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The Expert As Educator: A Proposed Approach To The Use Of Battered Woman Syndrome Expert Testimony, Meredith B. Cross

Vanderbilt Law Review

This Recent Development proposes that courts should permit the use of battered woman syndrome expert testimony, but restrict its use to informing juries of the peculiar mental and emotional state of battered women. This role of the expert as educator would serve to dispel a jury's misconceptions about battered women and, at the same time, draw the focus of the testimony away from the implication which troubled the Buhrle court--that the battered woman syndrome represents a new defense to murder.The Advisory Committee explains in a note that rule 702 of the Federal Rules of Evidence suggests the use of expert …