Law Commons^™

Decisions To Prosecute Battered Women's Homicide Cases: An Exploratory Study, Sarah N. Welling, Diane Follingstad, M. Jill Rogers, Frances Jillian Priesmeyer

Law Faculty Scholarly Articles

Discretionary decisions to prosecute cases in which a battered woman kills her partner were investigated using several research strategies and targeting a range of case elements. Law students presented with case elements reported they would consider legal elements over nonlegal (or ‘supplemental’) elements when making a decision to prosecute. In contrast, law students assessed through an open-ended format as to important case factors for deciding to prosecute spontaneously generated high proportions of supplemental case elements compared with legal factors. Vignette comparisons of 42 case elements on participants’ likelihood to prosecute identified salient factors including legal and supplemental variables. Themes from …

Ambiguous-Purpose Statements Of Children And Other Victims Of Abuse Under The Confrontation Clause, Paul F. Rothstein

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

The author examines in this paper two kinds of ambiguous-purpose out-of-court statements that are especially problematic under current Confrontation law--problematic in ways that we hope will be solved directly or indirectly by the Supreme Court when it renders its decision in Ohio v. Clark. The statements he examines are:

(1) Statements made by abused children concerning their abuse, for example to police, physicians, teachers, welfare workers, baby sitters, or family members, some of whom may be under a legal duty to report suspected abuse to legal authorities. At least some of these statements will be directly addressed by the …

Reframing Domestic Violence Law And Policy: An Anti-Essentialist Proposal, Leigh Goodmark

Leigh S. Goodmark

This Article focuses on a central failure in domestic violence law and policy reform—the creation of a body of law and set of policies based on outmoded notions of what domestic violence is, the identities of the women who experience violence, the identities of their partners, and what such women need and want. The theoretical underpinnings of domestic violence law and policy largely are to blame for this excessively narrow and problematic view of domestic violence.

Stopping The Chronic Batterer Through Legislation: Will It Work This Time?, Prentice L. White

Pepperdine Law Review

No abstract provided.

State V. Harden: Muddying The Waters Of Self-Defense Law In West Virginia, Devin C. Daines

West Virginia Law Review

No abstract provided.

Reforms To Criminal Defense Instructions: New Patterned Jury Instructions Which Account For The Experience Of The Battered Woman Who Kills Her Battering Mate, Deborrah Ann Klis

Golden Gate University Law Review

This comment uses the plight of Brenda Denise Aris to illustrate the criminal defenses available to a battered woman who kills her aggressor. Since the 1989 decision in Aris, California Governor Pete Wilson granted executive clemency to Aris. Governor Wilson reduced Aris' fifteen years to life sentence to twelve years to life. Another significant event since the decision in Aris is the passage of California Assembly Bill 785 in 1991. The Bill added Section 1107 to the California Evidence Code, which permits expert testimony regarding battered woman syndrome. The testimony may include expert opinion concerning the physical, emotional, or mental …

Deaf Justice?: Battered Women Unjustly Imprisoned Prior To The Enactment Of Evidence Code Section 1107, Scott G. Baker

Golden Gate University Law Review

On March 5, 1993, Assembly Bill 2295 (hereinafter AB 2295) was introduced by Assembly Member Barbara Friedman. On October 11, 1993, the Governor of the State of California vetoed AB 2295. Assembly Bill 2295 was designed to provide a fair and even application of the law to those individuals affected by the issue of battered woman syndrome (hereinafter BWS). Battered women charged with criminal activity after January 1, 1992 are permitted to present battered woman syndrome expert testimony at their trials pursuant to Evidence Code Section 1107.8 Battered women convicted prior to this date remain unjustly imprisoned because they have …

In Harm's Way? Family Mediation And The Role Of The Attorney Advocate, Mary Pat Treuthart

Golden Gate University Law Review

The first part of this article presents some background information about mediation and the current mediation trend, emphasizes that the use of mediation is dangerous and inappropriate when one disputant has been abused by the other, and identifies potential problems for women which may be created by family mediation. The second part of this article focuses on the role and responsibilities of the attorney advocate when the client chooses, or is compelled, to mediate, with particular attention to the special concerns involved in representing battered women. In the scholarly literature, much time and energy has been devoted to issues addressed …

Survey: Woman And California Law, Amy C. Hirschkron, Michele M. Feher, Te Jung Chang

Golden Gate University Law Review

This survey of California, a regular feature of the Women's Law Forum, summarizes recent California Supreme Court and Court of Appeal decisions of special importance to women. A brief analysis of the issues pertinent to women raised in each case is provided.

