to prove murder, you must prove intent. It’s an intentional killing of someone.

To be labelled a murderer when you didn’t mean to kill someone, is wrong. Manslaughter is viewed as a much less serious crime (even though you may get the same sentence). people who drink and drive and run people over can get convicted of manslaughter. people who drive a boat and run over people also. It’s viewed by the large majority of people as largely an unfortunate accidental situation, and many people feel sorry for those convicted of manslaughter and view them as a victim of unfortunate circumstances which resulted in the even more unfortunate death of someone.

So as GNZ says, the crime you are convicted of is everything. Some people who are pressed so hard for so long that they snap, lash out and someone dies aren’t the same sort of people who plan to kill people. So IMO the defense of provocation is necessary and should remain.

ADC, manslaughter is not just involuntary homocide. That is too narrow a way to look at it.

GNZ, good point. Murder is murder is murder. By removing provocation you are raising the level of sentence just by giving the killing a more serious description.

A murder conviction is much more serious indictment than a manslaughter (involuntary) one.

This whole proposal to rid us of the plague of this provocation law is a joke. The law actually worked. That R sole didn’t get downgraded to manslaughter from a successful attempt to argue provocation. He got bounced on it. So the law actually worked, so why change it?? Sure, we didn’t like his attempt to smear her. But who in this country had any sympathy for that, or felt any worse towards Miss Elliot because of it? Noone.

So why change the law that came about because of a need. Laws come from necessity. Repealing a law because someone tried to use it (unsuccessfully) is ridiculous.

This is the same argument given against changing S.59. So it’s an about-face.

Killing someone after the fact may be justice but it is not self defense. That said, get me on a jury and I will let you off if you kill your childs murderer.

I thought National was abolishing the Sentencing Council (haven’t checked for a while).

Or more bluntly if my aunt had balls she’d be my uncle.

And then remember to be consistent her story throughout 5 hours of police questioning.

Remember, people, always take your lawyer’s advice and say nothing!

Edit: GPT, that is exactly what we did. I suppose that you could do it in sentencing, because you would already have had the trial. Of course, the judge may take a different view to the jury, so that isn’t such a good thing when a 10 year gap in the MPI is waiting.

FES – agree and as a tactic you would want to focus on self-defence but cover yourself (and client’s position) by getting the judge to advise the jury of the option. And that perhaps begs the question of why get rid of provocation? Or should the jury reject SD and then the judge apply provocation in sentencing?

However, you wouldn’t need to shoot the lock off, if the bedroom door opens inward as most do. A decent kick should bust it open.

Then in light of FE Smith’s wisdom in the posts above, would this be a possible scenario? Coddington shoots the scumbag then puts the warning shot through the ceiling.

Might not this provide a reasonable defence FES? The scumbag advances on Coddington. Terrified she puts a warning shot into the ceiling. He keeps coming. Still terrified, and shaking, she drops him with a lucky shot that was meant to have gone over his head.

I have been in two murder trials where we ran both defences. However, you are right as to it being rare: we only ran the one defence in each case but both times convinced the judge that they had to put provocation to the jury because it was present on the facts. We got manslaughter both times. I remain convinced that one of them is innocent and that for the other it was the correct verdict. Your point at the last part of your second para sums it up exactly.

Your third para is something that both you and I have pointed out before but almost nobody seems to have picked it up for discussion. Are we being unclear or is it a case of the crowd not wanting to have their hobby horse taken away from them?

2. Peterwn – the third limb is that it must actually be self defence. Shooting some bastard for killing your daughter, whilst entirely understandable, is not self defence. Both defences can be run together although it is rare. There has been a school of thought that they are mutally exclusive but case law would suggest that this is not the case. The above scenario could perhaps give an example – if the jury finds on the fact that the killing was motivated not by self defence but revenge then the partial defence would apply.

3. The point that is most missed by opponets to provocation as a defence is that by making it a sentencing option it will not prevent a hearing. I cannot imagine a Judge being prepared to not impose a life sentence due to provocation without hearing evidence. In short, the decision is taken from a jury and givne to a judge.

Further, do you really want to say that vigilantism should net no conviction, no jail time?

In a case like Coddington describes manslaughter best balances our empathy with the motive to kill but our disapproval of the action. Precisely what the type of case a defence of provocation should apply to.

Coddington must have read my piece, In Defence of the Partial Defence of Provocation.

Graeme – have another think. Suspended sentences of that sort were abolished much earlier than 2002 and even then were suspended by the Attorney General in most cases prior to that – if you get what I mean.

I don’t, as it happens. I’m thinking of a judicially-ordered suspended sentence as could be ordered under s 21A of the Criminal Justice Act 1985. I understood such a suspended sentence to be what DPF was referring to. The section was repealed in 2002.

Like Graeme said, there is no longer any such thing as a suspended sentence. The closest you can get now is an order to come up for sentence if called upon.

Don’t forget that in the situation Deborah describes, then to get a lesser sentence she would have to convince the Court that she was provoked. If the Crown, as the prosecuting party, did not accept it (and it may not, as it cannot be seen to encourage revenge killings) then Deborah would have to go to a disputed facts hearing in order to try and convince the Court that she should be allowed to claim provocation. Now the only way that she could convince the Court that she was provoked would be to attack the actions of the person she had killed.

But that is why everybody wants the law changed, so that the accused is not allowed to attack the actions and/or reputation of the deceased.

So what is the point to a change

Graeme, I personally hate the idea of a Sentencing Council and hope the law is changed very soon. Very glad it won’t be coming in.

Peterwn: I have been on a couple of defence teams where we have had ‘a bob each way’. It worked, too.

Re other comments – where judges decide things about running the provocation and ‘self defence’, the decisions are appealable. A judge will err on the safe side to minimise the risk of a retrial being ordered.

There was a case where the judge would not let an accused a ‘bob each way’ on provocation and ‘self defence’, but the decision may have been ituation dependent.