What is a Crime of Passion?

Although not given a legal definition in Texas statutes, a crime of passion is generally considered an offense that is committed when the perpetrator is emotionally or psychologically compromised. The term is most commonly associated with homicides, as it is thought that murder charges can be mitigated when there is evidence that an emotional trigger, rather than a premeditated intent to kill, was to blame for the offense.
In most cases, the "crime of passion" must occur during, prior to, or shortly after the triggering event that induces emotional duress on the perpetrator.
The Texas Penal Code does include a legal definition of "sudden passion," which is based on extremely temporary circumstances and must be proved by a preponderance of evidence – meaning that it more likely than not existed – in order for it to mitigate culpability for a murder charge:
"(a) A person acts under the immediate influence of sudden passion if he or she engages in conduct that would otherwise be an offense and he or she: (1) commits the offense intentionally and knowingly; and (2) is under the immediate influence of passion resulting from provocation by the deceased or another acting with the permission of the deceased. (b) In this section , the term sudden passion means a passion so acute that the mind of the actor is at the time incapable of cool reflection."
The penal code goes on to define "provocation" as "an offense that would commonly produce a degree of rage in a partial ordinary person." Under Texas law, a crime of passion can therefore be defined as one that is committed due to highly aggravated provocation – in other words, in the heat of the moment without premeditation. These types of crimes frequently involve relationships, especially in cases of domestic violence in which one partner suffers severe provocation at the hands of the other. Other common examples include:
The bottom line is that defining criminal offenses involving passion is a complex undertaking. While there are degrees of offense such as manslaughter or intoxication manslaughter that may be charged in situations that meet the criteria of a crime of passion, not all crimes of passion will ultimately be punished in the same way in the Texas criminal justice system. Experts can help defense an individual’s legal rights in cases such as these.

Texas Law on Crimes of Passion

In Texas, crimes of passion, also known as "temporary insanity" or "irresistible impulse," are governed by the same homicide statutes as all other types of killings. There is no specific statutory language that addresses this type of case in the Texas Penal Code. Instead, these cases generally fall under general murder provisions but, as with all murders, there are multiple types available, including:
It is important to understand the statute or structures of a particular charge to see what type of level of intent needs to be proven to get a conviction. In other words, is the jury considering whether a person "purposely" or "knowingly" killed the victim or did so "recklessly" or through "criminal negligence"?
The most severe is the capital murder charge, as outlined by §19.03(a) of the Texas Penal Code. It includes the death of a Texas peace officer, correctional officer, judge, or juror and also covers situations where a person:
The immediate punishment for capital murder is death. If the state does not pursue capital punishment options, the crime will still be charged as a "first-degree felony" and is then punishable by five years to 99 years or life in prison in addition to a fine of up to $10,000.
Murder in the second degree carries a more lenient penalty under §19.02(b) and is generally classified as a knowing or intentional behavior that causes the death of another person. It is a second degree felony punishable by two to 20 years in prison as well as a fine of up to $10,000.
Only in certain circumstances can crime of passion killings be mitigated down to the level of manslaughter under §19.04. A manslaughter conviction may obtain in instances where someone recklessly kills another person, which is a completely different type of charge from murder because it requires only the lowest level of culpable mental state, which is "recklessly."
Manslaughter is also a second-degree felony in Texas, punishable by two to 20 years in prison and a fine of up to $10,000.

A History of Crimes of Passion in Texas

(1) The infamous bathrobe murder. In 1992, Linda Mae O’Neal was a fifty-five-year-old local florist passionate about gardening and the outdoors. Her nemesis, the sixty-two-year-old Walter Tom Winningham, was a retired city dweller who preferred watching television over undertaking physical exertion. In May of 1992, Walter arrived at the flower shop to purchase some sunflower seeds from Ms. O’Neal’s extensive selection. While he was there, he told her to keep the change from his $50 bill. He then walked out of the store, got in his car parked nearby, and returned shortly before the store opened at nine o’clock. Ms. O’Neal had arrived early that morning to work on potting her plants. Rather than go inside and find out where Ms. O’Neal kept her seeds, Walter decided to buy them from a competitor. He then walked back to the flower shop, and still clad in a bathrobe, broke through the glass door. Seeing Ms. O’Neal covered in dirt, he choked her twice before hitting her on the head with the bat many times. Thus began a crime of passion that would lead to his imprisonment for life.
(2) The shooting of the unfaithful husband. In 1984, Juanita MacDonald received notification that her husband Dr. Arthur MacDonald would be meeting with New York police to face drug charges. Arthur was, at the time, a dentist with an office in the Bowery section of New York City and a sickening drug addiction. Juanita took a major step in trying to remove her husband from his destructive life by rushing home to La Marque, Texas, to meet with her attorney. Upon learning that her husband would be charged with the distribution of controlled substances, she resolved to kill him. Juanita jumped in her vehicle and drove two hundred miles to his motel room to confront him. Dr. MacDonald had returned to his motel room shortly after Juanita took off for La Marque. After calling a friend about his drug problems, he sat on the bed and waited for his wife. He told her about the charges against him and what he believed to be an opportunity to beat the charges by becoming a police informant. Desirous of seeing her husband-maybe just one last time-Juanita listened to his proposal. She was intrigued by the prospect of getting off the drugs so she asked to use the bathroom. It was dark inside the room, but enough light to see a bit. She picked up the gun she carried in her purse and fired a shot in her husband’s direction, but it missed him. She then turned the light on, pointed the gun again, asked if he was ready to get off drugs, and pulled the trigger. It seems that Dr. MacDonald answered with a "yes" but was trying to reach for some tape in the nightstand when the gun discharged into his throat. The two had argued frequently about his drug addiction, and there seems to be no doubt Juanita shot her husband out of a crime of passion. She had lined out a plan to free him of drugs and would even turn herself in as a police informant to do so.

