I applaud your resolve, yet you did avoid my point.

Sorry Doc, I'm not avoiding your point What I need is a good database to search legal cases. Typical search engines dont give me the oppertunity to search criteria efficiently; filters etc.

I hve not let it go, I'll keep trying. I have to keep up with my own arguments at least.

Take that goofy blonde teacher screwing around with a student - the lawyer said she's too pretty to go to jail. If a male teacher's attorney said that, womens groups would go balistic!

How true it is. Just wait till Little Whip gets ahold of this article. If she does not hammer me to hard, we will get a good womans perspective.

The women's groups are not pro-women - they have become anti-men.

Absolutly. It almost seems as they would like to become men minus our penises

Even in this day and age the courts still somehow feel that if a woman is upset it must be the man's fault. If you don't believe this try going through a divorce some time.

If you don't believe this try going through a divorce some time.

Divorce court is were you will experience the highest level of female gender-bias in the courtroom. If you don't believe this and don't want to go through a divorce, try reading some court transcripts or attending a few divorce courts. You will quickly see what truely happens.

As for the perception that women who murder their husbands are treated harshly by the justice system, Dr. Mann found that few female domestic homicide offenders receive prison sentences, and that those who do rarely serve more than four or five years. Justice Department sources, report that women who kill their husbands were acquitted in 12.9% of the cases, while husbands who kill their wives were acquitted only 1.4% of the time. In addition, women convicted of killing their husbands receive an average sentence of only 6 years, while male spousal killers got 17 years.


I hope your not shocked...but:


The twelve "female only" defenses
"Women Who Kill Too Much and the Courts That Free Them: The Twelve 'Female-Only' Defenses" excerpted from The Myth of Male Power by Warren Farrell, Ph.D.

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(1) The innocent woman defense
Farrell starts with the innocent woman defense because it underlies all twelve defenses. At first he called this the "Female Credibility Principle" due to the tendency to see women as more credible than men because of being thought more innocent. However, even when women admitted making false allegations that they were raped or that their husbands abused them, for example, their admission that they lied was often not believed. Therefore, he found the belief in the innocent woman ran even deeper than the tendency to believe women.

(2) The PMS defense ("My body, no choice")
In 1970, when Dr. Edgar Berman said women's hormones during menstruation and menopause could have a detrimental influence on women's decision making, feminists were outraged. He was soon served up as the quintessential example of medical male chauvinism. But by the 1980s, some feminists were saying that PMS was the reason a woman who deliberately killed a man should go free. In England, the PMS defense freed Christine English after confessed to killing her boyfriend by deliberately ramming him into a utility pole with her car; and after killing a co-worker, Sandie Smith was put on probation — with one condition: she must report monthly for injections of progesterone to control symptoms of PMS. By the 1990s, the PMS defense paved the way for other hormonal defenses.

Sheryl Lynn Massip could place her 6 month old son under a car, run over him repeatedly, and then, uncertain he was dead, do it again, then claim post partum depression and be given outpatient medical help. No feminist protested.

(3) The husband defense
The film "I Love You to Death" was based on a true story of a woman who tried to kill her husband when she discovered he had been unfaithful. She and her mom tried to poison him, then hired a mugger to beat him and shoot him through the head. A fluke led to their being caught and sent to jail. Miraculously, the husband survived.

The husband's first response? Soon after he recovered he informed authorities that he would not press charges.

His second response? He defended his wife's attempts to kill him. He felt so guilty being sexually unfaithful that he thanked his wife!

He then re-proposed to her. She verbally abused him, then accepted.

