, even though she is his betrothed, because he believes that she is false to him, and if he does slay her, after time for deliberation, he is guilty of murder in the first degree. If upon first discovering her infidelity he slays her, then, possibly, the killing might be reduced to manslaughter, but it is nothing less than murder, when after ample time for passion to subside, he deliberately kills her.
Claims of provocation arising from infidelity were involved in both Wollam v. State (1978), 269 Ind. 286, 380 N.E.2d 82, and Harlan v. State (1985), Ind., 479 N.E.2d 569. Wollam upheld a murder conviction *942of a defendant who fatally shot his ex-wife, with whom he shared a “connubial and stormy relationship,” after she demanded money for sexual favors and “unfavorably compared the defendant’s sexual prowess with that of her other lovers.” Regarding possible provocation, this Court noted:
[t]here is nothing to show that the provocation offered by the decedent on the day of the killing was unusual in her continuing relationship with the defendant....
269 N.E.2d at 295, 380 N.E.2d at 87. In Harlan the giving of an instruction on the “cooling off” period was upheld where the defendant fatally shot his wife’s lover three weeks after he discovered the two engaged in sexual intercourse. The Court rejected the defendant’s argument that his wife’s flaunting of her affair and sexual belittling of him was so continuous as to maintain sudden heat.
Significantly, neither Wollam nor Harlan cites the “mere words” or “words alone” rationale to reject the infidelity-based provocation claim. As recognized in these cases by implication, and in Henning by express language, discovery of infidelity may properly serve as a basis for a defense claim of provocation.
Clearly, one manner in which a person could discover such infidelity is by verbal communication. The general recital that mere words are insufficient for provocation is more appropriate to taunting or insulting words, particularly in “fighting words” cases, but it should not necessarily be applied to words informing of conduct that could properly justify a provocation claim. Provocation should be recognized when a defendant discovers qualifying inflammatory conduct, regardless whether such knowledge is acquired visually or verbally.
Upon the other issues, I concur with the majority.