The court found that the State of New York had reclassified provocation ("extreme emotional disturbance") as an excuse (an affirmative defense requiring proof by preponderance of the evidence), rather than mens rea, which the prosecution had to prove beyond a reasonable doubt, as was the situation in Mullaney v. Wilbur (1975).

[1]: 18 During his brief and unstable marriage, the appellant, Gordon Patterson, Jr., became estranged from his wife, Roberta.

She resumed an association with John Northrup, a neighbor to whom she had been engaged prior to her marriage to appellant.

The State of New York allowed a person accused of murder to raise an affirmative defense that he "acted under the influence of extreme emotional disturbance for which there was a reasonable explanation or excuse."

The New York law required that the defendant in any prosecution for second-degree murder prove by a preponderance of the evidence the affirmative defense of extreme emotional disturbance to reduce the crime to manslaughter.