Legal Ramifications and Punishments

Should someone be charged with a crime of passion, they can expect the case to proceed through the criminal court system much like any other. A crime of passion is still a violent crime, after all, and violence is taken seriously by authorities in Texas no matter the circumstances. The first step in prosecution for a crime of passion will be a decision on whether the prosecutor wishes to file charges. This decision is often based on whether the acts the defendant committed fall under a legal defense for mitigating factors in the range of allowable homicide charges under Texas law. In other words, the prosecution will carefully examine the circumstances surrounding the crime of passion to determine if they qualify for defenses such as provocation or a mistake of fact.
Should the prosecutor determine the defense is utterly lacking in merit, or if he or she believes the mitigating factors against the charges are present, he or she may decide towards not filing a charge at all. If the prosecution thinks there are mitigating factors present but still wishes to file a charge, they usually will file a charge of voluntary manslaughter (as opposed to murder or aggravated murder).
If the charge proceeds through the criminal court system, the defendant has the right to a jury trial. The defense attorney may request a change of venue, meaning the case will proceed in a different court than originally assigned, typically due to pretrial publicity making it difficult to find a qualified jury. From this point, the case proceeds exactly the same way it would for any other type of violent crime charge.
Once a verdict is reached by the jury, he or she decides a course of sentencing and punishment. The punishment for voluntary manslaughter can vary widely, just as punishment for other felonies can. Voluntary manslaughter is a second-degree felony, most subject to a range of two years up to 20 years in prison and a fine of up to $10,000.

Fighting a Charge for a Crime of Passion

In order to defend against a crime of passion charge, an attorney must be familiar with the tenets of voluntary manslaughter law. A Texas lawyer defending a case of this type may choose to pursue one of several common defense strategies when building a client’s case. These include using expert witnesses to testify about the client’s emotional state and personal history, persistence in pursuing discovery and investigation, and securing physical evidence from the crime scene. As a matter of course, every murder case must demonstrate intent. In voluntary manslaughter, the person committing the crime must have intentionally caused the death of the victim. The murder must also be executed in the heat of passion brought on by provocation. If there was an extensive lapse of time from the provocation to the murder, the defense may ask that the charge be upgraded to murder. The state may argue that the accused had enough time to cool off from the provocation. In addition, if a third party was effectively able to moderate the situation and reduce the provocation so that the accused could have calmed down, the state may also argue that the accused should be charged with murder rather than crime of passion. There are other broader defenses to this type of charge that may also be used in Texas. The first is called affirmative defenses. Under this defense , the state must provide the jury with evidence showing that a reasonable person would have been provoked to the same degree as the accused. If the state is unable to do so, the jury must find the defendant not guilty. A similar affirmative defense is known as mitigating circumstances. In this case, the defense also has the initial burden of proof, but it must show that the provocation is sufficient to cause an ordinary person to believe a violent response was the only option to respond to the provocation. Finally, if the accused reasonably believed that the death threat was imminent, a defense of reasonable belief could be used. Emotion plays a large role in this type of defense, so an attorney will typically secure a forensic psychologist as an expert witness for the defense. The psychologist should have a background in post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and/or traumatic shock syndrome. This factor is critical in building the defense of voluntary manslaughter and can mean the difference between a conviction of manslaughter or murder. The relationship history and/or allegations of prior abuses against the accused can also contribute to demonstrate the defense that was ultimately met with the crime of passion. Using these various strategies, the defense will work with the accused to identify the most helpful areas of the case that can be leveraged to build up the defense case.

