Abstract
This paper seeks to address the role of the battered women’s syndrome in criminal court cases where battered women have killed their husbands in self-defense. A historical analysis of law pertaining to domestic relationships and violence reveals the male biases imbedded in the law and the obstacles women face in seeking equality and justice in the legal system. After a brief description of the development of self-defense law and Lenore Walker’s “battered women’s syndrome”, court cases starting mostly from the mid-1970’s during the second wave of the women’s movement are examined. Legal criteria for self-defense are then analyzed along with important precedents that trace the emergence through a series of court cases of legal opportunities to use this psychological condition to support pleas for self-defense. In addition, important precedents are studied that have been made over the past few decades permitting expert witness testimony in the courtroom to explain this psychological theory as it pertains to the case. The latter part of the paper deals mostly with controversies surrounding the use of the battered women’s syndrome in the courtroom and the current state of self-defense law. I conclude with a proposal for reformation of expert witness testimony and for redefining legal terms in the criteria for self-defense.Copyright for articles published in this journal is retained by the authors, with first publication rights granted to Vanderbilt Undergraduate Research Journal under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License (linked here). By virtue of their appearance in this open access journal, articles are available for wide dissemination at no cost to readers, with proper attribution (acknowledgment of the work's authorship and initial publication in this journal), in educational and other non-commercial settings. Authors are permitted and encouraged to post their work online (e.g., in institutional repositories or on their website) prior to and during the submission process.
Authors are able to enter into separate, additional contractual arrangements for the non-exclusive distribution of the journal's published version of the work (e.g., post it to an institutional repository, in a journal or publish it in a book), with an acknowledgment of its initial publication in this journal. However, for undergraduates authoring a manuscript under the guidance of a faculty member or research mentor, we strongly encourage the student to discuss with the faculty mentor and the Editor if prior publication in the Vanderbilt Undergraduate Research Journal will constrain future publication efforts in professional journals. To this end, all authors must submit a signed mentor consent form at the time of submission..