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DOI: 10.1177/0886260506290206

2006 21: 1063J Interpers Violence Allen Kilian

Matthew T. Huss, Alan J. Tomkins, Calvin P. Garbin, Robert F. Schopp andCommonsense Notions, Cognitions, and Judgments

Battered Women Who Kill Their Abusers : An Examination of

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Battered Women Who KillTheir Abusers

An Examination of

Commonsense Notions,

Cognitions, and Judgments

Matthew T. Huss

Creighton UniversityAlan J. Tomkins

Calvin P. Garbin

Robert F. Schopp

Allen KilianUniversity of Nebraska–Lincoln

It has been argued that battered women who kill their abusers represent a spe-cial class of defendants being unfairly treated in the legal system. As a result,

commentators have argued for reforms to permit the judicial system to

respond more fairly. Researchers have investigated the influences of these

prescribed legal modifications and the possible influence of various demo-

graphic and psychological factors on legal reforms. However, social scien-

tists have not yet asked some fundamental, psychological questions. Is the

law consistent with what society believes is right and just? Is there a com-

monsense notion of justice in these cases? What factors constitute cognitive

decision rules and influence judgments in cases of battered women whokill their abusers? This study uses a basic, psychological method to identify

psychological factors that are important in judgments regarding battered

women who kill and to better understand commonsense notions of justice in

these cases.

Keywords: battered women who kill; battered women; jury decision making;

multidimensional scaling

Journal of Interpersonal

Violence

Volume 21 Number 8

August 2006 1063-1080

© 2006 Sage Publications

10.1177/0886260506290206http://jiv.sagepub.com

hosted at

http://online.sagepub.com

1063

Authors’Note: The first author was supported as a predoctoral fellow by a National Institutesof Mental Health Training Grant, “Training in Mental Health and Justice Systems Research”

(5 T32 MH16156-16) during preparation of this manuscript. We would like to thank Michael

Saks for his assistance in the original conceptualization of the research idea. Correspondence

should be sent to Matthew T. Huss, PhD, Department of Psychology, Creighton University,

2500 California Plaza, Omaha, NE 68178; e-mail: [email protected].








E stimates suggest that as many as 3-4 million women a year are battered

by an intimate male, and this rate may be increasing over time rather

than decreasing (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2003; Russo,Koss, & Goodman, 1995). Domestic violence further results in the deaths

of scores of women each year (see, e.g., Bureau of Justice Statistics, 1995).

Sometimes these abusive relationships end with the death of the batterer

himself. Law enforcement statistics indicate that more than 1,000 women a

year kill their husbands or boyfriends in the United States, a number that

official law enforcement statistics indicate did not effectively change dur-

ing a decade (compare FBI Uniform Crime Reports, 1982, with FBI

Uniform Crime Reports, 1994; Bureau of Justice Statistics, 1995).It has been argued that convicting these women of murder is, in many

ways, unfair (Kaser-Boyd, 2004). The killing of the abuser typically occurs

after a woman has endured a host of indignities, including: previous death

threats; frequent physical attacks resulting in severe injuries; forced sexual

activities, including unwanted sexual acts; and daily intoxication and fre-

quent drug use by the batterer (Browne, 1987). In light of the relentless

abuse, some argue that women who commit these acts should not be held

to the same level of culpability as other persons who kill (see, e.g., Hatcher,2003). Indeed, it has been suggested that women who kill to rid themselves

of an abusive situation should not be held culpable for any degree of homi-

cide (see, e.g., Schneider, 2000). Others argue that although one can sym-

pathize with the plight of the battered woman, there are far-reaching

normative and legal problems associated with decreasing or eliminating

culpability (e.g., Schopp, Sturgis, & Sullivan, 1994).

Some believe that battered women who kill their abusers are at a tremen-

dous disadvantage because of the antiquity of self-defense doctrine (e.g.,

Ammons, 2003; Browne, 1987; Ewing, 1987, 1990). Finkel (1995) posed

that the law may be asking for reasonableness in unreasonable circum-

stances. Finkel further claimed that the law sometimes asks the woman to

react with the detached reflection of an outsider despite the fact that the bat-

tered woman is anything but a detached observer. Others disagree. Several

legal commentators argued that proposals to change self-defense law to aid

battered women defendants are misguided (e.g., Faigman, 1987; Maguigan,

1991; Morse, 1990; Schopp et al., 1994).