Emotions in the Courtroom

It is no surprise to the average person to hear that many crimes are not committed in a purely rational context. However, in the context of a legal proceeding, the challenge becomes one of separating the emotional context of the crime from the legal arguments. While there is no question that an emotional context may have been involved spurring the defendant to commit the crime in the first place, that does not necessarily make it a relevant factor in the legal proceedings that will follow. Again, this is very much a situation where the assistance of an experienced attorney can help. Additionally, failure to present the relevant and necessary emotional evidence at a criminal trial could, in fact, prevent it from being raised on appeal.

The Effects on Victims and Their Families

Crimes of passion not only wreak havoc on the families of victims, but also can have devastating effects on the perpetrator’s family. When a family member is doubled over in grief after being told of their loved one’s brutal and unexpected murder, or when they must confront the reality that their daughter or son has killed the one they loved and now sits in a jail while awaiting trial for first degree felony murder, how should they cope? What will they tell her friends and their own? It is often difficult to comprehend the facts surrounding the violent act of murder enough to explain it to others, let alone understand it for themselves.
Those who have suffered a violent loss don’t go through this process alone. Information is available through supportive hotlines, pamphlets, and social media sites. In Texas, those who have lost a loved one to a crime of passion have numerous support groups to choose from. Specific organizations include Hope House, The Blue-Santa Organization, Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD), Crime Victims’ Institute, and Crime Survivors Resource Center. Many of these organizations have hotlines available 24/7 and offer support groups and informal counseling designed specifically for surviving family members.
In addition to the pain inflicted upon the family of the victim and the perpetrator, couples must grapple with the fact that the one who murdered was loved once. While many may be only familiar with the term "forgive and forget" from self-help books and punchline joke approaches to violent crimes and domestic violence, in practice forgiveness and forgetting isn’t enough. Those left behind often find themselves trying to figure out their own emotional responses to what has occurred and how they relate to the perpetrator. Many people choose to remove the perpetrator from their lives indefinitely; in some cases, this is a matter of survival. However, some choose to try to understand what occurred and attempt to help the perpetrator through the criminal justice system by attending trials and hearing the facts as presented directly from the district attorney’s office. Others choose to interview in prison and attend psychological evaluations in order to gain a better understanding of what it means to kill someone they loved.
There’s no right or wrong way to approach a violent crime, and while forgiveness and understanding are necessary aspects of coping with the trauma of a violent act, survivors require specific information and guidance when learning how to cope and move forward in healthy and appropriate ways. There is no magic remedy to remove the pain, and long-term psychological support may be necessary. That fact alone reinforces the importance of establishing an individualized plan for crime survivors and their families.

Development over Time of Crime of Passion Laws

Crime of passion laws have evolved from the 18th century when the French Penal Code allowed for certain legal defenses for people who committed acts of violence against those with whom they had romantic relationships or in members of their family. In practice, while the French allowed attempts to mitigate a charge when the crime involved a crime of passion, other continental European legal systems, such as the German Penal Code adopted in 1871, did not.
In the United States, crime of passion laws have been part of legal precedent since the late 1830s when courts began to recognize intoxication as a relevant factor that should be considered in criminal cases. Eventually, intoxication laws would evolve into what America now calls a valid defense at trial in crimes of passion. While such a defense is considered, it is limited and falls well short of allowing the accused to avoid conviction entirely. In fact, the American Bar Association recognizes provocation as a partial defense to murder in many states, which preserves the right for juries to be lenient in sentencing for serious crimes that were committed in the heat of passion, such as murder. In modern times, the U.S. has classified crimes of passion as homicides that might have been justified under different circumstances, but may have been committed in a "fit of rage" or "loss of self-control . "
In Texas, provocation has been accepted as an affirmative defense to murder. Revised Article 125 in the codification for the Penal Code defines provocation as insults that may damage a person’s self-esteem and social standing. In some cases, severe insults may permit self-defense and mitigate a murder charge in death sentences.
In 1996, the Court of Criminal Appeals in Texas would go on to offer guidance in the case of Bousa v. State, which concerned a homicide induced by provocation.
At trial, the defendant was not permitted to bring in character witnesses who attempted to testify that the victim often insulted men. The defendant’s nephew testified that he knew of the victim’s insulting treatment of women, and that victim’s response was often to tell the girl to "go find someone else."
Clearly, enough evidence was presented to show that a crime of passion defense would have been possible, because the defendant prevailed on appeal. Today, the crime of passion defense will be considered in any case that allows for the use of provocation as a mitigating factor when a murder charge is present.
While crimes of passion are not "the same" as other murders, they are still subject to prosecution and punishment. Anyone found guilty, even in the heat of provocation can lose their freedom for a long time, even in Texas, where retribution is as much about preserving the social order as it is about retribution.