Commonwealth v. Miller

OPINION

Appellant, who had been convicted upon a guilty plea, seeks a new trial to reduce murder in the first degree to voluntary manslaughter. He asks that the Court change the law so as to substitute a subjective test rather than an objective test in determining whether there was “serious provocation”.

After the court below gave consideration to psychiatric evidence it concluded that the objective standard had to be used, * referring to the statutory definition of “serious provocation” as “Conduct sufficient to excite an intense passion in a reasonable person,” Act of December 6, 1972, P.L.…