Extreme Emotional Disturbance

A number of states in the United States provide by statute that defendants charged with murder or attempted murder may seek to mitigate the charges against them by claiming, and proving, that when they intentionally murdered or attempted to murder their victim, they did so under the influence of an extreme mental or emotional disturbance (EED) for which there was a reasonable explanation or excuse. Typically, such statutes provide that the reasonableness of such explanation or excuse shall be determined from the viewpoint of a person in the defendant's situation at the time of the crime, under the circumstances as the [Page 284]defendants believed them to be. If successful with the EED defense, a defendant charged with murder should be found guilty of the lesser ...