Regardless of the feasibility or advisability of modifications to the law(e.g., Biggers, 2003), the killing of batterers poses difficulties for the legal

system. The specific circumstances surrounding the killing frequently do

not fit the requirements for a successful use of the law’s self-defense

1064 Journal of Interpersonal Violence








provisions, and the courts often do not allow the presentation of self-defense

evidence (see, e.g., Tomkins, Kenning, Greenwald, & Johnson, 1993).

These cases are at the heart of a growing legal commentary and ongoingconcerns regarding violence against women. It is inevitable that social sci-

entists have exhibited interest in the debate and have tried to learn about the

factors that influence judgments in these types of cases.

For example, one line of research attempted to show that unfairness in

battered women cases was because of inaccurate perceptions of jurors (see

Schuller, 2003). Ewing and Aubrey (1987) showed that many people

believe (a) a battered woman is at least partially responsible for the batter-

ing, (b) she is masochistic and emotionally disturbed if she remains in theabusive relationship, and (c) she could simply leave should she decide to.

In a study involving the comparison of opinions between domestic violence

researchers and actual jurors, Dodge and Greene (1991) found jurors were

less knowledgeable than researchers about the perceptions of a battered

woman, such as her belief that her partner is capable of killing her. Hence,

it appears that jurors may have some difficulty in understanding the actions

of the battered woman (Greene, Raitz, & Lindblaud, 1989).

Researchers have since turned their attention to studies involving jurysimulation paradigms (e.g., Terrance, Matheson, & Spanos, 2000). For

example, the presence of expert testimony has been one variable often

manipulated in cases involving battered women who kill their abusers (e.g.,

Kasian, Spanos, Terrance, & Peebles, 1993; Schuller & Hastings, 1996;

Schuller, McKimmie, & Janz, 2004; Schuller, Smith, & Olson, 1994). Many

view the presentation of expert testimony as an opportunity to reeducate the

jurors about the plight of the battered woman (Blackman & Brickman,

1984). Such testimony, however, is not always effective in influencing juror

judgments (cf. Kasian et al., 1993, with Schuller & Hastings, 1996).

In addition, researchers also have suggested demographic variables and

attitudinal characteristics may be potent predictors of verdicts (Finkel,

Meister, & Lightfoot, 1991; Schuller et al., 1994). However, with the

exception of gender, demographics and measures of juror attitudes have

offered little significant insight into juror decision making (see, e.g.,

Follingstad et al., 1989; Greenwald, Tomkins, Kenning, & Zavodny, 1990;

Kasian et al., 1993). Researchers have been more likely to focus on situa-

tional variables such as the severity of abuse, the ability to retreat, the levelof explicitness of the abuser’s threat, and the victim’s response history (e.g.,

Schuller & Hastings, 1996). Situational factors appear to more accurately

mirror the kinds of complexities present in the cases that appellate opinions

Huss et al. / Battered Women Who Kill 1065








describe. Even cursory examinations of cases involving battered women

who kill clearly reflect a host of situational characteristics that jurors must

consider when arriving at judgments in any single case. Cases differ accord-ing to the planfulness of the act, the pattern and severity of the abuse, the

immediacy of the abuse to the killing, and so on (e.g., People v. Reeves, 1977;

People v. White, 1980; State v. Felton, 1983; State v. Gallegos, 1986; State

v. Hodges, 1986; State v. Kelly, 1984; State v. Norman, 1988/1989). It is

clear that jurors are confronted with a range of factors in any actual case,

not a select, few factors. However, researchers have either ignored this

complexity or have been limited by their methodology (i.e., juror simula-

tion); in any event, researchers tend to examine a circumscribed number of situational factors in any single study.

The literature reveals that researchers have failed to address a most

simple question: Which factors do jurors believe are important in their

judgments about batterer deaths? The research literature has ignored impor-

tant questions regarding how jurors think about cases involving battered

women who kill. Given that the policy and the legal debates regarding

responses to battered women defendants may turn on the expressive func-

tions of criminal law and the manner in which it serves as an institutionalrepresentation of public morality, the social scientific literature may con-

tribute more to these debates by examining commonsense notions that

people have about these cases. Finkel (1995) recommended increased atten-

tion regarding what ordinary people think is just and fair; he referred to

these notions as commonsense justice. He argued that jurors do not arrive

in the courtroom without particular intuitive notions that influence their

judgments of the defendant and the law. In effect, commonsense justice “is

what ordinary people think the law ought to be” (p. 2). Moreover, it has

been argued that expert testimony is often necessary to counter the common

myths held by the public. To evaluate the need for and the likely effects of

such testimony, one needs to know more about the manner in which poten-

tial jurors think about cases. It is important to understand what jurors

believe about the events, about the legal significance of various aspects of

the events, about the moral significance, and about the significance the law

ought to attribute to examine the manner in which potential jurors interpret

and attach legal and moral significance to these situations.

