People v. Casassa 49 N.Y.2d 668, 404 N.E.2d 1310 (1980) Casassa was dating a girl named Victoria. After dating for a while, she broke it off. Casassa began stalking her. When she rejected his advances, he killed her. Casassa was arrested and charged with murder. Casassa argued that Victoria's rejection devastated him and he was under extreme emotional disturbance at the time of the killing. Under New York law, extreme emotional disturbance is an affirmative defense to second-degree murder where the defendant acted under the influence of extreme emotional disturbance for which there was a reasonable explanation or excuse. Also see Model Penal Code §210.6(4)(b). The Trial Court found Casassa guilty of second-degree murder. He appealed. The Trial Court found that a reasonable person would not have been so disturbed by getting dumped. Therefore extreme emotional disturbance defense failed. Casassa argued that the test should be subjectively applied to the emotional state of the defendant. The New York Supreme Court upheld the conviction. The New York Supreme Court found that extreme emotional disturbance requires two elements: The particular defendant must have acted under the influence of extreme emotional disturbance. That's a subjective standard. There must have been a reasonable explanation or excuse for the emotional disturbance. The reasonableness is to be determined from the viewpoint of a person in the defendant's situation under the circumstances as the defendant believed them to be. That's an objective standard. In this case, the Court agreed that Casassa was acting under an extreme emotional disturbance. However, that disturbance was not a reasonable one, and his actions were not what a reasonable person would do. Therefore the defense fails.