(4) The " Battered Woman Syndrome" defense, AKA learned helplessness
Until 1982, anyone who called premeditated murder self-defense would have been laughed out of court. But in 1982, [Denver-based psychologist] Lenore Walker won the first legal victory for her women-only theory of learned helplessness, which suggests that a woman whose husband or boyfriend batters her becomes fearful for her life and helplessness to leave him so if she kills him, it is really self-defense — even if she has premeditated his murder. The woman is said to be a victim of the Battered Woman Syndrome. Is it possible a woman could kill, let's say, for insurance money? Lenore Walker says no: she claims, "Women don't kill men unless they've been pushed to a point of desperation." Ironically feminists had often said, "There's never an excuse for violence against a woman." Now they were saying, "But there's always an excuse for violence against a man... if a woman does it." That sexism is now called the law in 15 states.

(5) " The depressed mother" defense


Baby blues

Remember Sheryl Lynn Massip, a mother in her mid-twenties who murdered her 6-month old son by crushing its head under the wheel of the family car? Massip systematically covered up the murder until she was discovered. Then she testified that she suffered from post-partum depression, or "baby blues."

Her sentence? Treatment.

Mothers do get the baby blues. As do dads. Were the husband to kill his baby, as Sheryl Lynn did, it is unlikely that we would just treat him for baby blues or Save the Marriage Syndrome. Why does her version of baby blues allow her to receive treatment for child murder, when he would receive life in prison for child murder, with or without baby blues?



The terrible twos

Josephine Mesa beat her 2-year-old son to death with the wooden handle of a toilet plunger. She buried the battered child in a trash bin. When scavengers found the boy outside her Oceanside, California apartment, she denied she knew him. When the evidence became overwhelming, she confessed.

The excuse? She was depressed. The child was going through the terrible twos.

The punishment? Counselling, probation and anti-depressants. She never spent a day behind bars.

(6) The "Mothers don't kill" defense
ITEM: Illinois. Paula Sims reported that her first daughter, Loralei, was abducted by a masked gunman. In fact she murdered Loralei. But she got away with it. So when her next daughter, Heather Lee, disappointed her, she suffocated her, threw her in the trash barrel, and said another masked gunman had abducted her daughter. It wasn't until the second "masked gunman" abduction that a serious search was conducted. Only the serious search led to evidence. Might Heather Lee be alive today if mothers did not have a special immunity from serious investigation?

Or see the case of Marybeth Tinning in Patricia Pearson's book When She Was Bad: How and Why Women Get Away with Murder. Marybeth killed nine (9) of her own children and wasn't caught until the ninth one died.

(7) The "Children need their mother" defense
ITEM: Colorado. Lory Foster's husband had returned from Vietnam and was going through mood-swings both from post traumatic stress syndrome and diabetes. They had gotten into a fight and he had abused her. So she killed him.

Even the prosecutor did not ask for a jail term. Why not? So Lory could care for the children. Lory was given counselling and vocational training at state expense.

The most frequent justification for freeing mothers who kill their children is that their children need them. Moreover, if mothers were freed because "children are the first priority," then fathers would be freed just as often. But they are not. Even when no mother is available.

(8) The "Blame the father, understand the mother" defense
ITEM: Ramiro Rodriguez was driving back from the supermarket. His daughter was sitting on his wife's lap. As Ramiro made a left turn, a van crashed into the car and his daughter was killed. Ramiro was charged with homicide. The reason? His daughter was not placed in a safety seat. Ramiro explained that his daughter was sick and wanted to be held so his wife decided to hold her. Yet only Ramiro was charged. The mother was charged with nothing. Ramiro was eventually acquitted after protests over the racism. No one saw the sexism.

(9) The "My child, my right to abuse it" defense
A million crack-addicted children since 1987, but only sixty of the mothers have faced criminal charges. One was convicted. That conviction was reversed by the Michigan Supreme Court.

Three percent of infants in Washington D.C. die from cocaine addiction, but no mothers go to prison. The right to choose means the right to kill — not a fetus but a child.

Should the mother who addicts her child to crack have any more rights than any other child abuser or drug dealer?

How can we give a normal drug dealer a life sentence but claim that a mother that deals drugs to her own child should not so much as stand trial?

