Don’t Call Me Crazy

Two different pronoun problems. First, "A person" needs a singular pronoun. If the gendering of singular pronouns in English seems to be a problem here, use the plural, "People." Second, the second person pronoun ending the paragraph seems sudden: we've been in third person throughout the preceding sentences.

Infinitive splitting isn't good. Here "never to feel truly stuck" is simple and graceful, or as graceful as one can be with "stuck" in the phrase.

I cannot even imagine how it is for an indigent woman, or a woman of color, or a woman in an abusive relationship, and especially not for a woman experiencing all of those things simultaneously.

I think you mean you can imagine, and that you imagine she is unlikely to bother calling the police at all. It might have been more accurate to say "undocumented" than "indigent." Similarly "color" doesn't necessarily do a good job of defining which ethnic or cultural communities will be more reluctant to call the police: Haredi Jews are usually assumed to have "white" color, for example, but also do not report domestic violence.

It would be reasonable here also to refer, however, to the spread of "must arrest" statutes and rules requiring police to take action to remove the (almost always) man from the scene in custody. Similarly, the last sentence of the paragraph, while literally accurate, is potentially misleading: responsible prosecutors wouldn't charge a partner solely for failure to report or prevent violence by a primary abuser also abusing them, absent all evidence of some other form of complicity in the abuse. Even in such cases, duress or coercion might well be an appropriate defense, but your text seems to suggest that there's something inherently wrong with requiring proof of the affirmative defense, or perhaps even of imposing any liability in such situations, which seems to me probably to go further than you meant to go.

I don't understand the reference to DeShaney. (First, when citing a case, cite the case, not a Wikipedia article about it.) Even if DeShaney is wrongly decided as you believe, a position I agree with, the opposite result surely must depend on (1) the State's role as parens patriae in assuring the safety of children, and (2) the active previous involvement of the State's child protective services throughout Joshua DeShaney? 's life in Wisconsin, including repeated home visits. It's hard to see how, on any logic, one could find a non-statutory 14th Amendment damages remedy generally against municipalities for failing to prevent crimes, solve crimes, or interrupt crimes in progress. Implying such a direct non-statutory remedy from the 14th Amendment is hard work even given the elements present in DeShaney? I describe, which is why the Court finds it an unreachable destination.

That's not one conclusion, that's two. You have discussed only the first one. Where is the argument that those the State will not help are therefore entitled to "premeditated deadly force"?

We see this primarily through the use of Battered Women's Syndrome as a defense, which has been used in some jurisdictions to allow battered women to escape convictions for violent behavior when differently situated parties might have been convicted. However, several feminist scholars, with whom I agree, point out that this is problematic in that it perpetuates a damaging stereotype of battered women, and women in general, as mentally reduced. As well as reinforcing a powerless and marginalized status for women, testimony on Battered Women's Syndrome also generally fails to protect battered women from criminal charges. Most jurisdictions, if they allow testimony on Battered Women's Syndrome at all, only allow it to inform the jury's decisions to a very limited extent, and do not allow it as a complete defense in the case of violent behavior that seems clearly premeditated, for example, killing an abusive husband in his sleep. Battered Women's Syndrome is therefore an unsatisfactory solution to the problematic punitive, rather than therapeutic, treatment of battered women in the criminal justice system.

This doesn't address the analytic issues at all. If someone is in present reasonable apprehension of death or serious bodily injury, use of deadly force in self-defense is excusable without any reference to the "domestic" nature of the threat. And, as you point out, courts increasingly accept that a killing with malice prepense should be treated as a killing under immediate provocation where there has been a history of repeated violence against the killer, thus turning murder or first-degree homicide into manslaughter. Here you are not-asking about conditions under which premeditated killing should be excused, apparently asserting without explanation that killing on premeditation is "anticipatory self-defense." This conclusion may be correct, but it can't be assumed. Have we decided that this is the sole example of excusing premeditated murder of unarmed, sleeping, or otherwise not immediately threatening people who can be confidently predicted to be violent in future? Are there other such examples? Do they hinge on the psychological state of the killer, or primarily on the predictable future dangerousness of the victim? Can someone hire a person to perform "anticipatory self-defense," and if not, why not?

I'm not sure I fully understand the closing reference to "punitive, rather than therapeutic, treatment of battered women in the criminal justice system." Donald Black might use that phrase to denote the criminal conviction of a person, but in this context it seems to me to have more to do with sentencing. Is this about women who kill men who have a history of brutalizing them? If so, what does happen to them, overall? Do they serve substantial prison sentences? The full complement of "battered women in the criminal justice system," probably includes almost all women in the criminal justice system; I suspect, as you probably do too, that almost all female offenders have experienced physical violence in their lives.

Was there evidence presented that the criminal justice system treats battered women as "crazy"? I don't think I saw it, and I'm not sure that without evidence I would believe it.

I'm still puzzled by the recommendation that domestic violence victims should be given a damages action against municipalities on the basis of a duty to protect "women" from domestic violence. Isn't that obviously unconstitutional? So we have a duty to protect people against domestic violence, failing which damages are awarded against the municipality. Why should this be limited to domestic violence? Is there some more serious obligation to protect people against domestic violence than other violence? Why should statute distinguish between this duty and the non-duty to protect against other violence, like for example, violence by state employees? In the latter case, we know already that the municipality has no duty unless the violence results from "policies and practices" of the municipality, at least so far as section 1983 is concerned. We don't want the State putting a policeman in every home, so what triggers the "duty to protect," for failing to observe which the municipality's taxpayers should be mulcted in damages?