State v. Forrest
Facts: (D) father was terminally ill. (D) went to visit his father in the hospital, and when all nurses were out of the room, the (D) shot his father in the head four times, cocking the gun after each shot. Issue: Could the (D) troubled state be a defense against premeditation? Rule: Killing in "heat of passion" on sudden and adequate provocation means killing without premeditation under influence of sudden passion which renders mind incapable of cool reflection. Reasoning: Evidence of premeditation and deliberation in connection with defendant's shooting of his terminally ill father was sufficient to support first-degree murder charge; defendant's father was lying helpless in hospital bed when defendant shot him four separate times, defendant's revolver had to be cocked each time before it could be fired, and defendant admitted that he had thought about putting his father out of his misery because he knew he was suffering.
Girouard v. State
Facts: Defendant and the victim were married for about 3 months. The victim told the defendant that she did not love him and that she would have him court-martialed from the military. She kept throwing insults at him. The defendant went to the kitchen and grabbed a knife and hid it behind a pillow. The victim asked the defendant what he is going to do about this and the defendant leaped and stabbed her with the knife 19 times. Issue: Should the offense of the defendant be mitigated to voluntary manslaughter because he was provoked by his wife’s verbal insults? Rule: To mitigate murder to manslaughter pursuant to the "rule of provocation": there must have been adequate provocation; killing must have been in heat of passion; it must have been a sudden heat of passion, that is, killing must have followed provocation before there was a reasonable opportunity for passion to cool; there must have been a causal connection between the provocation, the passion, and the fatal act. For provocation to be adequate to mitigate murder to manslaughter, it must be calculated to inflame the passion of a reasonable man and tend to cause him to act for the moment from passion rather than reason. Words alone are not adequate provocation to mitigate murder to manslaughter.
Rationale: The defendant is asking the court to extend the traditional provocative scenarios to include mere words. Words alone cannot be considered proper provocation to mitigate murder to manslaughter. If this is allowed, then every domestic disturbance that results in murder will be mitigated down to voluntary manslaughter. The test is whether a reasonable man will act how the defendant acted under the given circumstances and it is concluded that words alone will not provoke a reasonable man to murder another human being. Conviction affirmed.