Posted by David Bernstein: Janet Brown and "Battered Woman Syndrome"
Justice Brown, whose nomination to the D.C. Circuit has been stalled by Senate Democrats, easily gets the better of her California Supreme Court colleagues [1]in a dissent. The [2]majority's opinion makes it absurdly easy for a prosecutor to present expert testimony claiming that a woman's recantation of a prior claim of a single incident of domestic violence was due to the woman suffering from "Battered Woman Syndrome." The evidence in question clearly didn't meet the specific California statutory standard for the admissibility of this sort of evidence, nor should the evidence have been admitted under California's general expert testimony standard, which requires that expert testimony "assist the trier of fact." Even granting the (very controversial) theory behind "Battered Woman Syndrome," mainstream advocates of the theory haven't been known to claim that a single violent incident creates the "learned helplessness" that is a hallmark of the sufferer of the syndrome. Justice Brown has once again shown why she deserves to be a D.C. Circuit judge. References 1. http://www.courtinfo.ca.gov/opinions/documents/S113929.PDF 2. http://www.courtinfo.ca.gov/opinions/documents/S113929.PDF _______________________________________________ Volokh mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://highsorcery.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/volokh
