Alcorta v. Texas

Petitioner, Alvaro Alcorta, was indicted for murder in a Texas state court for stabbing his wife to death. Vernon’s Tex. Pen. Code, 1948, Art. 1256. He admitted the killing but claimed it occurred in a fit of passion when he discovered his wife, whom he had already suspected of marital infidelity, kissing one Castilleja late at night in a parked car. Petitioner relied on Texas statutes which treat killing under the influence of a “sudden passion arising from an adequate cause ... as would commonly produce a degree of anger, rage, resentment, or terror in a person of ordinary temper sufficient…