Battered Women Who Murder - Victims or Offenders (From Changing Roles of Women in the Criminal Justice System - Offenders, Victims, and Professionals, P 197-216, 1985, Imogene L Moyer, ed. - See NCJ-99505)

• NCJ Number: 99515
• Author(s): A F Kuhl
• Date Published: 1985
• Length: 20 pages
• Sale Source: Waveland Press, Inc.
• Language: English
• Country: United States of America

Annotation

An analysis of several cases of murder of husbands by wives who had experienced years of battering concludes that the battered woman syndrome is a valid defense and that wife abuse will continue as long as unequal power relationships exist between husbands and wives.

Abstract

The issue of imminent danger is central to the case law involving self-defense. The existence of intent or premeditation is crucial to the type of homicide charge. However, contrary to the common view that violent people are abnormal, women who kill their batterers are normal people except that a loved one has battered them over a period of years. In each of six cases in which the author served as an expert witness for the court between 1977-82, each woman who killed her husband qualified for the battered woman syndrome defense although the women entered several types of pleas, and the charges against them varied. These women, who were insecure, dependent, and socially isolated, learned that they could not prevent the battering and that the police would not help them. Rittenmeyer has presented three arguments against the battered woman syndrome as a defense: (1) that it tries to avoid the requirement of imminent danger, (2) that it exploits traditional stereotypes of women, and (3) that it is a sex-based classification that violates due process and equal protection rights of male defendants. However, each argument has major flaws. Finally, battered women will not achieve justice until society and the legal system recognize the effects of sexism. Notes and 23 references are supplied.