On the evening of April 13, Luo, from Lujiang, Anhui province, stabbed her husband Wu to death. It is reported that, when Wu was out of home for social intercourse that night, his wife Luo asked him to bring her drumstick. As no drumstick were brought back, the couple began to argue at home. After they went downstairs, contradiction became more serious, and they grappled with each other. Luo then went back home to take a fruit knife and went downstairs again, leading to the tragedy. It is reported that the couple were living together with their son, daughter and their mother. Wu made a pet of his wife at ordinary times, giving whatever Luo wants. Later Luo wanted to make her mother-in-law live in storeroom, but Wu didn’t agree, which caused worsening of their relationship.
Theoretical definition:
Intentional homicide refers to killing others intentionally and illegally, which is a crime of infringing citizens’ personal democratic rights. The relatively minor circumstances of the crime of intentional homicide generally refers to killing with righteous indignation, killing on the grounds of provocation, killing in excessive defense, killing because the offender has been persecuted by the victim for a long time, and helping to kill.
Killing on grounds of provocation is a kind of crime of provocation in the theory of criminal law, which corresponds to premeditated murder, that is, there is no intention to kill, but under the stimulation and provocation of the victim, he loses his reason and control and kills others.
Referee rules:
First, second trial criminal adjudication of Lu Guiqing’s intentional homicide case
Case number: (2017) Min Xing Zhong No. 60
The defender of the appellant Lu Guiqing put forward provocation killing, asking for lenient punishment for Lu Guiqing. After investigation, killing on the grounds of provocation is that there is no intention to kill, but under the stimulation and provocation of the victim, he loses his reason and control and kills others. Killing on the grounds of provocation generally has the characteristics that the victim has a serious fault, and the defendant suffers from a strong mental stimulation or long-term bad mood which is beyond the tolerance of the defendant leading to the defendant’s exploding instantaneously and lacking time to calm down when the appropriate event triggered. Caused by marriage and family contradiction, the victim Wu was partly at fault during the period of marriage, and the appellant Lu Guiqing knew before the case, and they already had had dispute by the time Wu filed divorce lawsuit, so Wu didn’t accord with the characteristic of killing on the grounds of provocation. Lu Guiqing could not treat the marriage crisis correctly and used violent means to kill people, which constituted the crime of intentional homicide.
Second, the first trial criminal judgment of defendant Li Guangzhi intentional homicide
The so-called indirect intention refers to the psychological attitude of the actor who knows that his behavior may result in harm to the society and allows the result to happen……The presented evidence confirms, after producing homicide motivation, in order to commit the crime, the defendant Li Guangzhi chose the opportunity, prepared the tool, carried out homicide action later, causing the death of Li. Li Guangzhi, as a sane adult, knew that his behavior would inevitably lead to death, but he still intended to do it, which showed that the victim’s death was the goal he pursued. To sum up, the defendant Li Guangzhi’s subjective state of mind when committing the crime fully conformed to the characteristics of direct intention and didn’t belong to provocation killing.
Case number: (2014) He Xing Chu Zi No. 143
The major fault of the victim refers to that the victim has carried out some kind of relatively serious behavior against social ethics or law, and this behavior is the direct cause of the defendant’s crime.
Brief analysis of the case:
Issued by the supreme people’s court, the notice about the several opinions on the implementation of lenient and severe criminal policy stipulates in article 22: ‘Faced with the crime intensified or caused by folk contradictions such as love, marriage, family, neighborhood disputes and so on, the crime caused by labor disputes, mismanagement and other reasons but not bad in crime motive, and the unexpected crime caused by the victim’s fault or based on righteous indignation or having the defense factors, the judges shall give the offender lenient punishment at judicial discretion.’
This case and the case of Lu Guiqing were both caused by family conflicts. As can be seen from the case of Li Guangzhi, the victim Wu’s behavior of forgetting to buy drumstick before the crime happened obviously has not reached the circumstances of the wrongful conduct that can be evaluated by the criminal law and affect the evaluation of the crime, let alone the victim’s major fault. However, Luo knew that her behavior would lead to the serious consequences of Wu’s death, and subjectively pursued the occurrence of the result. Objectively, she came back home to take a fruit knife and stabbed Wu to death, which was consistent with the characteristics of direct intentional homicide and should not be evaluated as killing on the grounds of provocation.
At present, there are not many regulations about killing on the grounds of provocation in China, but the legislation about sentencing only stipulates that the punishment can be reduced at judicial discretion, rather than the punishment must be reduced, and there are few cases that are determined as killing on the grounds of provocation in the judicial practice. Therefore, I advise you everyone to cherish life, and do not challenge the law personally because of the theory of ‘killing on the grounds of provocation’!
