Excusable homicide : a note on the historical development of Art : 233 of the Criminal Code

Abstract

Art. 233 reads : Willful homicide shall be excusable : 1. when provoked by a severe bodily harm, or by any crime whatsoever against the person, which is liable to a punishment higher than one year's hard labour or imprisonment; 2. when committed in the act of resisting in the daytime, the scaling or the breaking of enclosures, walls, or the entrance of a house or of an inhabited apartment, or of the appurtenances which may have a direct or indirect communication with such house and apartment; 3. when committed by a person who was acting under the immediate influence of an instantaneous passion or mental agitation owing or which he was, in the act of committing the crime incapable of reflection; 4. when committed by a person who acting under the circumstance stated in art : 229, has exceeded the limits imposed by the law, by the authority or by necessity; provided, however, that if any such excess is due to such person being taken unawares, or to fear or fright, the same shall not be liable to punishment. In order to its being declared that the offender was incapable of reflection it is necessary, in cases of provocation, that in the fact the homicide be attributable to heat of blood and not to a deliberate intention to kill or to cause severe bodily harm, and that the cause be such as would, in men of ordinary temperament, commonly produce the effect of rendering them incapable of calculating the consequences of the crime.