State v. Shane

State v. Shane
State v. Shane
Court	Ohio Supreme Court
Full case name	The State of Ohio, Appellee, v. Shane, Appellant.
Decided	May 13, 1992
Citations	590 N.E.2d 272; 63 Ohio St. 3d 630
Court membership
Judges sitting	Thomas J. Moyer, Robert E. Holmes, Herbert R. Brown, A. William Sweeney, Alice Robie Resnick, Andrew Douglas, J. Craig Wright
Case opinions
Decision by	Resnick
Concurrence	Moyer, Holmes, Brown, Sweeney, Douglas, Wright
Keywords
	Crime of passion; Homicide; Provocation;

State v. Shane (590 N.E.2d 272, 63 Ohio St. 3d 630) is a 1992 Ohio Supreme Court voluntary manslaughter case that developed a two-step test for "reasonably sufficient provocation" and held that verbal confessions of adultery could not be "reasonably sufficient" provocation.

Procedural posture

The trial judge gave jury instructions for both murder and manslaughter. The defendant was convicted of murder and appealed, claiming the manslaughter instruction had "improperly placed upon him the burden of proving that he acted under the influence of a sudden passion or rage".^[1]

Facts

Robert Shane strangled his fiancee, Tina Wagner, after she verbally admitted to sleeping with other men.

Issues

What is "reasonably sufficient provocation" under Ohio's murder statute?
Whether mere words can be adequate provocation.^[2]

Court's decision

Ohio's murder statute requires "serious provocation occasioned by the victim that is reasonably sufficient to incite the person into using deadly force".^[3]^[1] The court developed a two-step test for "reasonably sufficient provocation" based on the four requirements for voluntary manslaughter:

Reasonable provocation
Actual provocation
A reasonable person would not have cooled off between the provocation and homicide
The defendant had not cooled off between the provocation and homicide

The court reasoned that factors 1 and 3 were objective factors, while factors 2 and 4 were subjective factors. Under the court's two-step analysis a trial judge would first apply an objective standard to evaluate whether the provocation was "reasonably sufficient" to bring on a sudden passion or fit of rage. If the objective standard is satisfied under the reasonable person test, the jury may then consider whether the defendant was "under the influence of a sudden passion or in a sudden fit of rage".^[4]^[5]^[1]

The court held that "words alone will not constitute reasonably sufficient provocation to incite the use of deadly force in most situation".^[4]^[1]

References

^ ^a ^b ^c ^d Mark W. Biggerman, State v. Shane: Confessions of Infidelity as Reasonable Provocation for Voluntary Manslaughter, 19 Ohio N.U.L. Rev. 977 (1993).
^ Reed, Alan (April 22, 2016). Loss of Control and Diminished Responsibility: Domestic, Comparative and International Perspectives. Routledge. ISBN 978-1-317-10330-1.
^ ohio rev. code ann.§ 2903.03
^ ^a ^b State v. Shane, 63 Ohio St. 3d 630 (1992)
^ Hagel, Thomas (November 10, 2017). Anderson's Ohio Manual of Criminal Complaints and Indictments. LexisNexis. ISBN 978-1-5221-4263-8.

External links

Text of State v. Shane is available from: Leagle

[ohio-1] Mark W. Biggerman, State v. Shane: Confessions of Infidelity as Reasonable Provocation for Voluntary Manslaughter, 19 Ohio N.U.L. Rev. 977 (1993).

[2] Reed, Alan (April 22, 2016). Loss of Control and Diminished Responsibility: Domestic, Comparative and International Perspectives. Routledge. ISBN 978-1-317-10330-1.

[3] rev. code ann.§ 2903.03

[case-4] State v. Shane, 63 Ohio St. 3d 630 (1992)

[5] Hagel, Thomas (November 10, 2017). Anderson's Ohio Manual of Criminal Complaints and Indictments. LexisNexis. ISBN 978-1-5221-4263-8.

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