Manson v. State

The defense set up in the defendant’s statement to the jury was that the person killed — a “big and dangerous man,” who had been drinking — was advancing upon him with an open knife, cursing him and using threatening language, when the homicide occurred, and that it was committed in self-defense, under the fear of a reasonable man that his life was in immediate danger or that a felony was about to be committed on his person. While provocation by words, threats, or menaces alone will not reduce below the grade of murder a homicide which is the result merely of passion .or resentment thus…