Question about battered wife defense in murder cases

[TXlib]

I know it's not quite so simple as "why can't she just pack up and leave?". But what are the practical issues?

If you feel that previous physical abuse, combined with fear of future potentially life-threatening abuse at the hands of a husband should exonerate a woman of a murder charge (assume she killed him, as Susan Wright did, at a moment when he wasn't a clear and imminent threat to her life), why, exactly?

My own personal belief, subject to modification by good debate here, is that such evidence should not result in a 'not guilty' verdict, but be used during sentencing to mitigate the sentence; a self-defense argument, as a reason to declare 'not guilty', should only be valid if a person believes his/her life is in imminent danger. Of course, with enough abuse, a woman may come to believe her life is ALWAYS in imminent danger, but that may not be as much a self-defense argument as it is an argument of mental/emotional defect or instability.

[silverlib]

1. I don't know if this still holds true, but it sounds reasonable...

I worked at a shelter in the '80's and we were often called on by the defense attorney in such cases.

The philosophy was that the only defense is an educated jury, so the good defense attorney spent much time in the educational process. We actually had a landmark case where this worked. I wish I still had the case number.

on edit - every abused female/male/child is at risk of death.

[TXlib]

4. But what did you tell juries?

[silverlib]

22. Very short version...

It's s a lengthy defense. I searched for something to sum it up, but feel like I'm not doing a very good job here.

http://www.usda.gov/da/shmd/aware.htm#WHAT

exert:

“The most common response to battering-- "Why doesn't she just leave?"-- ignores economic and social realities facing many women. Shelters are often full, and family, friends, and the workplace are frequently less than fully supportive. Faced with rent and utility deposits, day care, health insurance, and other basic expenses, the woman may feel that she cannot support herself and her children. Moreover, in some instances, the woman may be increasing the chance of physical harm or even death if she leaves an abusive spouse.”

I have a friend - didn't meet her until after her divorce. She is a bright and attractive mother of two sons. Her husband was a "well-employed" engineer and she stayed home with the children. It's hard for me to believe that she was married to the father of her sons, who convinced her that he had locked her in the house for three days without a telephone. She didn't check to see if she could get out of the house. All she had needed to do was to simply unlock the door. Her mental state was that bad!!! She was in constant fear for her life and that he would get custody of her boys if she left. Her parents were well-to-do and FINALLY financially assisted her in the divorce and living expenses. Her "junior leaguer" mother still questions why she left this "successful" man. She still says she would have killed him if she had stayed. And it would not have been pretty. She would have had to "make sure" he was dead. She had been told that he "would make sure she was dead" if she left him. 192 stab wounds might not be proof to a woman who had been told daily for years that he wound never go away.

on edit - she did have a plan, a premeditated plan. She says it had to be planned and thought out over and over, or she would not have had the strength to carry it out. Thank God, she never had to use the plan.

Education of the jurors is imperative. I wish I had better links.

[TXlib]

36. Thanks. That helps a lot.

I find myself typically sympathetic to the woman in these cases; if there was a well-documented history of abuse, the prosecution would have to have a pretty airtight case for a darker motive (such as collecting on insurance) for me to suspect that.

I just didn't have a way to articulate my rationale for my feelings.

[CapnJackSparrow]

37. disagreement

“The most common response to battering-- "Why doesn't she just leave?"-- ignores economic and social realities facing many women. Shelters are often full, and family, friends, and the workplace are frequently less than fully supportive. Faced with rent and utility deposits, day care, health insurance, and other basic expenses, the woman may feel that she cannot support herself and her children. Moreover, in some instances, the woman may be increasing the chance of physical harm or even death if she leaves an abusive spouse.”

I've practiced family law for a long time, and all too often saw that sort of victimology preached by advocacy groups. It actually made things worse in many cases, because it reinforced incorrect social notions on people who were cowardly or mousey to start with. Women need to understand that they can handle it on their own and that there are in fact family and social service resources that will ease the first shock of separation. They and their families also need to know that they have to be smart about how they deal with the ex after separation - no "loosey-goosey" crap with the genuinely violent.

