## Facts

- Rowland was indicted for murdering his wife, Becky Rowland.
- Rowland and Becky were living apart but remained on friendly terms; Becky stayed in a spare room at the home of Lou and Mrs. Pate.
- One night, Rowland went to the Pate home and saw a horse outside that he recognized as belonging to Thorn.
- Rowland listened near the spare room, heard a man and woman, and found the outside door to the room locked.
- Rowland entered through the main part of the house, called for Becky, and went toward the back room.
- Rowland discovered Becky and Thorn in the act of adultery or in circumstances clearly indicating adultery.
- Becky and Thorn fled; Rowland fired his pistol at Thorn but shot and killed Becky.
- At trial, the court instructed the jury only on murder and refused Rowland’s requested instruction on manslaughter based on heat of passion from the discovery of adultery.
- The jury convicted Rowland of murder, and he was sentenced to life imprisonment.

## Issues

1. Whether a homicide committed immediately after a spouse’s sudden discovery of adultery is, as a matter of law, murder or voluntary manslaughter.
2. Whether the trial court committed reversible error by refusing to instruct the jury on manslaughter where the evidence supported a heat-of-passion theory.
3. Whether aiming at the paramour but killing the spouse changes the grade of homicide when the defendant acts in heat of passion.

## Decision

- The Mississippi Supreme Court reversed the conviction and remanded for a new trial.
- The court held that a killing committed in the heat of passion upon sudden discovery of a spouse’s adultery is manslaughter rather than murder.
- The court ruled that the evidence permitted a manslaughter finding, so the refusal to give a manslaughter instruction was reversible error.
- The court treated the fact that Rowland shot at Thorn but killed Becky as not altering the heat-of-passion analysis.

## Legal Principles

- Voluntary manslaughter is an unlawful killing without malice, committed in the heat of passion upon adequate provocation; murder requires malice or deliberate design.
- Sudden discovery of a spouse’s adultery constitutes legally adequate provocation that can reduce an intentional homicide from murder to manslaughter, absent evidence of cooling time or malice.
- When requested, a trial court must instruct the jury on a lesser-included offense supported by the evidence; withholding such an instruction improperly deprives the jury of a legally supported verdict option.
- Under transferred intent principles, if a defendant intends to shoot one person but kills another, the intent transfers, and the offense is graded by the mental state and circumstances that attended the intentional act; heat of passion can still mitigate.

## Conclusion

The court set aside the murder conviction because the evidence supported a finding that Rowland acted in heat of passion upon suddenly discovering his wife’s adultery, requiring that the jury be instructed on manslaughter and allowed to consider that lesser offense.


Rowland v. State, 83 Miss. 483, 35 So. 826 (Miss. 1904)