If we feel compassion for the circumstances that drove her to drugs, where is our compassion for the circumstances that drove the drug dealer to drugs, the child abuser to abuse, the murderer...?

(10) The plea bargain defense
Once a woman is seen as more innocent, her testimony is more valued, which leads to prosecutors offering the woman a plea bargain in crimes committed jointly by a woman and a man.

And if a District Attorney is up for reelection, the Chivalry Factor allows him to look like a hero when his office prosecutes a man, or portray him as a bully if he should put a woman behind bars.

(11) The Svengali defense
A beautiful woman dubbed "The Miss America Bandit" conducted an armed robbery of a bank. Federal sentencing guidelines called for a minimum of four and a half to five years in federal prison. The federal judge gave her two years because she told the judge that she was in love with her hairdresser and he had wanted her to rob the bank.

The judge concluded, "Men have always exercised malevolent influence over women, and women seem to be soft-touches for it, particularly if sex is involved... It seems to me the Svengali-Trilby relationship is the motivating force behind this lady...the main thing is sex." [Svengali is a fictional character said to have hypnotic qualities of persuasion over the innocent Trilby.]

(12) The contract killing defense: Defend self by hiring someone else
When Farrell did the first review of his files in preparation for a section on contract killing, he was struck by some fascinating patterns.

• First, all of these women hired boys or men.

• Second, their targets were usually husbands, ex-husbands, or fathers — men they had once loved.

• Third, the targeted man usually had an insurance policy significantly larger than the man's next few years income.

• Fourth, the women often were never serious suspects until some coincidence exposed their plot.

• Fifth, the women usually chose one of three methods by which to kill: she (1) persuaded her boyfriend to do the killing (in reverse Svengali style); (2) hired some young boys from a disadvantaged background to do it for a small amount of money; or (3) hired a professional killer, thus usually using money her husband earned to kill him.

An example, Dixie Dyson tucked in her husband for his last night's sleep. She had arranged to have a lifelong friend and a boyfriend pretend to "break and enter," then rape her, kill her husband, then "escape." She would collect the insurance money. At the last moment, the lifelong friend backed out, but the boyfriend and Dixie managed to kill Dixie's husband after 27 stabbings. They were caught. Dixie "cut a deal" to reduce her sentence by reporting the boyfriend and his friend. The friend who backed out got 25 years for conspiracy.

Deborah Ann Werner was due one third of her dad's estate. She asked her daughter to find some boys to murder him by plunging a knife through his neck.

Diana Bogadanoff hired two young men to kill her husband on an isolated nudist beach, while she watched. After he was shot through the head, she reported the killers but produced no motive for the murder — no money was stolen and she was not sexually molested. Diana did not become a suspect until an anonymous caller contacted a nationwide crime hotline. The caller coincidentally heard about the murder on the radio and remembered a friend describing just such a murder he had refused to do...on an isolated nudist beach while a woman named Diana watched. Without this tip, Diana would never even have become a suspect.

How individual women are given more power to kill than the entire U.S. Government
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Taken together, the twelve female-only defenses allow almost any woman to take it upon herself to "exercise the death penalty." The government is not allowed to take it upon itself to kill someone first and declare him or her an abuser later — only a woman can do that to a man.

Do men kill women more than women kill men?
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The six blinders
1. A woman is more likely to poison a man than shoot him, and poisoning is often recorded as a heart attack or accident. [This will skew the figures]

2. Contract killing is also less detectable because it is premeditated and often hired out to a professional. When it is discovered the Department of Justice registers it as a "multiple offender killing" — it never gets recorded as a woman killing a man. [This will skew the figures]

3. The money factor. Women who murder husbands or boyfriends usually come from middle class backgrounds The money allows the best lawyers, more acquittals, therefore fewer female murderers to become Justice Department Statistics.

4. The Chivalry Factor,

5. and the Innocent Woman Factor prevent many women from becoming serious suspects to begin with.

