‘Crime of passion’ is oftentimes how the murder of a spouse is reported in the news media. Crimes of passion pleas are also used to in the court system to justify murder.
But what is a crime of passion?
Legal Information Institute defines a crime of passion from the criminal law standpoint as “a crime committed in the ‘heat of passion’ or in response to a provocation, as opposed to a crime that was premeditated or deliberated.”
This definition further states that provocation can downgrade the decree of the crime, as it serves as a partial defense. A defendant may be granted a manslaughter charge rather than a murder conviction if they can successfully show that the killing occurred in the heat of passion.
The vast majority of murders fall into two broad categories: men who kill other men in violent confrontations; and men who plan to, and kill, their partners or former partners.
Dr. Jane Monckton Smith
Dr. Jane Monckton Smith disagrees that intimate partner homicides are truly crimes of passion, especially when there is a history of domestic abuse and coercive control.
Her book, In Control: Dangerous Relationships and How They End in Murder, outlines 8 phases that an abusive intimate partner will pass through before committing a murder. She calls this 8 stage journey the Homicide Timeline.
The Homicide Timeline
- Stage One: History: a history of control or stalking
- Stage Two: Early relationship: the commitment whirlwind
- Stage Three: Relationship: dominated by control
- Stage Four: Trigger: an event to challenge control
- Stage Five: Escalation: escalating control or the advent of stalking
- Stage Six: A change in thinking: a change of focus
- Stage Seven: Planning: planning a homicide
- Stage Eight: Homicide and/or suicide
From her research, intimate partner murders seem to be methodically planned events.
They aren’t crimes of passion that defense attorneys want to portray as their clients’ experiences.
Here’s a walk through of the Homicide Timeline:
An intimate partner comes into a new relationship with a history of being controling and may be someone who stalked prior partners. The relationship will be a “whirlwind romance” with quick commitment. Then the coercive control begins.
Coercive control is enforced by the abuser through what Monckton Smith coins The Jealousy Code and The Loyalty Code.
The Jealousy Code is often what is used as a defense for the “crime of passion” when a murder takes place. A partner is expected to avoid doing things that cause the controlling partner to become jealous. This may sound like, “It’s just because I love you so much,” or “I don’t like it when you wear your hair like that because other men look at you and I get so jealous.”
Similarly, The Loyalty Code is a tactic the controlling partner uses to make someone choose sides between the partner’s friends/family/co-workers and the controlling person. It’s a test to get the controlled partner to prove their devotion to the abuser and to remove any outside influence. This effectively isolates the victim from healthy relationships that would threaten the control the abuser has over them.
The victim is trapped in the relationship and succumbs to complaince.
Without a triggering event, Stage Three can last a lifetime.
Unlike the fairytale crime of passion story about infidelity being the cause of the fatal attack, a Stage Four trigger event happens when the abuser feels they are losing control over their partner.
Most often the perpetrator feels they are losing or have lost control when the victim asks for a separation or actually leaves the relationship.
Almost 1,000 women are murdered annually by their intimate partners.
The trigger event isn’t just a feeling of jealousy. The jealous partner actually feels that an injustice has been done to them. They cannot tolerate this humiltation. This causes the need for retailiation.
In an attempt to counteract the injustice, the abuser will try a myriad of tactics. These generally include stalking measures. Sending flowers, gift giving, begging for forgiveness or to be taken back, and threating suicide are all actions they may try to get the victim to return. They will do just about anything to regain control.
When the abuser realizes the manipulation attempts are not going to work is when they have a change in thinking. They go from trying to get the control back to destroying the victim. It’s in this stage that the idea of homicide becomes a critical probability.
Rather than trying to win their partner back, they decide to kill them.
The abuser then begins planning the demise of their partner. These plans can be developed in a matter or hours or over a number of weeks or months. But they are PLANS.
Stage Eight is the actual carrying out of murdering the victim or a murder/suicide.
A NCADV fact sheet reports that 72% of all murder-suicides involve an intimate partner and that 94% of the victims of these murder suicides are female.
Based on the Homicide Timeline, it doesn’t seem to me that intimate partner homicides are the crime of passion they are portrayed to be.
What do you think?
Is a murder committed by an abusive partner a crime of passion? Leave your thoughts in the comments below.
Not sure? Read In Control: Dangerous Relationships and How They End in Murder, by Dr. Jane Monckton Smith.
