Battered Woman Syndrome

Battered woman syndrome attorney staten island (BWS) was first proposed in the 1970's and was essentially based on the clinical observations of a single researcher. Nevertheless, the concept quickly caught on and became a popular way to justify behavior in some courts. However, while it initially enjoyed success in portions of the legal arena, BWS has not been established nor accepted in the field of psychology by serious and rigorous empirical researchers.

To be sure, clinical syndromes do exist, and BWS may indeed exist, but to date there is insufficient empirical evidence to show this syndrome meets the rigorous diagnostic criteria of psychology or the law. If BWS does exist, there is no reliable means to identify those who suffer from it from those who merely claim it as a legal defense.

BWS appears to be the product of legal advocacy and not science. BWS seems to owe its existence to the needs of legal attorneys staten island to support and justify claims by battered women who have killed. Given the lack of an established, empirical, scientific basis and its failure to achieve specific political and social policy goals for women, BWS may not be long for this world.

BWS has been employed in a wide assortment of cases, ranging from the prototypical self-defense case to the more novel prosecutorial use of the syndrome. In the former set of cases, courts define the syndrome's relevance variously, from supporting the honesty of the woman's belief in the need to use deadly force to her mental incapacity to form the requisite mental intent. In the latter set of cases, in which prosecutors use the evidence, the evidence's relevance is ostensibly offered to explain why a battered woman might change her testimony (i.e., commit perjury) and testify that she was not a victim of battering; in fact, BWS is probably used to buttress the prosecution's case by showing prior violent acts by the defendant that would otherwise be excluded by the rules of evidence.

BWS attorney staten island offers broad interpretations of conduct for which there is no empirical support. As courts begin to apply Daubert styled tests of admissibility that query the scientific basis for BWS testimony, they will discover the serious lack of scientific support for BWS. There are numerous non-specific signs that a clinician favorably biased towards BWS will "see" in the reports of a woman relating a history of battering. Such clinicians are quick to then label the clinical history as causing BWS, and the BWS as justifying or explaining the woman's subsequent unlawful conduct. The clinical error or trap lies in the fact that these signs are commonly seen in a variety of conditions, and none are specifically tied to BWS. Further, the patient can simply lie about or exaggerate their abusive history with a host of non-specific signs. There is a human tendency to accept ready explanations and BWS offers just that. This unreliable manner leads to inaccurate diagnosis. A principal tenant of science is there must first be reliability, and absent this, there can be no validity, that is, no trustworthy diagnosis. So, how can anyone determine who does and who does not suffer with BWS? The simple answer is, we cannot.