gitana1
Verified Attorney
- Joined
- May 31, 2005
- Messages
- 29,421
- Reaction score
- 230,531
I'm just so glad he never killed himself and especially the children before they were taken by law enforcement.
Seriously. Also, this guy seems to be a family annihilator type or the type who could kill his kids and then himself to punish his wife.
TX 19.02 states,
[FONT=&](1) "Adequate cause" means cause that would commonly produce a degree of anger, rage, resentment, or terror in a person of ordinary temper, sufficient to render the mind incapable of cool reflection.
[/FONT][FONT=&](2) "Sudden passion" means passion directly caused by and arising out of provocation by the individual killed or another acting with the person killed which passion arises at the time of the offense and is not solely the result of former provocation.[/FONT][FONT=&]
[/FONT]
I bolded my issue with the law. I guess I'm just confused as to how the "sudden passion" aspect of it can even be proven. There were only two people in the room, and one of them is dead. I can understand a man feeling provoked if he walks in on his wife sleeping with someone else--that is something that would inspire an immediate reaction. But in Crystal's case, we have no idea what caused him to strangle her. If it's something as insignificant as she refused to tell him where she slept that night, is that really enough? And even if it is, we're just supposed to take his word for it, not knowing what really happened in that house? For all we know he could have been right there in the garage waiting for her and she didn't have time to say a word.
I think I would be very disappointed if these questions went unanswered and he was able to somehow get years rather than decades in jail.
It will come down to the credibility of the defendant. He would have to testify in order for this murder to drop from first degree felony (5-99 years) to second degree (2-20).
http://www.statutes.legis.state.tx.us/Docs/PE/htm/PE.19.htm
http://www.statutes.legis.state.tx.us/Docs/PE/htm/PE.12.htm
Here's the catch. If it was really a crime of passion then text messages should help him. But f he erased them and wiped her computer I think that supports reflection and planning. It will be hard under the circumstances for him to prove it was a second degree felony rather than first, I think.
I mean a person can learn about an affair and become super enraged and blood thirsty without it automatically being a crime of passion. The more I think about it, this is unlikely to fit because the key word is "sudden". He might be able to play it off if he pretends she came home and told him she was with someone and in a split second he flew into a rage. But if there is any evidence that e knew before hand that she was dating or was building up rage, it doesn't seem it would fit that defense (of adequate cause).