Glattback v The Queen

In *Glattback v The Queen*, the High Court of Australia considered an appeal from a conviction for murder. The appellant, Glattback, had been found guilty of murder by a jury in the Supreme Court of Queensland and sentenced to life imprisonment. The conviction was subsequently affirmed by the Court of Appeal of Queensland.

The central legal issue before the High Court was whether the trial judge had erred in law by failing to direct the jury adequately on the defence of provocation. Specifically, the appellant argued that the jury should have been instructed that if they found that the appellant’s actions were a response to a sudden or temporary loss of self-control induced by provocation, then the verdict should be manslaughter, not murder, even if the provocation was not of the kind that would have deprived an ordinary person of self-control.

Gummow and Heydon JJ, in dismissing the appeal, affirmed the established principles of provocation as a partial defence to murder. Their Honours explained that provocation operates to reduce murder to manslaughter where the act causing death was done in the heat of passion caused by adequate provocation. The test for provocation involves both an objective and a subjective element: the provocation must be such as would have had the effect of depriving an ordinary person of self-control, and the accused must have been actually deprived of self-control by that provocation. The High Court held that the trial judge’s directions, when read as a whole, adequately conveyed these principles to the jury and that there was no misdirection. The jury was entitled to find that the provocation, if any, was not adequate in the objective sense.

The appeal was dismissed.