In the current study, we are interested, among other issues, in whether avariety of situational factors influence jurors’ cognitions. Are judgments

influenced by gender or other demographics? Perhaps psychology can

demonstrate its utility not by conducting traditional psycholegal research









(i.e., juror simulations) but instead by asking basic psychological questions.

For example, is the law consistent with how people believe the law should

act by its own standards or the conventional social values of our society?Are the law and society dissimilar? If so, what distinguishes them? What

factors drive such decisions? Such questions are at the center of the manner

in which individuals think about commonsense notions of justice.

One approach to understanding how individuals encode and “think

about” stimuli is to ask what makes different exemplars (specific cases) of

the same category (battered woman defense cases) more or less similar. The

current research employs multidimensional scaling analyses of similarity

judgments of battered women who kill cases to address two fundamentalquestions: (a) Can participants’ impressions of the similarities and differ-

ences among battered woman cases be captured within a spatial represen-

tation (multidimensional scaling model)? (b) What is the structure of this

spatial representation? How many dimensions (“rules”) are useful when

forming such a representation?

The multidimensional scaling (MDS) method offers researchers a tech-

nique employing a more extensive examination of the identification of

situational and individual differences compared to other methodologies. Itallows researchers to examine the cognitive framework participants employ,

in global or composite terms and on an individual, case-by-case basis. For

example, although previous researchers have identified participant gender

as an important individual difference in cases of battered women who kill

(e.g., Greenwald et al., 1990), MDS enables experimenters to examine

such differences from a number of perspectives. Are there gender differ-

ences across cases, or might these differences be tied to specific case facts?

MDS techniques also enable the researcher to examine the cognitive frame-

works of research participants and determine whether cognitions vary

across case facts? MDS allows a determination of whether a cognitive

framework is characteristic of a general population, or of homogeneous

subpopulations that differ from each other, or of heterogeneous individuals.

All in all, the MDS approach is likely to offer a more thorough under-

standing of the relevant, psychological “landscape” (Kruskal & Wish,

1978). The MDS method also allows for the use of a greater variety of stim-

uli, which are more likely to represent the myriad of situational factors in

the universe of cases involving battered women who kill these batterers.Such an approach also appears to be in keeping with Finkel’s (1995) call

for the use of different methodologies to examine commonsense notions of

justice.









Method

Participants

Participants consisted of 36 male and 62 female undergraduates ( N = 98,

Age M = 19.8) from a large midwestern university with a primarily White

(95%) enrollment. All participants were enrolled in introductory psychol-

ogy classes and received class credit for their participation.

Procedures

The study involved two tasks, a sorting task and a rating task, which took

approximately 2 hrs of total time. In the sorting task, participants initially

received 16 different vignettes based on the fact patterns of actual cases

involving battered women who killed their batterers. Participants were pro-

vided with self-defense juror instructions and definitions of the various

degrees of homicide (i.e., first-degree murder, second-degree murder, vol-

untary manslaughter, and involuntary manslaughter). These case vignettes

were all approximately one page in length. Participants were given the

vignettes and asked to sort them into piles based on characteristics they felt

were important to understanding the similarities and differences among

cases of this type. Participants were instructed that they could include any

number of case summaries in a group but must have no fewer than four and

no more than nine groups when finished (for a discussion of the number of

sorts to include using MDS techniques, see Young & Hamer, 1987). On

completion of this task, participants wrote on 3" × 5" index cards the criteria

they utilized to sort the vignettes and their reasons for doing so.

