NCJ Number
106388
Date Published
1987
Length
175 pages
Annotation
After reviewing the physical and psychological plight of battered women and cases of battered women who kill their batterers, this book examines the current legal response to such cases and proposes a theory of psychological self-defense that broadens the legal concept of justified defensive homicides.
Abstract
The review of the physical and psychological plight of the battered woman includes identification of the barriers that constrain such women in seeking help or terminating the battering relationship. An analysis of psychological studies of battered women homicide defendants, including the author's original analysis of over 100 recent cases, describes the kinds of abuse these women suffer, the characteristics of relationships that culminate in the killing of the batterer, and the current legal responses to these killings. Many women who kill their abusers are convicted of murder or manslaughter despite their pleas of self-defense. The major barriers to successful self-defense claims in these cases are based in the legal requirements that at the time of the killing the defendant must reasonably believe she is in imminent danger of death or serious bodily harm and that it is necessary to use deadly force to avert the danger. In most cases, expert testimony on the battered woman syndrome, if admitted, does little to illuminate the legal issue of whether it was reasonable at the time of the killing for the woman to use deadly force against her abuser. The author argues that most of the women who kill their abusers do so to prevent their batterer from destroying them psychologically. The book discusses the legal practicality of this doctrine of psychological self-defense, its consistency with traditional self-defense law, and how it would produce a more just treatment of battered women who kill their abusers. Chapter notes and subject index.