6. The Plea Bargain Defense sometimes leads to the dismissal of charges.

When the six blinders are combined, we can see how we have consciously and unconsciously kept ourselves blind to women who murder men. A distortion of statistics is created by the Six Blinders. But a distortion of perception is created by the media's tendency to make it international news when men murder women (the University of Montreal Murderer, the Hillside and Boston stranglers) and, unless the man is famous, to make it local news when a woman murders only a man.

In brief, it is impossible to know the degree to which the sexes kill each other. The only thing we know for certain is that both sexes kill more men than they kill women.

Warren Farrell, Ph.D.



I figured I might toss in a few statistics from the justice department:

From a data set of 6,200 cases of spousal abuse in the Detroit area in 1978-79, McLeod (1984) found that men used weapons 25% of the time while female assailants used weapons 86% of the time. In such assaults, 74% of men sustained injury and, of the injured, 84% required medical care. He concludes that male victims are injured more often and more seriously than female victims.

While from the U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Justice Programs, Bureau of Justice Statistics Bulletin, Women in Prison, NCJ-145321, we find that:

• Murder is the most prevalent violent offense among female inmates.

• Violent women are more than twice as likely as violent men to commit the offense against someone close to them.

• Women in prison for homicide were almost twice as likely to have killed an intimate than men in prison for homicide.

• The average sentence for violent women is more than 3 years shorter than the sentence for men convicted of the same category of offense.

As for the perception that women who murder their husbands are treated harshly by the justice system, Dr. Mann found that few female domestic homicide offenders receive prison sentences, and that those who do rarely serve more than four or five years. Justice Department sources, report that women who kill their husbands were acquitted in 12.9% of the cases, while husbands who kill their wives were acquitted only 1.4% of the time. In addition, women convicted of killing their husbands receive an average sentence of only 6 years, while male spousal killers got 17 years.


WWW Link

As it stands, I'm not seeing the gender bias connection.

I'm guessing your a woman. I find often times its like that when women cant accept a fact...they cant see it. Face it, in the end, women kill more children, they ARE often times the major players in domestic violence cases, and well, it appears they commit more crimes when they are locked down as well. Then they want to either shake their ass, or work up some tears to try getting off. Somehow whenever a woman cant get what they want with ass or tears, its some mans fault. Cripes, if this man womt work, you'll blame some other.

Whatever.

Wow, Xythe. You're way too much of a misogynist for me. Ugh. Enjoy your thread. I'm out of here.

Xythe:

I spent time working in a Domestic Violence center and safe home. We worked with both male and female survivors--the crimes of domestic abuse do not become less simply because of the gender of the perpetrator. I have had to attend the funeral of clients who were killed by their partners--an experience I wouldn't wish on anyone.

I find your article to be shockingly insensative and misinformed. Nearly 1/3 of all domestic violence cases never make it to trial--charges are dropped on a regular basis. This is a tradegy, for both the victim and the society.

If it wouldn't breach the confidentiality agreement I signed, I would be able rattle off hundreds of cases where the perpetrator (predominantly male in the area I worked in) walked away with little more than a stern warning--though it's starting to change, DV crimes are still not taken very seriously. While some states have mandatory arrests--this doesn't stop the judge from throwing out the case in the morning.

You appear to have lots of anger issues directed at women--I might suggest some counseling before you end up releasing it all in a fit of violence and get to experience first hand the supposed gender bias that you speak of.

By the way, your misogynistic comments do not further your argument.

Wow, Xythe. You're way too much of a misogynist for me. Ugh. Enjoy your thread. I'm out of here.

Great minds think alike, TW. I was typing while you were posting.

Wow, Xythe. You're way too much of a misogynist for me. Ugh. Enjoy your thread. I'm out of here.

Thats what I figured.

