Defending Battered Women on Trial by Elizabeth A. Sheehy

In 1990, Angelique Lyn Lavallee shot and killed her abusive common law partner and her defence in court established ‘Battered Wife Syndrome’ as legally admissible evidence. This is an intolerable contradiction that must be challenged. The same state authority that was ready to put her behind bars offered her no protection during the years of horror she endured.

Of equal significance, the question arises of just why she had no other option but to act as she did. The court of appeal substantially reduced her sentence but it must be asked how a woman who defended herself after years of ongoing abuse could face criminal consequences. Helen Naslund may soon be free and able to rebuild her life but her case is massively disturbing at several levels. The judge, prosecutors and her own legal representative seemed oblivious to this or to legal precedents in Canada that have accepted that “women are entitled to use self-defensive violence – pre-emptive violence even – when protecting themselves against battering husbands.” Pervasive violence Naslund received this harsh sentence despite it being roughly double the kind of penalty normally imposed in such cases. Indeed, at the time of sentencing, the judge went so far as to describe Naslund’s desperate effort to save herself from further violence and danger as “a callous, cowardly act on a vulnerable victim in his own home.” “For the sentencing judge to suggest that battered women have ‘other options’ is to invoke a stereotype that a battered woman stays in a situation of domestic violence by choice.”

The court took a dim view of the misogynistic views and conduct of the judge who locked her up, declaring: This month, the Alberta court of appeal cut Naslund’s sentence in half, which means she may be eligible for parole at the end of this year. In 2020, she “agreed to a joint submission by the defence and crown prosecutors that would see her serve a sentence of 18 years for manslaughter, thereby avoiding a trial and the likelihood of a far harsher s entence if convicted.” With the help of her sons, she disposed of the body but her ‘crime’ was discovered six years later. In 2011, after enduring nearly three decades of physical and emotional abuse at the hands of her husband, Helen Naslund shot and killed him as he lay sleeping.

The imprisonment of women who kill abusive partners in self-defence is a sickening injustice that must be challenged, argues John Clarke

Defending Battered Women on Trial by Elizabeth A. Sheehy