Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-r5fsc Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-29T15:02:56.107Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Ambiguous Responsibilities: Law and Conflicting Expert Testimony on the Abused Woman Who Shot Her Sleeping Husband

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 December 2018

Renée Römkens
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Truth is a thing of this world: It is produced only by virtue of multiple forms of constraint.

—Michel Foucault 1977

Law is less than ever the exclusive domain of legal experts. However, scientific experts often disagree on what constitutes scientifically reliable and valid knowledge. In sociolegal debates about whether luw or science is ultimately decisive in this decision-making process, the focus is primarily on the competition between the powers of law or science.

Using a detailed analysis of a Dutch appellate case of a battered woman who killed her husband, I will argue that the legal decision on conflicting expert testimonies in the field of forensic psychiatry and psychology resulted from a much more complex intersection of power, struggles between law and science, but also among scientists. Various aspects of expert testimony, unrelated to the scientific validity of the knowledge, profoundly influence how specialized knowledge from experts will or will not be validated by the law. Such aspects include status differences between institutionalized and less-established disciplines, and gender bias. While exercising its ultimate obligation and power to judge in an arena of disputing experts, law in this case rhetorically constructs an image of rationality, Objectivity, and neutrality of its own decision-making process. In so doing, it masks the underlying umbiguities, its arbitrariness, and its gender bias in the process of inclusion or exclusion of expert knowledge.

Type
Symposium: Gender, Agency, Violence, and the Law
Information
Law & Social Inquiry , Volume 25 , Issue 2 , Spring 2000 , pp. 355 - 391
Copyright
Copyright © American Bar Foundation, 2000 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Baldus, C. C. David Pulaski, Woodworth G. 1990. Equal Justice and the Death Penalty: A Legal and Empirical Analysis. Boston: Northeastern University Press.Google Scholar
Bernat, F. 1992. Women in the Legal Professions. In The Changing Role of Women in the Criminal Justice System: Offenders, Victims, and Professionals, ed. Mover, I., 307–22. 2d ed. Prospect Heights, Ill.: Waveland.Google Scholar
Birch, Helen, ed. 1994. Moving Targets. Women, Murder, and Representation. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Boumil, M. M., Hicks, S., Friedman, J., Taylor, B. E. 1994 Law and Gender Bias. Littleton, Colo.: Rothman.Google Scholar
Browne, Angela. 1987. When Battered Women Kill. New York: Free Press.Google Scholar
Browne, Angela, and Williams, K. 1989. Exploring the Effect of Resource Availability and the Likelihood of Female Perpetrated Homicides. Law and Society Review 23: 75–94.Google Scholar
Browne, Angela, and Williams, K. 1993. Gender, Intimacy, and Lethal Violence. Trends from 1976 through 1987. Gender & Society 7(1):78–98.Google Scholar
Conley, John M. and O'Barr, W. M. 1998. Just Words: Law, Language, and Power. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Cormier, B. M. 1962. Psychodynamics of Homicide Committed in a Marital Relationship. Correctional Psychiatry: Journal of Social Therapy 8(4):187–94.Google Scholar
Cornia, R. D. 1997. Current Use of Battered Woman Syndrome: Institutionalization of Negative Stereotypes About Women. UCLA Women's Law Journal 8 (Fall-Winter)99–123.Google Scholar