I could write a long book on this subject that would piss off just about everybody.

[GOPisEvil]

2. My issue with her defense:

she planned to kill him. She set up an elaborate scene. In her case, she should present any evidence of his abuse to mitigate her sentence.

Contrast that with a woman who has just had enough and kills her abuser while he sleeps or some such thing. That is a more convincing case for acquittal.

[TXlib]

7. And Susan Wright apparently tortured him before killing him

Many of the 193 stab wounds were prior to death, and non-lethal.

She stabbed out his eyes, and sliced at his genitals. She tortured him to death.

If she had tied him up and stabbed him right in the heart, or cut his throat right off the bat, I would be more sympathetic to her.

[VelmaD]

8. So, he spends years tormenting her...

but we expect her to show more mercy and not get a little of her own back?

BTW, I don't agree with what she did. Just pointing out an alternative view. Not knowing the particulars of the case, one certainly has to wonder at what drove her to slice at his genitals.

[PVnRT]

10. I don't doubt she was pissed at him

and for good reason, but this was clearly premeditated, and that is murder, by any legal definition. Had it been a case where she just suddenly grabbed a knife, slit his throat, then ran off, it would be different.

[TXlib]

17. The thing that conflicts me a bit...

is whether premeditation necessarily negates a claim of self defense; whether any scenario involving premeditaion could ALSO be an arguable case of self-defense.

Especially in such an asymmetric case where the man has all the physical strength (and perhaps all the financial means, as well), pre-emption (and therefore, premeditation) may be necessary (at least in her mind) to protect herself from somebody she is convinced will never leave her alone, and will always be a danger to her, even after she leaves.

And that she tortured him, also, doesn't NECESSARILY aggravate the situation for her; if the abuse she suffered was bad enough, her torturing him may, actually, be evidence that she was totally mentally unhinged.

[PVnRT]

19. That's really the only defense

That is, what is in your last sentence there - severe mental instability, which I would think would not be too hard to prove.

[VelmaD]

3. Sorry to break it to you, but...

when KCDem stabs you in your sleep and sets fire to the bed...there ain't a jury in the world that's gonna convict her. She's a hottie. ;)

[GOPisEvil]

5. So is Susan Wright...

...and she got convicted. ;-)

[TXlib]

6. IF, dammit! IF!!!

And they convicted Susan Wright, who is also fairly attractive.

[CapnJackSparrow]

28. Hmmmm

And they convicted Susan Wright, who is also fairly attractive.

Was that the dentist who took the victory lap over her husband's corpse while driving a damn nice Benz?

[VelmaD]

30. *rolls eyes*

'Cause everyone knows having a Benz makes up for having the shit beaten out of you. :eyes:

[TXlib]

35. No, that was Clara Harris.

[BigMcLargehuge]

9. every moment in such a relationship is imminent danger

that's how I see it.

[TXlib]

12. That's kind of how I feel.

I just feel queasy about using it to acquit. It makes more sense to me to use it as a mitigating factor in sentencing.

Why? Not every abused woman has to kill her husband to escape. Some women have sucessfully left an abusive relationship without resorting to violence.

Because some are able to, it proves that it is not necessarily required to kill in order to escape.

However, I understand how hard it may be for a woman who has endured years of emotional and physical abuse, who has a husband who tells her he will track her down and kill her if she leaves, to leave. If you feel that somebody is prepared to kill you anytime, and may just be waiting for the right time to do so, I think you have a right to act pre-emptively. But you'll have to prove the necessity for the pre-emption far better than Bush did to the UN.

If a defense lawyer could paint that mental state convincingly enough, especially if there was corroborating evidence of the husband's threats, I would be willing to acquit outright.

