Massachusetts high court does away with infidelity panic defense

BOSTON — The Massachusetts Supreme Court disavowed its own precedent, which allowed a husband to justify killing his wife when told she has committed adultery or, as in this case, that his baby isn’t his. The rule, which allows sudden oral revelations to support manslaughter charges instead of murder ones, “rests upon a shaky, misogynistic foundation and has no place in our modern jurisprudence.”