## Facts

- Mr. Holley and Cherylinn Mullane were in a long-term, volatile relationship marked by heavy drinking and mutual violence.
- After a day of substantial alcohol consumption, they argued; Holley returned home, continued drinking, and was chopping wood with an axe.
- Mullane later returned, said she had had sex with another man, and taunted Holley, including challenging him to use the axe.
- Holley struck Mullane seven or eight times with the axe, killing her.
- At trial, Holley relied on the partial defense of provocation, supported by psychiatric evidence describing severe chronic alcoholism and traits said to increase his susceptibility to provocation.
- The trial judge instructed that Holley’s alcoholism could bear on the gravity of the provocation, but could not reduce the objective standard of self-control expected of the “reasonable person.”

## Issues

1. Whether the objective element of provocation permits lowering the “reasonable person” standard of self-control to reflect the defendant’s abnormal characteristics, including chronic alcoholism or personality disorder.
2. Whether chronic alcoholism (as a condition said to impair control) is relevant to the objective standard in provocation, as distinct from diminished responsibility.
3. Whether the law should follow the approach that allowed characteristics to modify self-control (as in R v Smith (Morgan)) or the approach limiting modification primarily to age and sex.

## Decision

- The Privy Council (6–3) allowed the Attorney General’s appeal on the point of law.
- It held that the objective limb of provocation applies a single standard of ordinary self-control for a person of the defendant’s age and sex.
- Mental abnormalities, personality disorder, and chronic alcoholism cannot be attributed to the reasonable person to reduce the standard of self-control.
- The Board stated that the governing approach applied in Jersey and, on this point, was the same as in England and Wales.
- It declared that R v Smith (Morgan), to the extent it permitted abnormal characteristics to lower the objective standard of self-control, was no longer good law.
- Holley’s manslaughter conviction and sentence were not disturbed due to the prosecution’s undertaking.

## Legal Principles

- Provocation has (i) a subjective inquiry into whether the defendant actually lost self-control, and (ii) an objective inquiry into whether an ordinary person of the defendant’s age and sex would have reacted similarly.
- The defendant’s characteristics may be considered in evaluating the gravity of the provocation (how cutting the words or acts were to this defendant).
- The objective standard of self-control is not reduced by abnormal mental characteristics, including chronic alcoholism or personality disorder.
- Self-induced intoxication does not lower the objective standard in provocation; chronic alcoholism, even if described medically as a disease, likewise does not lower the standard.
- Conditions impairing self-control are addressed, if at all, under diminished responsibility rather than by modifying the provocation objective test.

## Conclusion

The Privy Council clarified that provocation requires a fixed, ordinary standard of self-control (adjusted for age and sex only) and that alcoholism or other mental abnormalities cannot reduce that standard, though such features may affect the gravity of provocation or support diminished responsibility.


Att’y Gen. for Jersey v. Holley, [2005] 3 All E.R. 371 (P.C.)