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Essay on The Defence of Provocation

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The Defence of Provocation

Provocation is a defence which reduces the offence of murder to manslaughter. Even though there may be an intent to kill it can be deemed that, in some circumstances, it is not appropriate to be classified as murder. It is not saying the killing is justified or excused. What it is saying is that the circumstances, the response (which resulted in the killing) is within the normal range of behaviour of what can be expected of the ordinary person and that it represents an acknowledgement of human frailty. This is the traditional view of the law.[1] When the penalty for murder was death, often provocation was a way of reducing the punishment from the death penalty to life imprisonment. In jurisdictions where there
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The Penalties and Sentencing Act (Qld) 1992, has also been applied in regards to the final sentencing punishment of the defendants of the following cases.

The Supreme Court case, R v Murray[4], states that the appellant pleaded not guilty to one charge of murder – where the appellant was found guilty of manslaughter – where, although the appellant intended to kill the deceased, he was only criminally responsible for manslaughter because of provocation under section 304[5] - where the appellant was sentenced to nine years imprisonment under section 161B[6] - where there was a declaration that the applicant had been convicted of a serious violence offence. Where the case R v McDougall and Collas[7] was applied as a precedent to the final decision of the case.

The Supreme Court case, R v Vollmer[8], states that the appellant was convicted of murdering his de facto partner – where evidence as to the deceased’s past violent history in a previous relationship was available at the time of trial but not relied on by defence counsel – where there was no evidence led at trial or on appeal of a history of violence between the appellant and the deceased – where the appellant sought to rely on the defences of self-defence and provocation at trial under sections 271(2), 304 and 668E(1)[9]. Where the cases R v Hajistassi[10], R v Mogg[11] and Re Knowles[12] were applied as precedent to the final decision of the case.

The Supreme Court case, R v
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