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Psychological Self-Defense: A Proposed Justification for Battered Women Who Kill

NCJ Number
128319
Journal
Law and Human Behavior Volume: 14 Issue: 6 Dated: (December 1990) Pages: 579-594
Author(s)
C P Ewing
Date Published
1990
Length
16 pages
Annotation
A small but increasingly visible number of battered women eventually kill their batterers. While most of these women plead self-defense, they are generally convicted of murder or manslaughter because their homicidal acts rarely fit the narrow legal definition of self-defense.
Abstract
This article (a) explains who battered women are and why they kill; (b) suggests that many, perhaps most, battered women who kill their batterers do so in "psychological self-defense"; and (c) argues that current self-defense law should be expanded to justify such killings. 98 notes (Author abstract)

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