Partial defences to murder
Being missed in the current debate about revising the definitions of the offences of murder and manslaughter is the relationship with domestic violence and abuse, so this seems like a good time to link to Justice for Women.
I’m slightly out-of-touch with the debate (by two or three years), but when I last wrote on this topic, the women’s movement were lobbying hard for change for two reasons. Men who killed their female partners often argue for diminished responsibility or provocation on grounds that she was nagged or was having an affair, and get the charge of murder reduced to manslaughter, destroying the reputation of the dead woman in the process and making it almost impossible to convict a husband of murdering his wife. But where a woman snaps and kills her violent partner, assumptions about provocation based on gender (e.g. that women, being on the whole physically weaker, may delay their reaction) mean that women get convicted of murder rather than manslaughter.
Some of the stories are horrific:
In 1989, after 10 years of severe violence against her, Kiranjit Aluwhalia threw petrol over her husband’s feet and set it alight whilst he was sleeping. He died some days later. She was arrested and charged with murder, found guilty and sentenced to life imprisonment.
I believe provocation as a defense is being removed completely anyway following the last review (changes due to come in next year?).
For the sake of completeness you should ahve mentioned that Kiranjit Aluwhalia succeeded in her appeal eventually and a conviction for manslaughter was substituted.
It’s arguable that the biggest single problem in Kiranjit’s case was that the police failed to recognise that they were dealing with an unusual perpetrator who was as much in need of care, and careful handling, as any victim. That isn’t gender specific; the Darvell brothers and, arguably, Stefan Kiszko, were just some examples of victims of miscarriages of justice that could have been porevented by more awareness of the perpetrators needs in the police station.
Case law has moved on since Kiranjit Aluwhalia’s original conviction, and statute law might eventually follow; but some women, as well as some men, will still be victims of miscarriages of justice unless the behaviour of police officers in the police station is constantly reviewed and improved.
I think the women’s movement have had this one backwards for years. Yes, the disparity in treatment of men and women is wrong, and the but-she-nagged me defense should therefore be disallowed for men. The injustice is that men guilty of murder are being wrongly convicted of manslaughter instead. Kiranjit Aluwhalia was guilty of murder; the miscarriage of justice occurred when her conviction was eventually reduced to manslaughter.