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473 S.W.2d 11

McGee v. State

Court of Criminal Appeals of Texas

Decided October 20, 1971

Court of Criminal Appeals of Texas · decided 1971-10-20

Cited by 17 later decisions — most recently September 1984

17 state decisions

Key passage — most relied on by later courts

““(a) A person commits an offense if he causes the death of an individual under circumstances that would constitute murder under Section 19.02 of this code, except that he caused the death under the immediate influence of sudden passion arising from an adequate cause. (b) ‘Sudden passion’ means passion directly caused by and arising out of provocation by the individual killed or another acting with the person killed which passion arises at the time of the offense and is not solely the result of former provocation. (c) ‘Adequate cause’ means cause that would commonly produce a degree of anger, rage, resentment, or terror in a person of ordinary temper, sufficient to render the mind incapable of cool reflection.””

quoted by 3 later decisions, including Ray v. State, Schoelman v. State

““Anger is the general term for emotional reaction of extreme displeasure and suggests neither a definite degree of intensity, nor an outward manifestation; rage implies loss of self-control from violence of emotion; resentment is a feeling of indignant displeasure at something regarded as a wrong, insult, or injury.”

quoted by 2 later decisions, including Schoelman v. State, Hobson v. State

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1971-10-20

View the full empirical analysis of this case →

ODOM, Judge

¶1(dissenting).

¶2I cannot agree to the affirmance of this case. I respectfully dissent.

¶3The majority has concluded that, as a matter of law, there are no facts in evidence which would authorize a jury to find that the mind of appellant was incapable of cool reflection when he shot the deceased. The statute (Art. 1257c, V.A.P.C.) only requires facts, sufficient to present the issue, that the killing occurred under the immediate influence of a sudden passion arising from an adequate cause.

¶4The adequate cause in the statute is “such cause as would commonly produce a degree of anger, rage, resentment, or terror 1 in a person of ordinary temper sufficient to render the mind incapable of cool reflection.”

¶5The record is replete with testimony that supplies adequate cause to submit the charge on murder without malice. The jury, as the fact finders, could then “remove all doubt as to the question.”

¶6I would reverse and remand.

ONION, P. J., joins in this dissent.

¶7. Anger is the general term for the emotional reaction of extreme displeasure and suggests neither a definite degree of intensity, nor an outward manifestation; rage implies loss of self-control from violence of emotion; resentment is a feeling of indignant displeasure at something regarded as a wrong, insult, or injury; and terror is a state of intensive fear. See Webster’s Dictionary.

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