Girouard
v. State
Court
of Appeals of
321
Dressler,
pp. 238-242
Facts: The defendant’s wife verbally taunted him. He killed her. He was convicted of murder. He appeals on the basis that her provocation
was sufficient to mitigate his offense to manslaughter.
Issue: Should the defendant’s offense
be mitigated to manslaughter?
Rule: Words can only constitute
adequate provocation to mitigate if they are accompanied by the threat of
bodily harm.
Analysis: Joyce’s taunting did not realistically
threaten any bodily harm to the defendant; therefore, her provocation was not
adequate to mitigate the defendant’s offense.
The
reason for this rule is that as a matter of social policy, we don’t want
domestic disputes to end in the killing of a spouse.
Conclusion: The court upheld the verdict.
Notes
and Comments
1. The rule from
this case defines adequate provocation as “calculated to inflame the passion of
a reasonable man and tend to cause him to act for the moment from passion
rather than reason.” Under the
Christiancy instruction, I would vote for manslaughter. The difference between the two instructions,
in my view, is that the Christiancy instruction does not require the
provocation to be “calculated”. It also
softens the language such that it is necessary only that the provocation “might
render” someone “liable” to act irrationally.
2. Presumably, in
practice, words really do cause violent reactions. I think the rule is as it is because we think
people should not react to words with violence. Therefore, we will punish people for doing
so. I’m not sure how you can justify
informational words being more provocative than insults.
3. Dressler tries
to bait us with a case where lay jurors voted to acquit a man who beat his
girlfriend because she berated him. The
decision makes sense to me. I think
sometimes words can hurt more than fists, and the law should reflect this. People shouldn’t feel like their choice of
verbally abusing someone is protected by the law.
4. If we would
have mitigated the seriousness of the guy’s offense if he killed people while
being sodomized, it would seem that it would be inconsistent to not mitigate
the offense when he kills later.
5. Under Girouard,
the question is whether the provocation is adequate. Here, if D may reasonably infer that X and V
were having sex, and if V was technically still D’s wife, then technically D
would have a defense to murder.
6. It appears
that Aaron would be found guilty of voluntary manslaughter in