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Is There a Battered Woman's Defense? |
 By Sarah Bellemore On October 6, 2011, a jury found Barbara Sheehan not guilty of murdering her husband Raymond, a retired Sergeant from the NYPD, in 2008. Barbara had always admitted to killing her husband. The jury had to decide whether the killing was done in self-defense. Barbara experienced violence at the hands of her husband for 17 years. One day after an explosive argument, Barbara decided she was leaving. She packed a bag and took one of her husband’s pistols with her for protection. As she attempted to leave the house, Raymond saw her and pointed a gun at her, threatening to kill her if she left. After years of abuse, Barbara believed her husband when he told he would kill her and so she shot him before he could shoot her. The prosecution, however, told a different story. They painted a picture of Barbara as a manipulative woman who was after her husband’s life insurance money. They told stories of her husband’s kinky sexual desires which they say made Barbara grow to despise him. They claimed that Barbara executed her husband and then lied about the abuse to avoid jail time, pointing out that there had been no police records of prior abuse. After Barbara’s acquittal, many articles touted the “vindication” for the Battered Woman’s Defense. In reality, there is no such thing as a legal battered woman’s defense. Defense attorneys explore a woman’s use of lethal force in self-defense in the context of her abusive relationship. Any person charged with homicide who is claiming that they killed in self-defense must simply prove that they believed that their life was in imminent danger and therefore they were protecting themselves. There is a misconception that “battered woman’s defense” is somehow a special legal defense that protects women who kill their abusers. A comment from a reader on the New York Times article pointed out that there is no “get out of jail free” card for battered women who ultimately end up killing their abuser. Their violent relationship is discussed in detail to show that the woman knew that her life was in danger when she killed her abuser. Who better to assess the level of threat that Raymond posed than the person who spent over 20 years with him? Suggesting that Barbara was not in immediate danger or that she didn’t actually fear for her life as her husband was pointing a gun at her was the prosecution’s main argument.Other reader comments on the articles are mixed. Some call Barbara’s acquittal a “victory for all survivors” while others discuss their disdain and confusion. The same sentiment of, “Why didn’t she just leave?” is seen in comment after comment. This is just more evidence that there is still a lot of work to be done to educate our community members of the realities of domestic violence. To read more about the battered women’s defense and its history in the legal system, click here for an article written by Sheehan’s attorney, Michael Dowd, in 1999.
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