Law Commons^™

Review Essay: Feminism, Lawyering, And Death Row, Joan W. Howarth

Scholarly Works

Representing men on death row is confounding, but not without reward. This lawyering work has taught me at least two lessons, the subjects of this essay. First, capital punishment--our attempt to use legal procedures to kill people fairly--is a feminist issue, or should be. Second, death row representation is too big a job for lawyers; we need to recruit poets. To develop these ideas, and perhaps to convince you without requiring you to undertake the same path to these conclusions, I am appropriating novelist Beverly Lowry's stunning new book, Crossed Over: A Murder, A Memoir. Crossed Over is the story …

Rape And Responsibility, Lynne Henderson

Articles by Maurer Faculty

I am a "lucky" survivor of a rape committed by a stranger - "lucky", because people believed me, a jury convicted the man of raping me, and he is still in prison ten years later. I know many women who have been raped who were not so fortunate, because they believed the rape was their fault, because no one else believed them, because they knew their rapist, or because they were married to him and it wasn't a crime. We share some things - the anger, the pain, the anguish, the fear - and not others; nevertheless, this is what …

The Reasonable Woman And The Ordinary Man, Carol Sanger

Faculty Scholarship

Nineteen ninety-one was a seismic year for sexual harassment. The first localized shift occurred in January, when the Ninth Circuit established that the standard by which sexual harassment in the workplace would be judged was no longer the reasonable man or even the reasonable person but rather the reasonable woman. In October a larger audience felt a much stronger jolt when Anita Hill spoke before the Senate Judiciary Committee.

Hill testified that Supreme Court nominee Clarence Thomas had sexually harassed her while she worked for him at the Department of Education and at the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. Her testimony …

Dispelling The Myths About The "Battered Woman's Defense:" Towards A New Understanding, Michael Dowd

Fordham Urban Law Journal

This essay explores the growth of the use of self-defense by battered women from a historical perspective in order to explain the magnitude of the prejudices these defendants face. The essay suggests that a redefinition of Battered Woman's Syndrome will ease much of the criticism from feminists and eliminate the confusion in the legal profession surrounding the use of self-defense by battered women. The essay also pushes for a redefinition of the concept of "imminence" to encompass the realities of a battered woman's life.