Extenuating circumstances
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In law, extenuating circumstances are criminal cases in which, though an offence has been committed without legal justification or excuse, its gravity, from the point of view of punishment or moral opprobrium, is mitigated or reduced by reason of unusual or extreme facts leading up to or attending the commission of the offence.
maximum ishment are taken away and the sentence to be pronounced is reduced in accordance with the scale laid down in art. 463 of the Code penal. The most important result of this rule in earlier times was to enable a jury to prevent the infliction of capital punishment for murder (now abolished).
In cases of what is termed "crime passionel," French juries, when they do not acquit, almost invariably find extenuation; and a like verdict has become common even in the case of cold-blooded and sordid murders.
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This article incorporates text from the Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition, a publication now in the public domain.
