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50 Emory L. J. 665 (2001)
(Wo)Manslaughter: Voluntary Manslaughter, Gender, and the Model Penal Code

handle is hein.journals/emlj50 and id is 675 raw text is: (WO)MANSLAUGHTER: VOLUNTARY MANSLAUGHTER, GENDER, AND THE MODEL PENAL CODEt I. INTRODUCTION Stephanie Ott learned that her son Jonathan had broken his arm.' She contacted her estranged husband Calvin and planned to meet him at the hospital. Calvin and Stephanie had been living separately for some time, and she had initiated a divorce. Despite the tension in their relationship, Stephanie knew that Calvin would want to see Jonathan, so she called him. While Jonathan was in the hospital, Stephanie and Calvin saw each other during visiting hours on several occasions. Calvin started to believe that their relationship was improving and became upset when Stephanie's new boyfriend appeared at the hospital to give her a ride home. Calvin retrieved his .22 rifle, caught up with Stephanie and her boyfriend on their way home, and ran their truck off the road. He then shot and killed Stephanie. The Oregon Supreme Court upheld a jury instruction on extreme emotional disturbance, thus permitting the mitigation of murder to voluntary manslaughter.2 The extreme emotional disturbance language comes from Oregon's voluntary manslaughter statute, revised in 1971 to reflect the Model Penal Code's (MPC) formulation of the doctrine.3 The MPC approach to voluntary manslaughter rejects the common law notion that only certain + This Comment received the President's Award for Graduate Scholarship on Women's Issues, awarded in recognition of feminist scholarship. 1 This discussion recounts the facts of State v. Ott, 686 P.2d 1001 (Or. 1984). 2 id. at 1005. 3 OR. REv. STAT. §§ 163.115(l)(a), 163.118(1)(b), 163.135 (1999); see also MODEL PENAL CODE § 210.3 (1980). The formulation reads as follows: (1) Criminal homicide constitutes manslaughter when: (a) it is committed recklessly; or (b) a homicide which would otherwise be murder is committed under the influence of extreme mental or emotional disturbance for which there is reasonable explanation or excuse. The reasonableness of such explanation or excuse shall be determined from the viewpoint of a person in the actor's situation under the circumstances as he believes them to be. Id. (emphasis added).

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