The rating task began when participants completed the sorting task.Participants were given a packet containing the same 16 vignettes and were

asked to answer specific questions about all the vignettes. These questions

asked participants to indicate (a) the degree to which the defendant was

legally culpable, (b) the degree to which the defendant and the deceased

were morally justified, (c) how the law should treat the defendant, (d) the

appropriateness of the level of force, and (e) the degree to which eight, key,

situational factors should influence one’s decision about the culpability of

the defendant. These eight variables were (a) the length and/or type of therelationship, (b) the threat of harm to others in addition to the woman (e.g.,

her children), (c) the immediacy of the abuse to the killing, (d) pattern and

severity of abuse, (e) premeditation of the defendant, (f) the defendant’s

choice of other options to the killing (e.g., divorce, moving out), and (g) the









defendant’s choice of the means of the killing (e.g., gun, driving him over

with a car). Although these eight situational factors were specifically iden-

tified, their measurement did not limit researchers to conclusions basedsolely on their inclusion. The current methodology allows participants to

identify other situational factors relevant in their judgments by (a) asking

participants to identify their reasons for sorting cases independently of the

Likert-type scale responses and (b) asking participants during the rating

task what the most influential aspect of each case was in their verdict

choice.

Results and Discussion

Composite Solution

MDS solutions in one through six dimensions were obtained. A three-

dimensional solution was adopted based on the examination of the goodness-

of-fit indices.

The three-dimensional solution fit the data substantially better than did

the two-dimensional solution, and nearly as well as the four-dimensionalsolution. R2 indices were .65, .88, and .91, for the two-, three-, and four-

dimensional solutions, respectively. Therefore, results indicate that partici-

pants’ impressions of the similarities and differences among battered

women who kill cases are captured within a three-dimensional solution.

Figure 1 shows this three-dimensional solution. There are five apparent

groupings of cases in this solution, which were confirmed using cluster

analysis of the solution’s coordinates. Figure 2 also depicts the three-

dimensional solution, showing the planes defined by Dimensions 1 and 2(2a) and by Dimensions 1 and 3 (2b). The lines drawn represent the posi-

tions of attributes defining the cases as rated by the participants. The posi-

tions of the lines are determined by multiple regression analyses and help

define dimensions of the spatial solution.

As shown in Figure 2a, Importance of Premeditation is closely aligned

with Dimension 1. The lines for five attributes, all of which related to the

culpability of the defendant, were similarly placed within the solution for

Dimension 2, namely, (1) Blame Attributed to Defendant, (2) Legal Responsi-bility of the Defendant Under the Law as It Is, (3) Legal Responsibility of

the Defendant Under the Law as It Should Be, (4) Guilt of the Defendant, and

(5) Reasonableness of the Force Used by Defendant. Figure 2b shows that

Dimension 3 is strongly related to the Severity of Abuse in the relationship.









The MDS indicates that individuals group cases according to five major

characteristics: (a) defendant testimony directly contrary to the evidence,

(b) displays of remorse by the defendant for the act, (c) severe abuse withinthe relationship with an accompanying lack of premeditation, (d) strong

premeditation, and (e) the immediacy of threat of abuse to the killing. It

should be noted that participants grouped cases according to two factors

that were not directly assessed by the experimenters: defendant’s offer of

testimony clearly in contradiction to the presented facts and displays of

remorse by the defendant immediately subsequent to the killings.


Figure 1

Three-Dimensional Multidimensional Scaling Solution

for the 16 Vignettes. The Vignettes Within Eachof the Five Groupings Are Connected by a Line

2

11

1

416

15

98

7

2

10

14

6

13

312

1

0

–1

32

10

–1 –1

0

Dimension 3Dimension 1

D i m e n s i o n 2

1

2

Note: Dimension 1: Importance of Premeditation; Dimension 2: Culpability of the Defendant;

Dimension 3: Severity of Abuse in the Relationship.








Figure 2a suggests there are five general culpability attributes that are all

related to Dimension 1, Importance of Premeditation. Individuals’ decisions

regarding how the law is applied in these cases and how it should be applied

are among the culpability attributes. It is interesting that whether the defendant


Figure 2a

Dimensions 1 and 2 of the Scaling Solution Are Shown. The Line

Marked A Corresponds With the Position of a Vector Defined byDimension 1. The Line Marked B Corresponds With Vectors for Five

Attributes, All Associated With Culpability of the Defendant

2.5

1.5

.5

–.5

–1.5

–2.5

–3 –2 –1

Dimension 1

D i

m e n s i o n 2

1 2 3

A

B 3

616 4

12

13 11

1

15

9

10

5

8

7

2

14


Dimension 3: Severity of Abuse in the Relationship; Attribute 1: Blame Attributed to

Defendant; Attribute 2: Legal Responsibility of the Defendant Under the Law as It is; Attribute 3:

Legal Responsibility of the Defendant Under the Law as It Should Be; Attribute 4: Guilt of the

Defendant; Attribute 5: Reasonableness of the Force Used by Defendant.








was morally justified in her actions was not included in the above scaling solu-

tions. It appears that individuals do not spontaneously use the morality of the

act in their groupings. This may suggest the constructs most prominent in theminds of the jurors are those dealing with the application of the law as it is and

as it should be, not their own personal values. Individuals are either unable to

differentiate their own understanding of the law as it is from their belief as to

how the law should act or these two constructs are equated with each other.