Crenshaw, Kimberlé W. 1989. Demarginalizing the Intersection of Race and Sex: A Black Feminist Critique of Antidiscrimination Doctrine, Feminist Theory, and Antiracist Politics. Chicago Legal Forum 1989:139–67.Google Scholar
Crenshaw, Kimberlé W. 1991. Mapping the Margins: Intersectionality, Identity Politics, and Violence against Women of Color. Stanford Law Review 43:1241–99.Google Scholar
Crenshaw, Kimberlé W. 1994 Panel Presentation on Cultural Battery. University of Toledo Law Review 25:891–901.Google Scholar
Davidson, B. and Jenkins, P. 1990. Battered Women in the Criminal Justice System: An Analysis of Gender Stereotypes. Behavioral Sciences and the Law 8:161–70.Google Scholar
Davies, Margaret. 1996. Delimiting the Law. “Postmodernism” and the Politics of Law. London: Pluto Press.Google Scholar
Dershowitz, Alan M. 1994. The Abuse Excuse and Other Cop Outs, Sob Stories, and Evasions of Responsibility. Boston: Little, Brown.Google Scholar
Downs, Donald A. 1996. More than Victims: Battered Women, the Syndrome Society, and the Law. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Dutton, Donald and Susan, Painter L. 1981. Traumatic Bonding: The Development of Emotional Attachments in Battered Women and Other Relationships of Intermittent Abuse. Victimology: An International Journal 6(1–4):139–55.Google Scholar
Dutton, Donald and Susan, Painter L. 1993. Emotional Attachments in Abusive Relationships: A test of Traumatic Bonding Theory. Violence and Victims 8(2): 105–20.Google Scholar
Dutton, Ann Mary. 1996. Expert Testimony in Criminal Cases Involving Battered Women. Resource Monograph Prepared for the National Association of Women Judges. Washington, D.C.: National Association of Women Judges.Google Scholar
Edwards, Susan M. 1986. Neither Bad nor Mad: The Female Violent Offender Reassessed. Women's Studies International Forum 9(1):79–87.Google Scholar
Edwards, Susan M. 1996. Sex and Gender in the Legal Process. London: Blackstone Press.Google Scholar
Faigman, David L., and Wright, A. 1997. The Battered Woman Syndrome in the Age of Science. Arizona Law Review 39:67–115.Google Scholar
Farrell, Margaret G. 1994. Daubert v. Merrel Dow Pharmaceuticals, Inc.: Epistemology and Legal Process. Cardozo Law Review 15:2183–2217.Google Scholar
Faust, D., and Ziskin, J. 1988. The Expert Witness in Psychology and Psychiatry. Science 241:31–35.Google Scholar
Figley, C. R. 1985. Trauma and Its Wake: The Study of Post-traumatic Stress Disorder. New York: Brunner/Mazel.Google Scholar
Flax, Jane. 1993. Disputed Subjects: Essays on Psychoanalysis, Politics, and Philosophy. New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Florida Supreme Court Gender Bias Study Commission. 1990. Report. Florida Law Review 42:803–981.Google Scholar
Foster, Tosha Y. 1997. From Fear to Rage: Black Rage as a Natural Progression from and Functional Equivalent of Battered Woman Syndrome. William and Mary Law Review 38:1851–81.Google Scholar
Foucault, Michel. 1973. The Birth of the Clinic: An Archaeology of Medical Perception. London: Tavistock.Google Scholar
Foucault, Michel. 1976. History of Sexuality: An Introduction. New York: Vintage.Google Scholar
Foucault, Michel. 1980. Two Lectures. In Power/Knowledge: Selected Interviews and Other Writings by Michel Foucault–1972–1977, ed. Gordon, C. New York: Pantheon Books.Google Scholar
Fox, James A., and Jack, Levin. 1998. Multiple Homicide: Patterns of Serial and Mass Murder. Crime and Justice 23:407–55.Google Scholar
Franke, Katherine. 1977. What's Wrong with Sexual Harassment Stanford Law Review 49:691–772.Google Scholar
Gellis, A. J. 1991. Great Expectations: Women in the Legal Profession, a Commentary on State Studies. Indiana Law Journal 66:941–76.Google Scholar
Gillman, I. S. 1980. An Object-Relations Approach to the Phenomenon and Treatment of Battered Women. Psychiatry 43(4):346–58.Google Scholar
