| |
| META TOPICPARENT | name="SecondPaper" |
|---|
It is strongly recommended that you include your outline in the body of your essay by using the outline as section titles. The headings below are there to remind you how section and subsection titles are formatted. | | |
A Battered Woman | |
<
< | Limitations on punishment and availability of excuse, which should provide key safeguards in the criminal system, can instead pose major obstacles to the administration of justice. The decision in _State v. Norman_ illustrates two problems: first, a logical problem with implications of principle and rationale; and second, a problem of unjustified punishment. In Norman, the defendant suffered battered woman syndrome, resulting from years of physical abuse by her husband, the deceased. The abuse culminated in a severe beating that led her to call the police, who refused to arrest the husband unless she filed a complaint. She feared her husband so much that she was too afraid to do so. So She attempted suicide instead. When paramedics came to her aid, her husband intervened, insisting that they let her die. The defendant tried to sign up for welfare (her husband forced her into prostituion and she desperately wanted to get out), and endured beating and cigarette burns at her husband’s hands. The defendant then shot her sleeping husband to death. On appeal, the court rejected her claim of self defense. | >
> | Limitations on punishment and availability of excuse, which should provide key safeguards in the criminal system, can instead pose major obstacles to the administration of justice. The decision in State v. Norman illustrates two problems: first, a logical problem with implications of principle and rationale; and second, a problem of unjustified punishment. In Norman, the defendant suffered battered woman syndrome, resulting from years of physical abuse by her husband, the deceased. Throughout 20 years of their marriage, the husband abused alcohol. After he got drunk, he frequently assaulted the defendant. He was also unemployed most of the time, so he coerced her into prostitution with violence. On a few occasions, the husband humiliated the defendant by forcing her to bark like a dog and then eat pet food out of a pet’s bowl. The abuse culminated in a severe beating that led her to call the police, who refused to arrest the husband unless she filed a complaint. She feared that her husband would kill her if she got him arrested. Right after the police left, she attempted suicide by swallowing a bottle of pills. When paramedics came to her aid, her husband intervened, insisting that they let her die. Next day, after the defendant was released from the hospital, she went to social service to sign up for welfare, so she can stop prostituting. Her husband followed her there, dragged her home, threatened to kill her, and continued his abuse with more punching, kicking, and cigarette burns. That evening, the defendant shot her sleeping husband to death. When asked why she killed her husband, she said “even if it means going to prison[,] [i]t's better than living in that. That's worse hell than anything.” | | | A Logical Problem
In North Carolina, a jury may acquit a defendant on the grounds of perfect self defense when, at the time of the killing, the defendant believed that it was necessary to kill the victim to save herself from “imminent death or great bodily harm.” The court, however, found that no such imminence was present. Thus the defendant had no defense. The opinion also defined “imminent” as “immediate danger, such as must be instantly met, such as cannot be guarded against by calling for the assistance of others or the protection of the law.” The decision, then, in endorsing this definition, espoused an interpretation that focused on the danger being instantly met; however, the opinion strangely focused on the nature of the danger being instant in fact. A more sensible approach in granting the self defense, if “imminent” is to be defined by how instantly a danger must be responded to, is to focus on the defendant. The inquiry should be into the defendant's perception of the necessity of her own imminent action, rather than the actions that the husband would take at that particular moment. The question should have at least gone to the jury, who could have found that the defendant believed her instantaneous action was necessary to meet the danger the abusive husband presented. While this standard would not extend the defense to any defendant who thought that death was inevitable at some indeterminate future point, it would extend it to those for whom the necessity to act in that moment was essential for survival. | | | An Insupportable Result
Since it fails in every common justification for punishment, incarcerating women like Ms. Norman is pointless and insupportable. If we are retributives in one sense, what kind of debt is Ms. Norman repaying, by serving time in prison, for taking the life of someone who essentially destroyed her own? If we are retributives in another sense, who among us would call her a moral monster for what she did? There will be no deterrent value to her punishment, as she acted in a unique situation which will either a) never be repeated or b) would likely result in similar behavior if she once again found herself without alternatives to save her own life. She is not a dangerous woman by nature, but was dangerous towards a specific individual who brought a specific syndrome upon her, and thus does not need to be incapacitated for the sake of upholding a public sense of safety, real or imagined. Punishing Ms. Norman is without purpose or justification, should not have stood then, and should not stand in similar cases now. | |
<
< | Hey, Jessica, I apologize for being so late with the re-editing. I am still slowing working through it and will try to update as soon as possible. | >
> | | | |
You are entitled to restrict access to your paper if you want to. But we all derive immense benefit from reading one another's work, and I hope you won't feel the need unless the subject matter is personal and its disclosure would be harmful or undesirable. |
|