Figure 2b

Dimensions 1 and 3 of the Scaling Solution Are Shown. The Line

Marked C Indicates the Position of the Vectors for Dimension 3

2.5

1.5

.5

–.5

–1.5

–2.5

–3 –2 –1 0

Dimension 1

D i m e n s i o n 3

1 2 3

C

6

2

14

78

3

5

16

4

9

11

15

12

10 13

1


Dimension 3: Severity of Abuse in the Relationship.








Participants employed a cognitive framework, which is best represented

by three dimensions or rules: level of premeditation, general culpability,

and severity of abuse. Participants clearly identified women who exhibitedfewer signs of premeditation as less culpable. In addition, participants

designated the second most-relevant dimension as one made up of general

culpability attributes. Culpability attributes consisted of those of legal

responsibility, dichotomous verdict choice, blame, and the reasonableness

of force. The final factor was the severity of abuse suffered by the defen-

dant. Results suggest that participants’ judgments were influenced by the

level of premeditation, general culpability, and the severity of the abuse suf-

fered by the battered woman in the relationship. These three cognitive fac-tors combine to drive judgments in cases of battered women who kill. In

addition, participants did not consider the length and/or type of relation-

ship, the threat of harm to others, the immediacy of the killing to the abuse,

or the means for killing the defendant as important in their cognitive repre-

sentations of these case.

Given that individuals do not spontaneously identify the morality of the

act as an explanation for their judgments, our interpretation is that ethical

notions did not play a prominent role in participants’ judgments about thecases of battered women who kill their abuser. Instead of morality, partici-

pants appear to rely on the law as-is (which participants do not distinguish

from the law as they believe it should be) in making their judgments. As

Vector A in Figure 2a represents, participants identify the importance of

premeditation as the prominent “rule” they use in deciding cases of battered

women who kill. As Vector B in Figure 2a represents, participants also rely

on the five attributes associated with the culpability of the defendant

(blame, law as it is, law as it should be, guilt of the defendant, and the rea-

sonableness of the force used by the defendant) in making judgments about

the cases. As Vector C in Figure 2b represents, participants look to the

severity of the abuse in making their judgments about the defendant.

Thus, participants’psychological representations of battered women who

kill cases, as captured within the MDS landscape, are mostly consistent

with traditional legal constructs (i.e., participants rely primarily on pre-

meditation and defendant culpability “factors” in making their judgments).

However, their representations also display some inconsistency insofar as

participants also look to extralegal (or what might be considered to be mit-igating factors) constructs (i.e., severity of the abuse without regard to the

immediacy of the abuse to the killing) in making their judgments about bat-

tered women who kill. Taken together, the results indicate that participants’

“commonsense,” psychological representations of battered women cases









are primarily consistent with the rule of law in most jurisdictions but also

(secondarily) encompass psychological concerns related to a battered

woman’s plight.In sum, the current results confirm that MDS can be used to spatially

represent the judgments of similarity among cases that involved the bat-

tered woman defense. The resulting spatial solutions indicate that partici-

pants’ characterization of the cases and of their patterns of similarities and

dissimilarities are quite complex, as evidenced by the resulting three-

dimensional scaling solution, the several case attributes that correspond

with dimensions in this space, and the multi-attribute nature of the group-

ings in this space.

