The Impact of Expert Testimony in Trials of Battered Women Who Kill

Behavior displayed by female victims during rapes committed by lone and multiple perpetrators.

“…In this article, Tetreault summarized two studies that appeared to show the positive effects of such expert testimony (Brekke & Borgida, 1988; Tetreault & Bristow, 1988). Similar findings have been reported with social agency expert testimony regarding battered women who have killed their partner (Schuller et al, 2004). More recently, Ellison and Munro (2009b) failed to replicate these positive findings when they presented mock jurors with general expert testimony that rape victims may freeze during an attack.…”

“…General expert testimony, “draws instead on generalized social science data to provide a context against which a complainant's account can be more fairly assessed” (Ellison, 2005, p. 257). This type of testimony has also been referred to as social framework evidence (Walker & Monahan, 1987) and social agency evidence (Schuller, McKimmie, & Janz, 2004). In his critique of expert evidence on “battered woman syndrome,” Faigman (1986) argues that an individual approach should be taken to each case rather than talking about a “generalized syndrome.” He suggests that valid empirical evidence can play a role in providing a context against which the jury can consider the reasonableness of the defendant's behavior in killing her partner.…”

Abuse history and culpability judgments: Implications for battered spouse syndrome.

“…Other researchers have shown that without evidence of BSS or BWS jurors have difficulty understanding the behavior of abused women in that they tend not to leave the intimate responsible for the mistreatment (Dodge & Greene, 1991; Greene, Raitz, & Lindblad, 1989). The findings of research in this area generally show that allowing expert witnesses to discuss the syndrome helps jurors to accept that abused woman may resort to violence instead of leaving their batterer or seeking the help of law enforcement (Blackman & Brickman, 1984: Kasian, Spanos, Terrance, & Peebles, 1993; Schuller & Hastings, 1996; Schuller, McKimmie, & Janz, 2004; Schuller et al, 1994).…”

“…Schuller et al (2004) manipulated the presence versus absence of BSS testimony and whether the battered defendant killed her spouse during a direct confrontation or while he was sleeping, and found that the battered defendants received fewer self-defense verdicts during the nonconfrontational homicide (while the defendant was sleeping). Most importantly, this effect occurred most prominently with social agency testimony but was offset when BSS was present (Schuller et al, 2004). Apparently BSS testimony led jurors to reach a self-defense verdict even when the battered victim killed her spouse while he was asleep.…”

“…The purpose of the current investigation was to examine the link between abuse and self-defense law by testing the assumption that abused women perceive imminent danger and reasonableness of force differently than women who have not been abused. Our methodology involves asking women who self-report intimate partner abuse (Larsen, 2016; Mitchell, 2009) to make judgments about other women’s complaints of such abuse, but we do not try to simulate jury decisions as prior research has done (Schuller et al, 2004; Schuller & Rzepa, 2002; Schuller et al, 1994). Instead, we ask women who have and have not experienced psychological, physical or sexual abuse to apply the law in a homicide case and consider whether the facts support a verdict of guilty or not guilty by reason of self-defense.…”