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no_hypocrisy

(54,522 posts)
2. A defense to murder is "HEAT OF THE MOMENT"
Fri Jan 30, 2026, 06:42 AM
Friday

The "heat of passion" or "heat of the moment" defense is a legal strategy used in criminal cases, particularly murder, to argue that a defendant acted in an uncontrollable rage, fear, or terror due to extreme provocation, rather than with premeditation. This defense reduces the charge from murder to voluntary manslaughter by negating the element of "malice aforethought".

You can't effectively plead a HOTM affirmative defense when there has been sufficient time passage, to allow you to "calm down". The two events must occur within a short period of time.

Example: You come home and find your spouse in the embrace of your neighbor. You pick up a gun and murder both. That's Heat of Passion/The Moment. OTOH, same scenario, but you go into the kitchen, make a sandwich, eat that sandwich, return to where your spouse is and shoot him/her, you can't make Heat of the Moment appear credible.

Here, there was a couple of weeks between the two events where Alex Pretti appeared.

I can't see ICE agents consistently quaking with anger and outrage for that long a time.

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