Individual Case Solutions

Additional analyses were conducted to examine the possibility that vari-

ables that were thought to affect jury decision making will relate to differ-

ences in cognitive structure (Young & Hamer, 1987). These analyses were

conducted for several factors, including (a) participant gender, (b) partici-

pant’s domestic violence history, (c) participant’s rating of the degree towhich the defendant should be legally responsible, (d) participant’s rating

of the degree to which the defendant should be morally responsible, and

(e) the verdict choice. Each of these factors was then separated into opposing

comparisons (a) male and female, (b) high levels of domestic violence and

low levels of domestic violence, (c) high levels of legal responsibility and

low levels of legal responsibility, (d) high levels of moral responsibility and low

levels of moral responsibility, (e) high guilt ratings across cases and low

guilt ratings across cases. For example, separate sorting matrices were com-

puted for men and women, and separate solutions (Dimensions 1 to 5) were

obtained for each. For each dimensionality, the male and female solutions

were compared to identify gender-based differences in cognitive structure

for each vignette. Parallel analyses were completed for the other factors

under consideration. None of these comparisons yielded important distinc-

tions. This result indicates that the variables gender, personal history of

domestic violence, degree of legal responsibility assigned, degree of moral

responsibility assigned, and dichotomous verdict choices do not reliably

differentiate people from one another.Individual differences were also examined using a data-driven approach

(Young & Hamer, 1987). Cluster analysis of the sorting patterns of the 98

participants reveals that individuals are grouped into five, distinct clusters.

MDS analysis of the sorting from each group reveals that a two-dimensional









solution fits better than a one-dimensional solution and nearly as well as a

three-dimensional solution (see Table 1). Pairwise comparisons of the two-

dimensional solution reveal an interesting pattern of results. First, it should

be noted that these coefficients represent goodness-of-fit indices. Coefficients

of .90 and above generally indicate good agreement between corresponding

dimensions of the solutions being compared (Davis, 1983). As can be

gleaned from Table 2, though the coefficient representing Dimension 1

indicates some agreement among the five groups, they indicate that the five

groups are hardly sorting the cases identically. Coefficient values alongDimension 2 indicate a complete breakdown in agreement among these

groups in terms of the rules they have used in the sorting of cases. The cur-

rent results reveal that the participants did not represent a single homoge-

neous population with respect to their cognitive framework for examples of


Table 1

Individual Solutions Based on Sorting Across Four

Dimensions (Values are Goodness-of-Fit Indices andNumbers in Parentheses Indicate Stress for the Pairings)

Group R2 (stress)

1 .749 (.112) .913 (.076) .929 (.058) .941 (.049)

2 .691 (.314) .960 (.063) .980 (.043) .987 (.030)

3 .783 (.211) .966 (.069) .983 (.041) .992 (.025)

4 .887 (.191) .971 (.061) .993 (.034) .996 (.021)

5 .792 (.182) .961 (.052) .973 (.043) .978 (.029)

Table 2

Correlation Coefficients for Individual Solution Groupings

Across Dimension 1 and Dimension 2

1 2 3 4 5

1 — .73 .71 .73 .74

2 .35 — .80 .61 .64

3 .41 .18 — .74 .64

4 .32 .24 .27 — .71

5 .27 .19 .26 .20 —

Note: Upper right corner represents Dimension 1 and lower right dimension represents

Dimension 2.








battered women who kill. Even though there was general agreement as to

the composition of the Dimension 1 of the rotated solutions, there were dif-

ferences as to the attributes that define and position that dimension and fur-ther differences in the specific ordering of the examples along that dimension.

The groups are even more heterogeneous with respect to the identity and

definition of the Dimension 2 of their respective MDS solutions.

More specifically, linear discriminant analyses using the full set of

demographic and decisional variables did not provide significant differ-

ences among the groups (Lambda = .94, p = .43), nor above-chance levels

of group membership reclassification (22% against a chance level of 23%).

Hence, it would appear that these groupings are based on individuals’ inher-ent differences in cognitive structure and are not a function of individual

differences such as gender. These results, therefore, suggest that prior

research manipulating variables such as the gender of mock jurors was rely-

ing on relatively simplistic explanations for verdict differences when in fact

differences are far more complex. The current results suggest that individ-

uals make verdict decisions independently of their own demographics (e.g.,

gender, history of marital violence) or case specific factors. Their judg-

ments appear to be based on their own, complex, cognitive structures.

Conclusions

It is apparent that people primarily use legal factors in deciding cases of

battered women who kill (e.g., premeditation, general culpability). They

also rely on their own commonsense notions of justice and identify extrale-

gal factors (e.g., severity of abuse) as relevant. However, notions of com-

monsense justice are equated with ideas of how the law should and does

behave. Participants’ concepts of morality in cases of battered women who

kill does not account for their judgments in these cases. Results suggest that

the law is largely meeting societal notions of “fairness,” although the law

may not adequately accommodate the concern over the severity of the abuse.