Goetting, Ann. 1989. Patterns of Marital Homicide: A Comparison of Husbands and Wives. Journal of Comparative Family Studies 20(3):341–54.Google Scholar
Goldner, Penn P. Virginia, Sheinberg, M., Walker, G. 1990. Love and Violence: Gender Paradoxes in Volatile Attachments. Family Process 29(4):343–64.Google Scholar
Goodwin, Charles. 1994. Professional Vision. American Anthropologist 3:606–33.Google Scholar
Graycar, R. 1996. Telling Tales: Legal Stories about Violence against Women. Cardozo Studies in Law and Literature 8(Fall/Winter):297–311.Google Scholar
Herman, Judith L. 1992. Trauma and Recovery. New York: Basic Books.Google Scholar
Horowitz, M. J. 1976. Stress Response Syndromes. New York: Jason Aronson.Google Scholar
Hunter, R. C. 1996. Gender in Evidence: Masculine Norms vs. Feminist Reforms. Harvard Women's Law Journal 19:127–67.Google Scholar
Jasanoff, Sheila. 1992. What Judges Should Know about the Sociology of Science. Jurimetrics Journal 32:345–59.Google Scholar
Jenkins, Pamela. 1996. Contested Knowledge: Battered Women as Agents and Victims. In Witnessing for Sociology: Sociologists in Court, ed. Pamela, Jenkins and Kroll-Smith, S., 93–111. Westport, Conn.: Praeger Publishers.Google Scholar
Jenkins, Pamela, and Kroll-Smith, S., eds. 1996. Witnessing for Sociology: Sociologists in Court. Westport, Conn.: Praeger Publishers.Google Scholar
Jurik, Nancy, and Winn, R. 1990. Gender and Homicide: A Comparison of Men and Women who Kill. Violence and Victims 5(4):227–42.Google Scholar
Jurik, Nancy, and Susan, Martin E. 1996. Doing Justice, Doing Gender. Thousand Oaks, Calif.: Sage Publications.Google Scholar
Kelk, C. 1994. De menselijke verantwoordelijkheid in het strafrecht (Human Responsibility in Criminal Law). Arnhem, the Netherlands: Gouda Quint BV.Google Scholar
Keller, Fox Evelyn. 1986. Reflections on Gender and Science. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Kolk, A. van der Bessel. 1987. Psychological Trauma. Washington, D.C.: American Psychiatric Association.Google Scholar
Komter, Martha. 1998. Dilemmas in the Courtroom: A Study of Trials of Violent Crime in the Netherlands. Hillsdale, N.J.: Lawrence Erlbaum.Google Scholar
Kuhn, Thomas. 1962. The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Llewellyn, Karl N. 1934. The Constitution as an Institution. Columbia Law Review 34(1):31–40.Google Scholar
Maguigan, Holly. 1991. Battered Women and Self-defense: Myths and Misconceptions in Current Reform Proposals. University of Pennsylvania Law Review 140:379–486.Google Scholar
Maguigan, Holly. 1996. A Defense Perspective on Battered Women Charged with Homicide: The Expert's Role during Preparation for and Conduct of Trials. Paper prepared for the National Association of Women Judges. Washington D.C.Google Scholar
Maguigan, Holly. 1998. It's Time to Move Beyond “Battered Woman Syndrome.” Criminal Justice Ethics (Winter/Spring):50–57.Google Scholar
Mahoney, Kathleen E. 1996. The Myth of Judicial Neutrality: The Role of Judicial Education in the Fair Administration of Justice. Willamette Law Review 32:785–820.Google Scholar
Mahoney, Martha R. 1991. Legal Images of Battered Women: Redefining the Issue of Separation. Michigan Law Review 90:1–94.Google Scholar
Mahoney, Martha R. 1992. Exit: Power and the Idea of Leaving in Love, Work, and the Confirmation Hearings. Southern California Law Review 65:1283–319.Google Scholar
Mahoney, Martha R. 1994. Victimization or Oppression? Women's Lives, Violence, and Agency. In The Public Nature of Private Violence: The Discovery of Domestic Abuse, ed. Fineman, M. and Mykitiuk, R., 59–92. New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Manzo, John F. 1994. “You Wouldn't Take a Seven Year Old and Ask Him All These Questions”: Jurors' Use of Practical Reasoning in Supporting Their Arguments. Law and Social Inquiry 19:639–63.Google Scholar
