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Full-Text Articles in Law

Taming The Tigers: Domestic Violence, Legal Professionalism, And Well-Being, Jill Engle Jan 2016

Taming The Tigers: Domestic Violence, Legal Professionalism, And Well-Being, Jill Engle

Jill Engle

Domestic violence kills thousands of American women every year. In 2013, one of them was my client. My law school clinic represented a woman divorcing her abusive husband after twenty years of marriage. Three days after we served him with the divorce complaint, he walked into the grocery store where she worked and shot her dead. He then turned the gun on himself, and died from self-inflicted gunshot wounds. The lead student working her case listened in horror as one of our local colleagues who had heard the breaking news described it to her in a phone call to the …


Promoting The General Welfare: Legal Reform To Lift Women And Children In The United States Out Of Poverty, Jill Engle Jan 2016

Promoting The General Welfare: Legal Reform To Lift Women And Children In The United States Out Of Poverty, Jill Engle

Jill Engle

American women and children have been poor in exponentially greater numbers than men for decades. The problem has historic, institutional roots which provide a backdrop for this article’s introduction. English and early U.S. legal systems mandated a lesser economic status for women. Despite numerous legal changes aimed at combating the financial disadvantage of American women and children, the problem is worsening. American female workers, many in low-paying job sectors, earn roughly twenty percent less than their male counterparts. Nearly forty percent of single mothers and their children subsist below the poverty level. The recession exacerbated this problem, mostly because unemployment …


Confronting Domestic Violence In Higher Education, Jill Engle Jan 2016

Confronting Domestic Violence In Higher Education, Jill Engle

Jill Engle

Panel presentation on Student Life, Relationships, and the Law. Panel presented at Pepperdine University.


So Much Activity, So Little Change: A Reply To The Critics Of Battered Women's Self-Defense, Kit Kinports Jan 2016

So Much Activity, So Little Change: A Reply To The Critics Of Battered Women's Self-Defense, Kit Kinports

Kit Kinports

Prior to 1970, the term "domestic violence" referred to ghetto riots and urban terrorism, not the abuse of women by their intimate partners. Today, of course, domestic violence is a household word. After all, it has now been ten years since the revelation of football star O.J. Simpson's history of battering purportedly sounded "a wake-up call for all of America"; ten years since Congress enacted legislation haled as "a milestone . . .truly a turning point in the national effort to break the cycle" of violence; and twenty years since Farrah Fawcett's portrayal of Francine Hughes in the movie The …


Orders Of Protection In Domestic Violence Cases: An Empirical Assessment Of The Impact Of The Reform Statutes, Kit Kinports, Karla Fischer Jan 2016

Orders Of Protection In Domestic Violence Cases: An Empirical Assessment Of The Impact Of The Reform Statutes, Kit Kinports, Karla Fischer

Kit Kinports

The authors' concern that domestic violence reform statutes might not be having their intended effect sparked their decision to evaluate the protective order statutes empirically. The authors therefore distributed a lengthy survey to 843 domestic violence organizations nationwide that helped battered women obtain protective orders. The survey focused on three issues. The first issue was access to the courts: Is the protective order remedy accessible to battered women? The second issue related to the procedures for obtaining orders of protection: Are judges granting orders in appropriate cases, and are they awarding the full range of remedies contemplated by the reform …


Defending Battered Women's Self-Defense Claims, Kit Kinports Jan 2016

Defending Battered Women's Self-Defense Claims, Kit Kinports

Kit Kinports

This Article contends that many battered women who kill their abusive spouses can legitimately raise the standard self-defense claim. No substantial extension of self-defense doctrine is required to justify the acquittal of battered women on self-defense grounds. Furthermore, no special "battered women defense" is necessary or even desirable in such cases. Part I of this Article summarizes the results of psychological research studying abused women and battering relationships. It further explains the concept of the :battered woman syndrome" which describes the effects of sustained physical and psychological abuse by one's husband. Part II discusses the requirements of a successful self-defense …


Killers Shouldn't Inherit From Their Victims . . . Or Should They?, Carla Spivack Feb 2013

Killers Shouldn't Inherit From Their Victims . . . Or Should They?, Carla Spivack

Carla Spivack

The article offers a profound reassessment of so-called “Slayer Rules,” laws that, in all states, bar killers from inheriting from their victims. For the first time in the literature, this piece questions the underlying rationale for these rules by examining the context of family violence and mental illness in which these killing occur, and argues that, given that context, these rules are often neither legally nor morally justified. My argument is as follows: at first glance, the idea behind Slayer Rules seems reasonable, indeed, morally obvious: a killer should not be able to profit from his or her crime. This …


Let's Get Serious: Spousal Abuse Should Be A Complete Bar To Inheritance, Carla Spivack Mar 2011

Let's Get Serious: Spousal Abuse Should Be A Complete Bar To Inheritance, Carla Spivack

Carla Spivack

I argue that a finding that a spouse or intimate partner committed domestic violence should bar that person’s inheritance from the victim under a will, a will substitute (such as a trust) and under intestacy – in other words, in any form. Unlike the few similar proposals in the literature, I advocate a complete bar, and I situate the proposal in the context of inheritance law in general and fault-based inheritance regimes in particular. Further, unlike previous proposals, I justify the bar as an important use of the law’s expressive function and as a systemic approach to domestic violence. I …


Domestic Violence: Societal Views And Survivors Of Domestic Violence, Asking The Right Questions, Dana Harrington Conner Dec 2005

Domestic Violence: Societal Views And Survivors Of Domestic Violence, Asking The Right Questions, Dana Harrington Conner

Dana Harrington Conner

No abstract provided.


Clemency: Post Conviction Relief For Battered Women Who Kill Their Abusers, Linda Ammons Dec 1992

Clemency: Post Conviction Relief For Battered Women Who Kill Their Abusers, Linda Ammons

Linda L. Ammons

No abstract provided.