The Perils Of Empowerment, Jane H. Aiken, Katherine Goldwasser

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

This Article examines bystander norms of disinterest and blame that inform and undermine strategies for dealing with significant social problems such as domestic violence. Current strategies rely on individual “empowerment” to reduce such violence. These strategies reflect fundamental misconceptions and false assumptions about the nature of domestic violence, about why this sort of violence persists so stubbornly, and, ultimately, about what it takes to change behavior that has long been tolerated, if not actually fostered, as a result of deeply imbedded social and cultural norms. The net effect is that far from empowering abused women, let alone reaching the norms …

Intimate Partner Violence: Criminal Justice Responses To High Lethality Cases, Victoria E. Collins

Sociology & Criminal Justice Theses & Dissertations

This study examines the relationship between the level of violence suffered by the victim in a domestic violence relationship and the criminal justice responses to that violence, namely arrest, prosecution and the issuance of protective orders. Data was obtained from a nonprofit domestic violence agency in Virginia Beach, Virginia. The data was collected by agency staff from victims seeking assistance. This study found that female victims of domestic violence that suffered higher levels of violence at the hands of their abuser were more likely to be issued a protective order. Female victims who suffered higher levels of violence were not …

Intimate Partner Homicide, Karitta A. Page

Sociology & Criminal Justice Theses & Dissertations

Using data collected from the Chicago Women's Health Risk Study (Block 2000), this study looked at female perpetrated intimate partner homicide. The purpose of this study was to identify what factors, if any, differentiate between abused women who kill versus abused women who do not kill their intimate partners. Through conducting this study, several factors such as substance abuse, support networks and severe violence were compared between abused women who kill their intimate partner versus those who were abused women but did not kill. It was found that severe abuse, substance abuse by the abuser and the abused person were …

Conceptualizing Violence Against Pregnant Women, Deborah Tuerkheimer

Indiana Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Progressive Minnesota? A Perspective On Women's Issues In The Legislature, Aviva Breen

William Mitchell Law Review

No abstract provided.

Sexual Abuse Of Women In United States Prisons: A Modern Corollary Of Slavery, Brenda V. Smith

Fordham Urban Law Journal

This paper addresses the sexual abuse of women in custody as a more contemporary manifestation of slavery. Part II situates the sexual abuse of women in custody and women slaves in their historical context. Part II also charts the creation of the first penitentiaries in the United States and the "Reform Movement," led by Quaker women who were also involved in the abolition movement, and later in the suffrage movement. It further examines the impact that women's entry into male prisons as workers in the 1970s and 1980s - pursuant to Title VII - had on the sexual abuse of …

Silence Compounded- The Conjuction Of Race And Gender Violence, Zanita E. Fenton

American University Journal of Gender, Social Policy & the Law

No abstract provided.

Ginger Rogers Dancing Backwards In Red High Heels– Feminist Lawmaking And Domestic Violence, Bette Garlow

American University Journal of Gender, Social Policy & the Law

No abstract provided.

Why Do You Do The Things You Do? Clemency For Battered Incarcerated Women, A Decade's Review, Linda L. Ammons

American University Journal of Gender, Social Policy & the Law

No abstract provided.

Battered Women, Child Maltreatment, Prison, And Poverty: Issues For Theory And Practice, Naomi R. Cahn

American University Journal of Gender, Social Policy & the Law

No abstract provided.

Engaging With The State: The Growing Reliance On Lawyers And Judges To Protect Battered Women, Jane C. Murphy

American University Journal of Gender, Social Policy & the Law

No abstract provided.

The "Pitiless Double Abuse" Of Battered Mothers, Justine A. Dunlap

American University Journal of Gender, Social Policy & the Law

No abstract provided.

What Feminist Pedagogy Has Wrought, Zipporah Batshaw Wiseman

American University Journal of Gender, Social Policy & the Law

No abstract provided.

Doubly Victimized: Housing Discrimination Against Victims Of Domestic Violence, Lenora M. Lapidus

American University Journal of Gender, Social Policy & the Law

No abstract provided.

Silence Compounded - The Conjunction Of Race And Gender Violence, Zanita E. Fenton

Articles

No abstract provided.

Offering A Helping Hand: Legal Protections For Battered Immigrant Women: A History Of Legislative Responses , Leslye E. Orloff, Janice V. Kaguyutan

American University Journal of Gender, Social Policy & the Law

No abstract provided.

Women Do Not Report The Violence They Suffer: Violence Against Women And The State Action Doctrine, Michelle J. Anderson

Villanova Law Review

No abstract provided.

Whether The Constitutionality Of The Violence Against Women Act Will Further Federal Protection From Sexual Orientation Crimes, Alexander Dombrowsky

University of Miami Law Review

No abstract provided.

No Civilized System Of Justice: The Fate Of The Violence Against Women Act, Sally F. Goldfarb

West Virginia Law Review

No abstract provided.

Evidence Issues In Domestic Violence Civil Cases, Jane H. Aiken, Jane C. Murphy

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

This article is intended to assist practitioners in anticipating and responding to some of the evidentiary challenges in civil cases in which relief is sought for the victims of domestic violence. First, expert testimony is often necessary to dispel common myths about battered women and to educate judges and juries about the dynamics of domestic violence. Recent case law, however, has limited the admissibility of "non-scientific" expert testimony and may make it difficult for practitioners to use experts in their cases. In addition, particular evidentiary issues arise when victims are pursuing both criminal and civil remedies against the batterer. This …

From Property To Personhood: What The Legal System Should Do For Children In Family Violence Cases, Leigh Goodmark

West Virginia Law Review

No abstract provided.