Is it true you can shoot your wife's lover if you catch them "in the act?"

It is a common misunderstanding that Texas law allows you to kill your spouse’s lover if you catch them in an intimate act. While this is not the current law, it was legal at one point in time.

Until 1973, a Texas law said that a killing under these circumstances was "justifiable." This was found in Article 1220 the Texas Penal Code. At the time, it read:

Homicide is justifiable when committed by the husband upon one taken in the act of adultery with the wife, provided that the killing takes place before the parties to the act have separated. Such circumstance cannot justify a homicide where it appears that there has been, on the part of the husband, any connivance or assent to the adulterous connection.

This law was repealed in 1973 by Senate Bill 34 and no longer exists.