Discerning Justice for Battered Women Who Kill

JACQUELINE R. CASTEL

ABSTRACT

The judicial system has traditionally assumed that women who kill their spouses are either legally insane or dangerous criminal offenders. However, the social science literature on spousal homicide reveals that women who kill their spouses are generally battered women who are acting in self-defense. The author finds that the legal requirements for invoking a successful self-defense plea discriminate against battered women who kill their spouses. These requirements are based on the experiences of the "reasonable" man and do not contemplate acts of self-defense by battered women which are reasonable, although different from men's. The author considers both the constitutionality of the current doctrine of self-defense under sections 7, 15 and 28 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms and the types of legal reform and trial strategies which may be helpful in overcoming sex-discrimination in the law of self-defense.

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Citation: (1990) 48(2) U.T. Fac. L. Rev. 229.
Copyright © 1990. University of Toronto Faculty of Law Review.
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