Law Commons^™

Capital Murder And The Domestic Discount: A Study Of Capital Domestic Murder In The Post Furman Era, Elizabeth Rapaport

Faculty Scholarship

In this Article I will challenge the tendency to discount the severity of domestic homicide, a phenomenon I call "the domestic discount." I will argue against automatic mitigation-the imputation of provocation or diminished capacity-simply or merely because the relationship" between victim and defendant is domestic or sexually intimate. I will argue that the traditional hot blood/cold blood dichotomy is an imperfect guide to the moral grading of homicide offenses. In particular, reliance on it has led to the under evaluation of the seriousness of some domestic homicides. It is my contention, or hypothesis, that the conclusions I draw from the …