## Facts

- After a night out, Holmes argued with his wife; the dispute started when someone winked at her.
- Holmes had long been suspicious about his wife’s relations with other men and had heard stories about it.
- During the quarrel, Holmes’s wife told him she had been unfaithful and said she had reason to believe he had also been “untrue” to her.
- Holmes said he lost his temper and struck his wife on the head with a hammer.
- He then put his hands around her neck and strangled her until she stopped breathing; he said he did this because she was suffering.
- In cross-examination, Holmes admitted that while his hands were on her neck he intended to kill her.
- At trial for murder, the judge directed the jury that manslaughter was not open on the evidence and that the wife’s statement was not sufficient provocation in law.
- Holmes was convicted of murder; the Court of Criminal Appeal affirmed, and a further appeal was brought to the House of Lords on a certified question of law.

## Issues

1. Whether the trial judge was right to tell the jury that, on the evidence and in law, a manslaughter verdict based on provocation was not open, and that the wife’s statement that she had been unfaithful could not amount to sufficient provocation.
2. More generally, whether “mere words,” including a spouse’s confession of adultery, can ever constitute sufficient provocation to reduce murder to manslaughter, and when a judge must leave that issue to the jury.

## Decision

- The House of Lords dismissed the appeal and affirmed the murder conviction.
- The House held that, save in circumstances of the most extreme and exceptional character, words alone—even a confession of adultery—cannot amount to sufficient provocation to reduce murder to manslaughter.
- The House held that a judge should not leave manslaughter to the jury unless there is sufficient evidence on which a reasonable jury could find that a reasonable person might have been driven by the provocation to the degree, method, and continuance of violence that caused death.
- On Holmes’s account, the alleged provocation consisted of the wife’s statements; that was not enough in law to justify putting manslaughter to the jury, and the trial judge’s direction withdrawing manslaughter was correct.

## Legal Principles

- Provocation at common law may reduce murder to manslaughter where it causes a sudden and temporary loss of self-control such that malice (an intention to kill or cause grievous bodily harm) is treated as negatived.
- The doctrine requires:
  - an objective element: whether a reasonable person might, because of the provocation, lose self-control and use fatal violence; and
  - a subjective element: whether the defendant in fact acted under that loss of self-control.
- The trial judge has a screening duty: if there is no sufficient material on which a reasonable jury could find provocation meeting the objective standard, the judge must direct that manslaughter is not available on the evidence.
- “Mere words” are generally not enough to meet the objective standard; a verbal confession of adultery is ordinarily insufficient as a matter of law (distinct from the traditional category of catching a spouse in the act of adultery).

## Conclusion

Holmes confirms that provocation only reduces murder to manslaughter where the evidence could support a finding that a reasonable person might have been driven to the fatal violence, and it holds that a spouse’s verbal admission of infidelity, without more, will almost never meet that standard; accordingly, the trial judge properly withheld manslaughter from the jury and the House of Lords affirmed Holmes’s murder conviction.


Holmes v. Director of Public Prosecutions, 31 Crim. App. R 123 (1946)