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Law Gender & The Law

Defending Battered Women on Trial

Lessons from the Transcripts

by (author) Elizabeth A. Sheehy

Publisher
UBC Press
Initial publish date
Dec 2013
Category
Gender & the Law, Violence in Society, Sexual Abuse & Harassment
  • Hardback

    ISBN
    9780774826518
    Publish Date
    Dec 2013
    List Price
    $95.00
  • eBook

    ISBN
    9780774826532
    Publish Date
    Dec 2013
    List Price
    $34.95
  • Paperback / softback

    ISBN
    9780774826525
    Publish Date
    Feb 2014
    List Price
    $34.95

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Description

In the landmark Lavallee decision of 1990, the Supreme Court of Canada ruled that evidence of “battered woman syndrome” was admissible in establishing self-defence for women accused of killing their abusive partners. This book looks at the trials of eleven battered women, ten of whom killed their partners, in the fifteen years since Lavallee. Drawing extensively on trial transcripts and a rich expanse of interdisciplinary sources, the author looks at the evidence produced at trial and at how self-defence was argued. By illuminating these cases, this book uncovers the practical and legal dilemmas faced by battered women on trial for murder.

About the author

Elizabeth A. Sheehy is Shirley Greenberg Professor of Women and the Legal Profession in the Faculty of Law at the University of Ottawa. She is a leading scholar on the legal system’s treatment of battered women in Canada. In 2013, she was awarded the Ramon John Hnatyshyn Award for Law by the Canadian Bar Association, an annual award that recognizes outstanding contributions to law in Canada.

Elizabeth A. Sheehy's profile page

Awards

  • Short-listed, Canada Prize in the Social Sciences, Federation for the Humanities and Social Sciences
  • Winner, David Walter Mundell Medal, Office of the Attorney General

Editorial Reviews

In Defending Battered Women on Trial: Lessons from the Transcripts, Sheehy offers a compelling and startling account of the criminal justice system’s failure to protect women from the men who batter them. She begins the book by situating the issue in its historical legal context. Making the work accessible to an audience much broader than just those well-versed in criminal law, Sheehy provides the reader with ample background to understand the legal context in Canada both prior to and in the years following the Supreme Court of Canada’s 1990 recognition of battered women syndrome in R. v Lavallee.