It is difficult to know whether the law is adequately accommodating

people’s concern over the severity of the abuse as the current study did not

focus on this issue. Indeed, the current study did not delve into depth

regarding premeditation and culpability factors. The current data suggestssuch focused inquiries would be in order. Moreover, the current study indi-

cates that decisions about battered women who kill are complex, relying on

factors that previous researchers have not considered in combination and

have been difficult to experimentally manipulate. The current study provides









some guidance into future inquiries into more sophisticated examinations

of psychological factors associated with judgments of battered women

defendants. These inquiries should take into account the cognitive complexi-ties that individuals bring to the task, as reflected by our individual difference

findings. It appears the cognitive rules, which individuals are employing, are

not identifiable by grouping them based on demographic characteristics.

Differences appear to represent inherent distinctions in peoples’ cognitive

structures that are not explained by individual differences. Differential

judgments also may be found as a function of slight alterations in fact pat-

terns: In other words, when a battered woman kills her abuser after years of

horrific abuse, the case may be perceived differently if the defendant hashired another to kill on her behalf versus if the defendant has planned for a

long time to kill her abuser but commits the act herself.

One wonders whether the implications of the current study extend

beyond cases of battered women who kill and the current sample. Might

there be unexamined cognitive complexities and fact-specific nuances that

would shed light on jury decision making in other domains? The current

results suggest that individuals approach their legal judgments in a manner

yet untapped by social science research. Mere manipulation of two or threepresumptively relevant variables could be unlikely to capture the cognitive

complexity, which jurors probably use to arrive at decisions. Although com-

plicated phenomena, these are basic, psychological questions. Basic, psy-

chological methodology may be useful to tap into individual judgments and

identify “people’s deepest, deliberate sense of justice” (Finkel, 1995, p. 6).

Moreover, the current results are based on a select group of undergraduate,

largely White, college students. The results suggesting the lack of ethical

concerns and the disconnect between the law as it is and the law as it should

be especially call for a reexamination in a more diverse sample. Although

the use of similar samples has long been criticized, research has shown few

differences between college students and noncollege students in mock jury

research (Bornstein, 1999). Nonetheless, future studies should examine

these questions in a more diverse group of participants.

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Matthew T. Huss, PhD, MLS, is an associate professor at Creighton University in Omaha,

Nebraska. He is a graduate of the clinical psychology and law and psychology programs at the

University of Nebraska. His research interests generally revolve around risk assessment and

risk management in specific populations (e.g., domestic violence and sex offenders) and foren-

sic psychology in general.

Alan J. Tomkins, JD, PhD, was named director of the University of Nebraska Public Policy

Center (PPC) in July 1998 when he created the PPC. He is also a professor in the University

of Nebraska–Lincoln (UNL) Law/Psychology Program. He received a BA degree from BostonUniversity (1975) with a joint major in psychology and philosophy. He earned a JD and PhD

in social psychology from Washington University in St. Louis in 1984. He joined the faculty

of the Law/Psychology Program at UNL in 1986. Prior to coming to UNL, he was a research

associate at the Federal Judicial Center, a visiting assistant professor of psychology at the

University of Illinois, Urbana–Champaign, and a research assistant professor at St. Louis









University. He also has served as a visiting professor of law at the University of Southampton

(England) and as a visiting scholar of psychology at Yonsei University (Seoul, Korea).

Calvin P. Garbin, PhD, joined the faculty at the University of Nebraska–Lincoln in 1985,

after receiving his degree in experimental psychology from the University of Texas at

Arlington. He teaches psychometrics, research methods, and data analysis, as well as percep-

tion. His primary research interest is human perception, especially how people explore the

objects, shapes, and textures of their world using touch, vision, and hearing. He is also inter-

ested in the quantification of psychological constructs such as aptitudes, attitudes and aspects

of personality, and the application of multivariate data analysis to test psychological theories.

Robert F. Schopp, JD, PhD, practiced clinical psychology in several state hospitals and com-

munity mental health centers. He turned to the study of law and philosophy in an attempt to

understand a series of legal and ethical questions that he encountered in clinical practice. He

currently teaches in the Law/Psychology program at the University of Nebraska–Lincoln,

where his teaching and scholarship concentrate primarily on questions arising in the substantive

criminal law and in mental health law.

Allen Kilian, BA, attended the University of Nebraska–Lincoln as an undergraduate student

and is current pursuing a PhD in clinical psychology at Fuller Theological Seminary.


(chapter 3) 1 j interpers violence-2006

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