Legends of passion: a socio-legal reflection on emotions in criminal law

Abstract

“Crime of passion” is a term that assigns the action of a subject to his/hers motivation, attributing a behaviour to an emotional, ill-timed, rash, hot-headed reaction. Widely criticised, this term remains present in the legal imagination and reasoning, making it a privileged object to think on the legal appraisal of passionality and its relevance in the moral and criminal censure of the agents of this type of crimes. Based on the analysis of the Portuguese context, in this article we intend to contribute to a socio-legal reflection on emotions in criminal law, in particular in the judgment of homicides in intimate relationships.