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Provocation And The Ordinary Person, Timothy Macklem

Dalhousie Law Journal

As a defence to a charge of murder, provocation is at once the most accessible and the most fascinatingly elusive of ideas. We are all familiar with the concept of an emotional breaking point, and we are generally prepared to recognize that a person pushed beyond that point may in certain circumstances kill his or her tormentor. Yet in law, an acceptable breaking point is very hard to define. As Dickson 3. (as he then was) said in Linney v. The Queen, "provocation, in the relevant sense, is a technical concept and not easy to apprehend" It is also, unfortunately, …