cover image Justifiable Homicide: Battered Women, Self-Defense, and the Law /

Justifiable Homicide: Battered Women, Self-Defense, and the Law /

Cynthia K. Gillespie. Ohio State University Press, $21.95 (252pp) ISBN 978-0-8142-0466-5

This is a study to set women's blood boiling. Seattle attorney Gillespie details how unjust the judiciary is to battered women who kill their tormentors. She shows that the law of selfdefense is adjudged by many courts not to apply to battered women. Some judges, for example, have disallowed testimony on previous batterings, while others have refused to permit experts on the so-called ``battered women's syndrome'' to be heard, on the grounds that the formulation is too recent for any expertise to have been developed. And such elements as the victim's inability to leave the battering husband/lover have been discounted. In a ``summing-up,'' Gillespie presents recommendations that should be read by all lawyers and judges. (Apr.)