[BigMcLargehuge]

14. I think of it like this

you can't predict what might have happened in the future assuming she didn't kill her husband. All you can do is base the decision on the factors leading up to the event. If it wasn't a relationship issue, say, someone had pulled you into an alley and drawn a knife, and for a split second he looks away and you use that opportunity to kill him in self defense doesn't necessarily mean the guy with the knife was going to kill you. But, it's still self defense. The only difference between this scenario and the battered woman case is a difference in that interval where the assailant is distracted.

[VelmaD]

15. Interesting analogy...

let's carry it a bit further to address the issue people have brought up about premeditation.

Let's say that someone has pulled me into an alley and has that knife drawn on me. If I come up with a plan to distract him, it works, I grab the knife and stab him to death with it...is that premeditated murder?

[BigMcLargehuge]

16. no because the time you are in the alley is imminent danger

same with being in an abusive marriage

[VelmaD]

18. I had a feeling you would see it that way...

I'm hoping to get some responses from both sides on this one just to see what people think.

[TXlib]

20. No, it wasn't cold-blooded and calculating.

If you had disarmed him, tied him up, and were wating for the police to arrive, and then decided, "Fuck it... they're just going to give this jagoff a slap on the wrist" and slit his throat, then you have committed murder, although a good lawyer might get it down to some level of manslaughter.

[GOPisEvil]

29. Talk about apples and oranges.

Of course the situation you describe is not pre-meditated murder. It's not murder, period.

[VelmaD]

32. It may seem that way, but what I'm trying to get to...

is a couple of questions...how long do I have to "plan" before it becomes premeditated? If someone beats me for years are they always an imminent threat? Everyone pretty much agrees that I'm within my rights to kill my assailant in the example above because he's in the middle of committing a crime on my person. Couldn't an abusive relationship be seen as one long assault, especially by someone who was living it?

[GOPisEvil]

33. I guess an abusive relationship could be seen that way.

The defense in that situation would have to prove that the assailee was in imminent danger of loss of life or sever bodily harm at that moment. That's always tough to prove.

[southerngirlwriter]

25. I know much too much about this subject....

and the women who are able to just get up and leave are almost always white, relatively healthy, have some access to at least a little bit of money, and are either childless or have children old enough to help with the escape (i.e. middle or older teens).

Imagine you're a 23 year old black female with unmedicated (because you have no health insurance) manic depression and two or three kids under the age of 4. You have no job because you stay home with the kids. The checking account is in his name. He's been beating you for three years and the time you escaped to your sister's, he came over there drunk and beat the door down. Even if you could find a cop to take you seriously and cart him off to jail, he'll be bonded out by his buddies from work in -- at most -- 24 hours.

How are you going to get far enough away to stay alive -- and keep your kids alive??

You tell me.

In this situation (a real one; I have changed no details), if she had killed him -- even premeditatively -- instead of herself, I, personally, would have stood and applauded her from the jury box, and I'd have sat in an un-air-conditioned jury room from now until the second coming of Christ before I'd have voted to convict.

But then, I'm a woman who has been beated and raped a number of times, most of them when I was a child. I understand powerlessness in a way that (mostly male) prosecutors and judges never will. :shrug:

[Cheswick2.0]

11. Susan Wright is just one woman, don't judge every case by her actions

There have been many women who could not escape from the abuse they suffered no matter how hard they tried. Laws protecting women have improved, but I remember when police would not intervene in "family matters". Did you ever see the movie with Nancy McKeon, a true story where her husband stabbed her, slit her throat and jumped on her face right in front of one flacid asshole cop who was waiting for reinforcements before he stepped in? This woman is partially paralized for life because the cops even stopped the men in the neigborhood from stepping in and stopping her husband.

Now that guy deserved to be stopped and if I were her friend I would regret to my dying day that I hadn't done it myself. The law would not help this woman because they did not believe her. She had left her husband, she had gone to the police she had done everything she was supposed to do and she got her throat slit, he face slashed, her spinal cord damaged because the police thought she was an annoyance.

