Court Opinion

ID: 9604393
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 02:21:08.54569+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:03:33.041844
License: Public Domain

CROCKETT, Chief Justice
(concurring)
I concur in affirming the conviction. However, I think it appropriate to point out what I regard as a distinction between the temporary “heat of passion” involved in reducing an intentional homicide to manslaughter and the “irresistible passion,” or “irresistible impulse,” which is a criterion to be applied in judging the claim of insanity of one accused of crime.
The latter has been stated by this court to include a situation where a person, “ * * * is conscious of the nature of the act he is committing and able to distinguish between right and wrong and knows that the act is wrong yet his will, that is, the governing power of his mind, has been so completely destroyed that his actions are not subject to it, but are beyond his control.” 1 Under that definition, if the accused’s reason and judgment are destroyed by mental disease to the point where he is “irresistibly compelled” in that his actions are not subject to his will, he would be considered to have been insane at the time the act was committed and therefore not held responsible.
It is true that the language of some cases indicates th'at the passion requisite to reduce a homicide to manslaughter should completely overcome the will, including the cases referred to in the main *36opinion. But it'is submitted that the better view is that in order to constitute manslaughter it is not necessary that the will be completely overcome nor that the reason be completely destroyed. The proposition is well stated in Maher v. People: “It will not do to hold that reason should be entirely dethroned or overpowered by passion so as to destroy intelligent volition. Such a degree of mental disturbance would be equivalent to utter insanity, * * 2 In contrast to this, what is required in order to reduce a homicide to manslaughter is that there be heat of passion, upon some adequate provocation, such that the accused’s ability to reason and to control his actions are temporarily so disturbed or obscured as to raise a reasonable doubt that he is incapable of acting with the intent and/or malice required for a conviction of murder.3

. Jury instruction approved in State v. Poulson, 14 Utah 2d 213, 381 P.2d 93 (1963) ; see also State v. Kirkham, 7 Utah 2d 108, 319 P.2d 859 (1958).

. 10 Mich. 212. See also: People v. Calton, 5 Utah 451, appears in 16 P. 902 as Territory v. Oatton [sic] (1888), reversed on other grounds Calton v. Utah, 130 U.S. 83, 9 S.Ct. 435, 32 L.Ed. 870 (1888) ; State v. Gardner, 219 S.C. 97, 64 S.E.2d 130 (1951).
See Ryan v. State, 115 Wis. 488, 92 N.W. 271 (1902) ; Olds v. State, 44 Fla. 452, 33 So. 296 (1902) ; Johnson v. State, 129 Wis. 146, 108 N.W. 55 (1906) ; People v. Poole, 159 Mich. 350, 123 N.W. 1093 (1909) ; State v. Davis, 50 S.C. 405, 27 S.E. 905 (1897) ; Maher v. People, 10 Mich. 212 (1862); see also statements of the rule in varying forms, 40 C.J.S. Homicide p. 903, 40 Am.Jur.2d p. 353.