## Facts

- Gordon Patterson, Jr. and his wife became estranged, and she resumed a relationship with John Northrup.
- Patterson borrowed a rifle, went to his father-in-law’s home, entered, and shot Northrup twice in the head, killing him.
- New York charged Patterson with second-degree murder, defined by (1) intent to cause death and (2) causing death; “malice aforethought” was not an element.
- New York law provided an affirmative defense that the defendant acted under “extreme emotional disturbance” with a reasonable explanation or excuse, which reduced murder to manslaughter if proven.
- The statute required the defendant to prove the affirmative defense by a preponderance of the evidence.
- At trial, Patterson admitted the killing and asserted extreme emotional disturbance; the jury was instructed that Patterson bore the burden on that defense and convicted him of second-degree murder.
- New York’s highest court affirmed, rejecting a Due Process Clause challenge to allocating the burden of persuasion on the affirmative defense to the defendant.

## Issues

1. Whether due process is violated when a State requires a defendant charged with second-degree murder to prove, by a preponderance of the evidence, an affirmative defense of extreme emotional disturbance to reduce the crime to manslaughter.
2. Whether assigning the burden of persuasion on that mitigating defense unconstitutionally shifts to the defendant the burden to disprove an element of murder.

## Decision

- The Supreme Court affirmed.
- Due process requires the prosecution to prove beyond a reasonable doubt every element of the offense as defined by state law.
- New York could require Patterson to prove extreme emotional disturbance by a preponderance of the evidence because the defense did not negate any element the State had to prove for second-degree murder.
- The Court distinguished prior precedent invalidating schemes that effectively required defendants to disprove an element of murder, concluding New York’s statute did not do so.
- A dissent would have held that the defense was too closely tied to murder culpability to be assigned to the defendant without violating due process.

## Legal Principles

- The Fourteenth Amendment permits a State to place on the defendant the burden of persuasion for a mitigating affirmative defense, so long as the prosecution retains the burden to prove beyond a reasonable doubt all elements of the charged offense.
- An affirmative defense may constitutionally be treated as a “separate issue” that mitigates the degree of criminal liability or punishment, rather than as the negation of an element, if state law does not make its absence an element of the crime.
- Due process does not require the State, whenever a mitigating fact is raised, to disprove that fact beyond a reasonable doubt if it is not part of the statutory definition of the offense.
- Legislative definitions of offense elements control the Winship inquiry, subject to the constraint that the State must prove those elements beyond a reasonable doubt and may not shift to the defendant the burden to disprove an element.

## Conclusion

The Court held that New York’s second-degree murder statute satisfied due process because the State had to prove intent and causation beyond a reasonable doubt, while the defendant could be required to prove the mitigating affirmative defense of extreme emotional disturbance by a preponderance of the evidence to reduce murder to manslaughter.


Patterson v. New York, 432 U.S. 197 (1977)