What is the standard of provocation in a murder case?

way, provocation is not evaluated by whether the average person would act in a certain way: to kill. Instead, the question is whether the average person would react in a certain way: with his reason and judgment obscured." (People v. Beltran (2013) 56 Cal.4th 935, 949 (Beltran).) "[P]rovocation is sufficient [when] ... it eclipses reflection. A person in this state simply reacts from emotion due to the provocation, without deliberation or judgment. If an ordinary person of average disposition, under the same circumstances, would also react in this manner, the provocation is adequate ...." (Id. at p. 950.)

"'[N]o defendant may set up his own standard of conduct and justify or excuse himself because in fact his passions were aroused, unless further the jury believe that the facts and circumstances were sufficient to arouse the passions of the ordinarily reasonable man. Thus, no man of extremely violent passion could so justify or excuse himself if the exciting cause be not adequate .... Still further, while the conduct of the defendant is to be measured by that of the ordinarily reasonable man placed in identical circumstances, the jury is properly to be told that the exciting cause must be such as would naturally tend to arouse the passion of the ordinarily reasonable man. But as to the nature of the passion itself, our law leaves that to the jury, under these proper admonitions from the court.' [Citation.] As the court long ago explained in People v. Jones (1911) 160 Cal. 358, 368, 'it is not a matter of law but a matter of fact for the jury in each case to determine under the circumstances of the case whether the assault or whether the blow, or whether the indignity or whether the affront, or whatever the act may be, was such as is naturally calculated to arouse the passions and so lessen the degree of the offense by relieving it from the element of malice.'" (Beltran, supra, 56 Cal.4th at pp. 950-951.) If, instead, the standard were purely subjective, "'then, by habitual and long continued indulgence of evil passions, a bad man might acquire a claim to mitigation which would not be available to better men, and on account of that very wickedness of heart which, in itself, constitutes an aggravation both in morals and in law.'" (Id. at p. 951.)

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