Morse, Allison. 1998. Social Science in the Courtroom: Expert Testimony and Battered Women. Hamline Law Review 21:287–321.Google Scholar
Mossman, Mary J. 1991. Feminism and Legal Method: The Difference It Makes. In At the Boundaries of Law: Feminism and Legal Theory, ed. Fineman, M. A. and Thomadsen, N. S., 283–300. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Nijboer, J. F. 1990. Forensische expertise: steeds opnieuw een uitdaging voor het straf(proces)recht (Forensic Expertise: Over and Again a Challenge for Criminal Law). Arnhem, the Netherlands: Gouda Quint BV.Google Scholar
Nourse, Victoria. 1998. The New Normativity: The Abuse Excuse and the Resurgence of Judgment in the Criminal Law. Stanford Law Review 50:1435–70.Google Scholar
Oberlies, Dagmar. 1990. Der Versuch das Ungleiche zu vergleichen: Totungsdelikte zwis-chen Männern und Frauen und die rechtliche Reaktion. Kritische Justiz. 23:318–31.Google Scholar
Parrish, J. 1996. Trend Analysis: Expert Testimony on Battering and Its Effects in Criminal Cases. Wisconsin Women's Law Journal 11:75–173.Google Scholar
Pleck, Elizabeth. 1987. Domestic Tyranny: The Making of Social Policy against Family Violence from Colonial Times to the Present. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Posch, Pamela. 1998. The Negative Effects of Expert Testimony on the Battered Woman Syndrome. Journal of Gender and the Law 6:485–503.Google Scholar
Radford, Lorraine. 1993. Pleading for Time: Justice for Battered Women Who Kill. In Birch 1994, 172–97.Google Scholar
Raeder, Myrna S. 1996. The Double-edged Sword: Admissibility of Battered Woman Syndrome by and against Batterers in Cases Implicating Domestic Violence. University of Colorado Law Review 67:789–816.Google Scholar
Resnik, Judith. 1996. Asking about Gender in Courts. Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society 21:952–990.Google Scholar
Riggins, Stephen H. 1997. The Rhetoric of Othering. In The Language and Politics of Exclusion: Others in Discourse, ed. Stephen Riggins, H., 1–30. Thousand Oaks, Calif.: Sage.Google Scholar
Römkens, Renee. 1992. Slachtoffers tot het bittere einde? (Victims Till the Bitter End?). Nemesis: Tijdschrift over vrouwen en recht 6:10–15.Google Scholar
Römkens, Renee. 1995. De partnerdoodster als statistische rariteit. Veroordelingen van vrouwen wegens moord en doodslag in Nederland (Women Who Kill Their Spouse As a Statistical Exception: Convictions of Dutch Women for Murder and Homicide). In Gevangen vrouwen. Over criminaliteit en detentie, ed. Fuldauer, A. et al., 44–57. Amsterdam: Nemesis/Clara Wichmann Instituut.Google Scholar
Römkens, Renee. 1996. ‘Zwei Seelen in einer Brust.’ De partnerdoodster als slachtoffer en dader (Two Souls in One: The Woman Who Kills Her Spouse As Victim and Perpetrator). In Het omstreden slachtoffer. Geweld van vrouwen en mannen (The Contested Victim: Violence of Women and Men), ed. Renee, Romkens and Sietkse, Dijkstra, 77–100. Baarn, the Netherlands: Ambo.Google Scholar
Römkens, Renee. 1997. Prevalence of Wife Abuse in the Netherlands: Combining Quantitative and Qualitative Methods. Journal of Interpersonal Violence. 12(1):99–125.Google Scholar
Römkens, Renée, and Sylvia, Mastenbroek. 1998. Budding Happiness. Dynamics in Relations of Teenage Girls Who Are Abused by Their Boyfriend. In Multidisciplinary Perspectives on Domestic Violence, ed. Renate, Klein, 58–75. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Rosaldo, Renato. 1994. Whose Cultural Studies American Anthropologist 3:524–29.Google Scholar
Schneider, Elizabeth. 1986. Describing and Changing: Women's Self-defense Work and the Problem of Expert Testimony on Battering. Women's Rights Law Reporter 9(3–4):195–214.Google Scholar
