Battered Woman Defense

There's a bit of a legal war going on right now in Kew Gardens Queens.  Barbara Sheehan has been accused of unlawfully killing her husband, who was, by trade, a NYC police investigator. 

To justify self-defense, a defendant must prove that he or she was under immediate life-threatening harm.  Most jurisdictions say that such a threat must be both objective and subjective (the defendant believed it, and a reasonable person would also believe it). 

There's a catch, commonly called the battered-woman's-defense, and it is this: a battered woman, one who suffered domestic violence/abuse for some sustained amount of time, need not prove that she was under immediate bodily harm.

Anyway, it seems to me, from reading some of the news reports about this case, that she is arguing both: a) that she was justified in using lethal self-defense because any person in her situation would have been (she met the statutory requirements) and b) that she was justified in using lethal self-defense because she was a battered woman and this was the only way out.

For the record, lots of people think that battered women should just leave their marriage/relationship, and it turns out that this is extremely difficult.  One reason is that the battered woman fears for her life.   Leaving the situation doesn't guarantee safety.  Her abuser is cunning and manipulative, and has, repeatedly, told her how he would kill her if she left or told others of the abuse.

Orders for protection are nice, in theory, but in practice are toothless.  

Lessened financial means often play a role in one's capacity to leave, as well as social support networks that are diminished or shared with the abuser.

Incredible amounts of shame also play a role.

And finally, I think there's a very confusing element of love, or committment, to one's abuser.  Imagine, if you will, that your mother or father abused you, and that you were developmentally young enough not to be independent, and not to know that they shouldn't do it.  You would likely be hugely conflicted emotionally, to say the least.   Now, a battered woman is not a child, but her emotional state is not clear cut, either--the abuser is rarely some stranger that is easy to walk away from.    Does that difficultly lead to a justified death?  In short, the argument is that the conditions are evident for self-defense to be used generally, even when physical egress is possible.