Battered women charged with homicide in Australia, Canada and New Zealand: How do they fare?

Abstract

This article examines trends in the resolution of homicide cases involving battered women defendants from 2000 to 2010 in Australia, Canada and New Zealand. Australia and Canada appear to have some commonalities in their treatment of such cases with higher acquittal rates and a greater reliance on plea bargaining to produce manslaughter verdicts, as compared with New Zealand. Although New Zealand’s small number of cases makes it difficult to generalise, its overall trends appear to be different from those observed in Australia and Canada, in both the high proportion of cases proceeding to trial and those resulting in conviction for murder. The authors conclude that there is a need to re-examine prosecutorial practices of proceeding to trial on murder rather than manslaughter charges even when manslaughter would be ultimately satisfactory to the prosecution, and of accepting guilty pleas to manslaughter verdicts in circumstances where the battered woman appears to have a strong self-defence case.

Is more law the answer? Seeking justice for victims of intimate partner violence through the reform of legal categories

“…What evidence can they provide of coercion? It may be in cases of intimate partner homicide where a coerced woman kills her partner such evidence is forthcoming, although the difficulties that such women face should not be overlooked (Sheehy, 2014; Sheehy et al, 2012). In these contexts, as Midson (2016: 424) states: ‘[i]f the accused’s choices are constrained or his or her will is overborne by the will of another, the moral fault of the accused is, or at least may be, absent’.…”

Family Violence in Domestic Homicides

“…As research in Canada, New Zealand, and Australia has shown, battered women defendants facing murder charges are under considerable pressure to plead guilty to manslaughter rather than to proceed to trial to argue self-defense (Sheehy, 2001; Sheehy, 2014; Sheehy, Stubbs, & Tolmie, 2012; VLRC, 2004). Family violence victims face significant barriers in establishing themselves as credible witnesses, because the abuse often occurs in private and there are no independent witnesses to verify their account (VLRC, 2004).…”

Inter-gender murder in NSW, 1901–1955: Reconsidering the laws of the fraternity

“…From the 1980s, the regular publication of homicide data allowed criminologists and government agencies to refine the interrogation of IPH’s unique drivers and the criminal justice system’s distinct responses to it (Fagan & Browne, 1994; Gartner & McCarthy, 1991). Despite the academic take-up of ‘intimate partner’ as a gender-neutral term by the 1990s, feminists continue to focus on men’s femicides and to criticise the law’s preparedness to excuse male partner violence while failing to take the defensive character of women’s IPH into account (Dobash & Dobash, 2015; Douglas, 2019; Sheehy et al., 2012).…”