[TXlib]

13. I'm not. I recognise hers is an unusual case.

It was just a catalyst for me to try to organise my thoughts on the matter.

[Nikia]

21. Many women are killed trying to leave such realtionships

I don't the particuliars about the Wright case but a woman who is physically abused and whose life is threatened should not serve a prision sentence for killing her abuser. Yes, some women succesfully leave such relationships. Others are killed or severely injured trying to leave such situations too.

[southerngirlwriter]

23. I know some women who work on the underground.

Most of the time that the batterer ends up dead, it's for the sake of a child -- i.e., he gets bored raping and beating his wife, so he begins raping and beating his daughter.

I don't think it should be a valid defense to murder; I think that they should give women who kill their battering husbands medals, keys to the city, and parades.

[Scout]

24. read The Burning Bed

It's been a long time since I read it, but I recall that it detailed the struggles Francine Hughes faced trying to leave her husband rather than kill him. I think she divorced him, she moved more than once ... with kids to take care of and no job or a crappy job, her options were limited. I think her own family was pretty much "you made your bed, now you sleep in it" and didn't help her.

You could also rent the movie, but the book is better.

[Hell Hath No Fury]

26. One of the practical issues...

is the use of threats against the battered woman.

I helped a friend get out of one of those relationships -- it took her 2+ years and being kidnapped and left for dead in the mountains with a fractured skull and beaten til she was unrecognizable before she finally made the break.

Why?

It's just not the physical abuse that keeps a woman in fear, but the VERY serious head-fucking that takes place. If you leave I will hunt you down and kill you. If you leave I will kill your family. If you report this to the cops I will tell them you are a whore who likes your sex rough. (All things my friend was told.) So just leaving him isn't enough, because HE CAN STILL FIND YOU AND HURT YOU.

After possibly YEARS of hearing that repeatedly (usually after you've been beaten senseless), your thinking process starts to become impaired, and you truly begin to believe there are no options for you.

My friend did find herself thinkng that the only way she would get out of this is if she killed her abuser. In her mind, only THEN could she be TRULY safe from him.

One thing I would say about this case is the number of wounds inflicted -- that many is a classic indication of someone who is in an emotional fury over the victim.

As to punishment, it should at the least still be considered manslaughter even if a woman is found to have been abused.

As a society, we have to teach women/men to walk out after the first strike and never look back, and we have to teach men/women that this behavior goes beyond unexceptable.

[Scout]

34. I was very fortunate

As a society, we have to teach women/men to walk out after the first strike and never look back, and we have to teach men/women that this behavior goes beyond unexceptable.

I was very fortunate that I was pretty much able to do just that. My first husband hadn't hit me yet (he had been physically abusive with his first wife) ... just shoved several times, screamed at, and threw a drink in a heavy glass at me. The night he called me a cunt, shoved me across the living room, and threw the drink at me was the night I left.

I was fortunate that I had a friend who gave me the phone numbers for a a counselor/therapist and for a divorce lawyer in April when the arguing/fighting escalated.

I was fortunate that we could afford the therapist for several months, until he quit going with me. I kept going alone for a while.

I was fortunate that, the night I left him in December, I owned the car I drove; I had a sister who drove and met me half way to my other sister's house where my dog and I spent the night. The next day while he was at work, I went home and got clothes, personal stuff, important papers and was fortunate to be able to stay with my parents.

I was fortunate to have the phone number of the divorce lawyer, and a father who would loan me the $100 retainer and the $700 fee for the divorce lawyer, until I could pay him back.

Many, many women are not as fortunate as I, and get trapped with an abusive husband.

[Hell Hath No Fury]

39. You're so right, there are the OTHER practical issues...

A woman's circumstances, both physically, financially, and logistically.

I should have said "As a society, we have to teach women/men to walk out after the first strike and never look back, and have the community resources available to her when she makes that break".