You appear to have lots of anger issues directed at women

No. I'm not angry, though I know you would tell the world I am. You see reports from professionals and the Justice Department, and you refute them. Its as it has been and perhaps always will. Ive simply come to accept it. Does it mean Im angry because I expose the myths about women and exploit their continued favor by the courts. No. But again, I know you would go to the ends of the earth, shake an ass, cry a river to make it like I was. I have come to that acceptance.

No. But again, I know you would go to the ends of the earth, shake an ass, cry a river to make it like I was. I have come to that acceptance

Excuse me? You know I would do what?

What's it like going through life making assumptions about people and being wrong?

You see reports from professionals and the Justice Department, and you refute them. Its as it has been and perhaps always will.

You clearly missed the point where I mentioned working in the field, right?

I'm done here--you are free to remain as narrowminded and ignorant as you'd like.

You clearly missed the point where I mentioned working in the field, right?

No I did not, and neither did I ignore the nationwide statistics from the Department of Justice. Nor have I missed the point of several experts published findings. Can you show me something that verifies your statements; from a small local office? After all, thats what TexasWahine asked me to do.

Im betting you cant. But you will call ME narrow minded or ignorant. I guess its come to name-calling. Typical.

What's it like going through life making assumptions about people and being wrong?

Whats it like going through life making statements you refuse to verify?

Xythe:

Do you really want me to quote statistics for you...Here goes...

Police were more likely to respond within 5 minutes if the offender was a stranger than if an offender was known to the female victim. (Ronet Bachman Ph.D., U.S. Department of Justice Bureau of Justice Statistics, "Violence Against Women: A National Crime Victimization Survey Report," January 1994, p. 9)

Women charged in the death of a mate have the least extensive criminal records of any people convicted. However, they often face higher penalties than men who kill their mates. FBI statistics indicate that fewer men are charged with first- or second-degree murder for killing a woman they have known than are women who kill a man they have known. Women convicted of these killings are frequently sentenced to longer prison terms than are men. (Angela Browne, When Battered Women Kill, New York, NY: The Free Press, 1987, p. 11)

The extremely long sentences women serve raises serious questions about the fairness of our criminal justice system. Women testifying before the Committee on Domestic Violence and Incarcerated Women averaged sentences of 15 years. (Battered Women and Criminal Justice: The Unjust Treatment of Battered Women in a System Controlled By Men, A Report of the Committee on Domestic violence and Incarcerated Women, June 1987, pp. 3-4)

90% of all family violence defendants are never prosecuted, and one-third of the cases that would be considered felonies if committed by strangers are filed as misdemeanors (a lesser crime). (News from U.S. Senator Barbara Boxer, September 2, 1993)

If all occurring domestic violence were reported to the police by women, one-third of the incidents would be classified as felony rapes, robberies, or aggravated assaults and the remaining two-thirds would be classified as simple assaults. (National Institute of Justice, U.S. Department of Justice, 1990)

One out of every four men will use violence against a partner at some time in their relationship. (Violent No More, Michael Paymar, 1993, Hunter House)

Studies by the Surgeon General's office reveal that domestic violence is the leading cause of injury to women between the ages of 15 and 44, more common than automobile accidents, muggings, and cancer deaths combined. Other research has found that half of all women will experience some form of violence from their partners during marriage, and that more than one-third are battered repeatedly every year. Source: Journal of American Medical Association, 1990.

In 92% of all domestic violence incidents, crimes are committed by men against women. Source: "Violence Against Women", Bureau of Justice Statistics, U.S. Department of Justice, January, 1994.

In 2003, among all female murder victims in the U.S., 30% were slain by their husbands or boyfriends. Source: Uniform Crime Reports of the U.S. 1996, Federal Bureau of Investigation, 2003 (January - June).

Forty-five percent of persons sent to prison for family assault received a sentence of more than 2 years, compared to 76.6% of nonfamily assault offenders sent to prison (table 6.14). The average State prison sentence for family assault was about 38 months (the average for nonfamily assult was more than 98 months). Bureau of Justice Statistics, 2005