Battered Woman Syndrome: Self-Defense Plea Essay

Battered Woman Syndrome, or BTS, was a theory that was developed in the 1970’s (Battered Woman Syndrome, 2010). As stated before, BTS is the signs, symptoms, and general characteristics of battered woman. According to Dr. Lenore E. Walker, the “mother of Battered Woman Syndrome,” a “battered woman” is any woman 18 years of age or older, who is or has been in an intimate relationship with a man who repeatedly subjects her to physical and/or psychological abuse (Battered Woman Syndrome, 2010, p. 4). In order to understand Battered Woman Syndrome, the general characteristics must be explained. There are four general characteristics of BTS; the first characteristic is that the woman believes that the violence inflicted is her fault. She believes that no matter the situation, when she is abused, she did something to deserve that abuse. The second characteristic is that the woman is incapable of placing the responsibility for the violet actions elsewhere. Third characteristic is the women perpetually fears for her life/lives of

Tanya Mitchell frantically called 911 to report a shooting-a shooting she committed. In an act of self-defense against her abusive husband who, at the time, was threatening to kill her, she did what she had to do to save her own life. From her reports, her husband was not only abusive, but that he gave men in his “motorcycle club” permission to gang rape her-while he watched. Specific example of his sadistic abuse include him telling her they were going to get married while holding her at gunpoint, making her play Russian roulette, and even trying to rip off her nails. Her attorneys were going to use Battered Woman Syndrome (to take her psychological health based off of her abuse) as a factor in the case but were not confident it would

In addition, there are also many defenses that are sexually based, such as battered women’s syndrome, in which a woman is abused by her spouse so much that she ends up killing him because she finds that there is absolutely no other alternative, and nobody to talk to or get help from. Another defense is sexual abuse syndrome, which can also be linked to rape trauma syndrome, which was discovered in 1974. This defense claims that sexual abuse

Because woman strike back at their abusers; battered woman’s syndrome has been used in courts as a plea when their actions were believed to be in self-defense (Hodell et. al, 2011). And when a battered woman kills her abuser, they must convince a jury of the rationality of her lethal actions to successfully advance a plea of self-defense (Schuller et al., 2004). When jurors believe that under the given circumstances a defendant’s behavior was justified under the law a jury can find a defendant not guilty by reason of self-defense (Hodell et al., 2011). Recent research in case’s of self-defense suggest that when using the battered women’s syndrome certain characteristics of the defendant could interfere with the accused sentencing (Russell, Ragatz, & Kraus, 2012).

(Battered Woman's Syndrome). If it is confusing because BWS is not a legal defense but the

BWS was first introduced in the 1970’s due to the phenomenon of women killing their batterers. This legal justification has criteria that must have been in place for this justification to come back with a not guilty verdict. The central criteria are that the threat must have been imminent, there was a recent battering and the victim must feel that the abuse will continue and eventually cause death. The victim ultimately fears for her life, and her children, and therefore feel that her only way out of the situation is to kill her intimate partner. More than ever today, PTSD is used to justify a broad range of mental health problems that enables someone to commit crime, including women who kill their batterers.

Women who are being abused and controlled by their partners are generally not allowed to engage in the kind of open dialogue that counseling promotes. In fact, a woman who does speak openly to a social worker in the presence of an abusive partner may, in reality, be in serious danger when she returns home. (Golden, 1994) The fear that is created through the abuse makes it difficult for the victim to admit they are being mistreated.

In my third article by Lenore Walker discusses Battered Women and the impact caused on them from martial abuse that had led to Battered Women to be diagnosed with PTSD from the level of beatings, and constant abuse they took from their partners over the time of the relationship. Walker discusses five major areas that negatively affected with the women’s coping skills they are manipulation, dissociation, anger, intimacy, and compliance. When she was assessing women of the PTSD like symptoms she had come to notice a few things about the women, that lead to diagnose them with PTSD as the symptoms, as well as what triggered the responses are the same across the board for all those diagnosed with PTSD. She noticed that many of the victims would minimize the trauma or even deny it happened from the very start which is a common coping method that she had pointed out in her article. She also noticed that some of the women would almost go into a sort of trance like state in which they would gaze

Physical. Every nine seconds a woman is beaten by her spouse (Protection Against Crime, 2002). Seventy-five percent of the victims of intimate murders are female with a total of three to four million women being battered each year by their respective intimate partners (Protection Against Crime, 2002).The victims of domestic abuse by law enforcement officers endure a special kind of torture, that others in that similar situation do not. The victims are most likely to endure the dangers of professionals who are experienced in firearms, knowledge and training of subduing their victims, etc. During these types of events, one might lose the sense of control and order they once had in their lives. Victims of abuse may suffer physical and emotional pain from the ordeals they had to live through, long after their

By comparing the overall scores of each questionnaire given, the researchers confirmed their hypothesis. The results of this study showed that PTSD and major depressive disorder was high among the battered women. Additionally, in the scores of those women who with PTSD and depression, learned helplessness was also highly correlated. The PTSD group had higher scores on all of the conditions measured (depression, learned helplessness, severity of abuse and male dominated backgrounds)

CA and a retrial ordered to consider the new medical evidence. In this case the defendant stabbed her abusive partner to death in 1992. It was held that battered wife syndrome was a mental disease and could cause abnormality of mind and so a re-trial was ordered Battered woman syndrome was confirmed as a characteristic in R v Smith (Morgan) [2001] HL. In this case the defendant and the victim were alcoholics and friends.

Bargai,Ben-Shakhar, and Shalev (2007) designed a study to test the hypothesis that learned helplessness (LH) intervenes the relationship between violence severity and mental disorders in battered women, particularly posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and major depression (MDD). They also hypothesis that the severity of LH, PTSD, and MDD is positively correlated with the severity of violence. Lastly, it was hypothesized that here is a significant correlation between LH and the invested background factors such as child abuse, socioeconomic and male-dominated backgrounds. The sample consisted of 102 battered woman from eight

The Battered Women Syndrome is a series of characteristics in women who are physically and psychologically abused by an important dominant male in their lives. These women learn helplessness and dependency; sometimes these characteristics originate from childhood. According to Dr. Lenore E. Walker, a woman must experience two cycles, before she can be labeled a “battered woman”. The two cycles are called the “cycle of violence”. This cycle leads to the feeling that the abuse will never stop. It almost becomes natural. Sometimes the relationships will be calm, and the abuser will apologize for what happened. This part is called the “honeymoon cycle”, but at other points in the cycle the tension and

Battered women’s syndrome is a repercussion of domestic violence, specifically having an identified set of distinct psychological behavioural symptoms that result from prolonged exposure to significant abuses of violence. Lack of perceptiveness and inability to judge danger and normal levels of behaviour reflect the most common characteristics of this syndrome.

The subject of husband-battering had finally been addressed, but not to the great satisfaction of anyone. Although it had finally been shown that there was violence being perpetrated both by wives and husbands, there was no information about relative frequency or severity, or who initiated the abuse and who was acting in self defense. Furthermore, some researchers became concerned that the use of police or social services references in choosing subjects to study might be biasing the results. In short, they recognized that battered husbands might be nearly invisible next to their female counterparts.