Like you, my friend was lucky. She had supportive family and friends, a community that had resources to help her, and police who took her seriously.

I'm willing to bet the vast majority of women in America who are in abusive relationships don't have nearly that number of resources.

In another thread, someone asked if there was still a place for feminism.

My answer is this: as long as there are women who are being abused or raped, there will be a need for feminism.

[CapnJackSparrow]

27. Generally speaking, this defense...

...is only credible up to about 5 knife wounds or three shots, depending on the weapon used. After that (like with Ms. "I stabbed my husband 193 times because he was mean"), it loses believability.

[silverlib]

31. Please take a look at my response

about the fourth one down; reply to "what do you tell the jurors". I think torture and overkill are applicable.

Thanks - (probably responded in a less than highly visible place).

[SOteric]

38. I don't think you can judge such a person by a rational standard.

Your question presupposes that the individual who killed her oppressor had a level of rationale at her avail. I don't think that in cases of battering that's always true.

If abuse includes belittling, manipulation and extremely controlling behaviour, the abused spouse (dudes are battered too, ya know) can be emotionally disconnected. Technically sane, a personality can disintegrate to the point where rational processes aren't available in the same way to the abused that they are to the rest of us in society.

Moreover, its difficult for us to say, not living in that home, what was imminent danger or the belief of it. If the phrase "where's my dinner?" results 7 times out of 10 in the errent cook being beaten to 2 hairs shy of the point of death wouldn't the phrase still be perceived as threat on the other 3 occassions?

My extensive experience serving on juries had encouraged me to believe that one never knows all the particulars, even on a jury. But one damn-sure doesn't know the particulars outside the jury by reading the sensationalised tripe they print in the daily papers.

[TXlib]

41. That is precisely why I asked the question.

[amazona]

40. it's no defense

My understanding is a large majority of women in prison for murder are battered wives and girlfriends. It is not a defense, and men are in no danger of being killed and the killer then walking. So I don't worry about it. Or maybe this is just true in Louisiana. We also (maybe just in this state) have no insanity defense. In theory we have it, in practice, to plead insanity is to be convicted. I don't know if anyone ever has been exonerated on grounds of insanity much less on a complicated case of insanity brought on by battered wife syndrome. When I was being stalked, a major issue for me was learning that, as a woman, I could not get a gun and defend myself against my attacker unless I wanted to pay with several years in prison -- all I could do was give up my career and go into hiding because women in this state (at least at that time) are not allowed self defense.

[TXlib]

42. A woman in LA cannot shoot a man in self defense?

I thought TX was pretty f-ed up...

[populistmom]

43. While I can empathize with these women

There's the potential inherent danger of women using this defense to get away with things when they could be just simply evil.
While I have never been physically abused, for many years I have dealt with other forms of control and manipulation that are less than healthy leaving me to feel awful about myself and putting up with it. Slowly in the past couple of years, for a variety of reasons, I'm slowly emmerging from this insecure place. It wasn't until a few months ago, when I told him that I don't love him, trust him, and I won't put up with this behavior anymore that any changes onhis part took place. I said you have until I finish my second degree to shape up or I'm definately out of this marriage. Things have improved somewhat, but he's still in denial about the level of his controlling behavior. Because I didn't feel any physical danger and felt better about myself, I had the courage to say what needed to be said. Unfortunately, his behavior, stemming from his own insecurities, will likely lead to a self-fullfilling prophecy for him within our relationship. It's sad really.
Now, if I was in a situation with actual physical abuse, that's hard and I can sure understand how one day a person could just snap, but all of us, as adults, have a responsibility to somehow take charge of our lives and do what needs to be done. Empathy can exist, but unless it was a direct self-defense situation, it can't be excused.
And no, it's not always women who can face emotionally (even physical) abuse from their spouses. There are good and bad in both genders and men can often face some very difficult situations at the hands of their female partners as well.