Schuck, Peter. 1993. Multi-culturalism Redux: Science, Law and Politics. Yale Law and Policy Review 11:1–46.Google Scholar
Schuller, Regina A. and Cripps, J. 1998. Expert Evidence Pertaining to Battered Women: The Impact of Gender of Expert and Timing of Testimony. Law and Human Behavior 22(1):17–31.Google Scholar
Schuller, Regina A., and Vidmar, N. 1992. Battered Woman Syndrome Evidence in the Courtroom: A Review of the Literature. Law and Human Behavior 16(2):273–91.Google Scholar
Smart, Carol. 1989. Feminism and the Power of Law. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Smart, Carol. 1995. Law, Crime, and Sexuality: Essays in Feminism. London: Sage.Google Scholar
Smith, Roger. 1989. Forensic Pathology, Scientific Expertise, and the Criminal Law. In Expert Evidence: Interpreting Science in the Law, ed. Smith, R. and Wynne, B., 56–92. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Smith, Roger, and Brian, Wynne. 1989. Expert Evidence: Interpreting Science in the Law. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Snell, J., Rosenwald, R., and Robey, A. 1964. The Wifebeater's Wife: A Study of Family Interaction. Archives of General Psychiatry 11:107–12.Google Scholar
Stark, Evan, and Ann, Flitcraft. 1988. Violence among Intimates: An Epidemiological Review. In Handbook of Family Violence, ed. Van Hasselt, V. B., Morrison, R. L., Bellack, A. S., and Hersen, M., 293–318. New York: Plenum Press.Google Scholar
St. Joan, Jacqueline. 1997. Sex, Sense, and Sensibility: Trespassing into the Culture of Domestic Abuse. Harvard Women's Law Journal 20:263–312.Google Scholar
Suval, E. M., and Brisson, R. C. 1974. Neither Beauty nor Beast: Female Criminal Homicide Offenders. International Journal of Criminology and Penology 2:23–34.Google Scholar
Swent, J. F. 1996. Gender Bias at the Heart of Justice: An Empirical Study of State Task Forces. Southern California Review of Law and Women's Studies 6(Fall):1–87.Google Scholar
Symonds, A. 1979. Violence against Women: The Myth of Masochism. American Journal of Psychotherapy 33(2)161–73.Google Scholar
Taslitz, Andrew E. 1998. A Feminist Approach to Social Scientific Evidence: Foundations. Michigan Journal of Gender and Law 5:1–80.Google Scholar
Tjaden, Patricia, and Nancy, Thoennes. 1999. Prevalence and Incidence of Violence Against Women: Findings from the National Violence Against Women Survey. Criminologist. 24(3):1–3, 2–14.Google Scholar
University of Pittsburgh Law Review. 1996. Special Issue: Self-defense and Relations of Domination: Moral and Legal Perspectives on Battered Women who Kill. University of Pittsburgh Law Review 58.Google Scholar
Wang, Karin. 1996. Battered Asian American Women: Community Responses from the Battered Women's Movement and the Asian American Community. Asian Law Journal 3–4: 151–84.Google Scholar
Waites, Elisabeth. 197778. Female Masochism and the Enforced Restriction of Choice. Victimology: An International Journal 2(3–4):535–45.Google Scholar
Wilson, Margo I., and Martin, Daly. 1992. Who Kills Whom in Spouse Killings? On the Exceptional Sex Ratio of Spousal Homicides. Criminology 30(2):189–215.Google Scholar
Wilson, Margo I., and Martin, Daly. 1993. Spousal Homicide Risk and Estrangement. Violence and Victims 8:3–16.Google Scholar
Wilson, J. P., Keane, F. M., eds. 1997. Assessing Psychological Trauma and PTSD. New York: Guilford Press.Google Scholar
Wolfgang, Marvin E. 1956. Husband-Wife Homicides. Journal of Social Therapy 2:263–71.Google Scholar
Worrall, Ann. 1990. Offending Women: Female Lawbreakers and the Criminal justice System. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Wynne, Brian. 1989. Establishing the Rules of Laws: Constructing Expert Authority. In Expert Evidence: Interpreting Science in the Law, ed. Smith, R. and Wynne, B., 23–55. London / New York: Routledge.Google Scholar