crime of passion n. a defendant's excuse for committing a crime due to sudden anger or heartbreak, in order to eliminate the element of "premeditation." This usually arises in murder or attempted murder cases, when a spouse or sweetheart finds his/her "beloved" having sexual intercourse with another and shoots or stabs one or both of the coupled pair. To make this claim the defendant must have acted immediately upon the rise of passion, without the time for contemplation or allowing for "a cooling of the blood." It is sometimes called the "Law of Texas" since juries in that state are supposedly lenient to cuckolded lovers who wreak their own vengeance. The benefit of eliminating premeditation is to lessen the provable homicide to manslaughter with no death penalty and limited prison terms. An emotionally charged jury may even acquit the impassioned defendant. this definition can be found at http://legal-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/crime+of+passion
Passion Crimes happen quite often. We've all had those moments in life where something effects us so strongly we ourselves can not control our actions caused by the situation. If one were to sit back and really look and think about a situation I'm sure a lot of these cases would never have came about, but that's not the case. Is a sudden heat of the moment decision a reason to get off? Did one not still do the crime at hand? So why do some juries sympathize and let a guilty man or woman walk free? I think its because we can all relate to the situation-- and all would have had thoughts of the same acts.
Brene Brown Ph.D disagrees with my theory. her thoughts on the subject can be found at http://www.brenebrown.com/crimes-of-passion/
But whether right or wrong the fact is there, it still happens and happens often. Maybe in the heat of the moment we can't control our feelings, but maybe we can. Only time and extensive research will show that.
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