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Battered Women Who Kill Their Abusers : An Examination of Commonsense Notions, Cognitions, and Judgments
Matthew T. Huss, Alan J. Tomkins, Calvin P. Garbin, Robert F. Schopp and Allen Kilian J Interpers Violence 2006 21: 1063 DOI: 10.1177/0886260506290206 The online version of this article can be found at: http://jiv.sagepub.com/content/21/8/1063

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Battered Women Who Kill Their Abusers

An Examination of Commonsense Notions, Cognitions, and Judgments
Matthew T. Huss
Creighton University

Journal of Interpersonal Violence Volume 21 Number 8 August 2006 1063-1080 2006 Sage Publications 10.1177/0886260506290206 http://jiv.sagepub.com hosted at http://online.sagepub.com

Alan J. Tomkins Calvin P. Garbin Robert F. Schopp Allen Kilian

University of NebraskaLincoln

It has been argued that battered women who kill their abusers represent a special 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 demographic and psychological factors on legal reforms. However, social scientists have not yet asked some fundamental, psychological questions. Is the law consistent with what society believes is right and just? Is there a commonsense notion of justice in these cases? What factors constitute cognitive decision rules and influence judgments in cases of battered women who kill 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
Authors Note: The first author was supported as a predoctoral fellow by a National Institutes of 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: mhuss@creighton.edu. 1063
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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 during 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 frequent 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 homicide (see, e.g., Schneider, 2000). Others argue that although one can sympathize 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 tremendous 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 circumstances. Finkel further claimed that the law sometimes asks the woman to react with the detached reflection of an outsider despite the fact that the battered 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 laws self-defense

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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 ongoing concerns regarding violence against women. It is inevitable that social scientists 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 battering, (b) she is masochistic and emotionally disturbed if she remains in the abusive 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 jury simulation 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 situational variables such as the severity of abuse, the ability to retreat, the level of explicitness of the abusers threat, and the victims 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

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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 according 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 simulation); 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 important 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 functions of criminal law and the manner in which it serves as an institutional representation of public morality, the social scientific literature may contribute more to these debates by examining commonsense notions that people have about these cases. Finkel (1995) recommended increased attention 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 potential 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 a variety 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

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(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 fundamental questions: (a) Can participants impressions of the similarities and differences among battered woman cases be captured within a spatial representation (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 technique employing a more extensive examination of the identification of situational and individual differences compared to other methodologies. It allows 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 differences across cases, or might these differences be tied to specific case facts? MDS techniques also enable the researcher to examine the cognitive frameworks 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 understanding of the relevant, psychological landscape (Kruskal & Wish, 1978). The MDS method also allows for the use of a greater variety of stimuli, 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 Finkels (1995) call for the use of different methodologies to examine commonsense notions of justice.

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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 psychology 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 provided with self-defense juror instructions and definitions of the various degrees of homicide (i.e., first-degree murder, second-degree murder, voluntary 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 ones decision about the culpability of the defendant. These eight variables were (a) the length and/or type of the relationship, (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 defendants choice of other options to the killing (e.g., divorce, moving out), and (g) the

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defendants choice of the means of the killing (e.g., gun, driving him over with a car). Although these eight situational factors were specifically identified, their measurement did not limit researchers to conclusions based solely 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 threedimensional solution was adopted based on the examination of the goodnessof-fit indices. The three-dimensional solution fit the data substantially better than did the two-dimensional solution, and nearly as well as the four-dimensional solution. R2 indices were .65, .88, and .91, for the two-, three-, and fourdimensional solutions, respectively. Therefore, results indicate that participants 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 solutions coordinates. Figure 2 also depicts the threedimensional solution, showing the planes defined by Dimensions 1 and 2 (2a) and by Dimensions 1 and 3 (2b). The lines drawn represent the positions of attributes defining the cases as rated by the participants. The positions 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 Responsibility 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.

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Figure 1 Three-Dimensional Multidimensional Scaling Solution for the 16 Vignettes. The Vignettes Within Each of the Five Groupings Are Connected by a Line

2 12 3 13 1 Dimension 2 6

11 0 1 1 9 8 4 16 15

14 10 2

3 2 1 0 1 1 1 0 Dimension 3

Dimension 1

Note: Dimension 1: Importance of Premeditation; Dimension 2: Culpability of the Defendant; Dimension 3: 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 within the 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: defendants offer of testimony clearly in contradiction to the presented facts and displays of remorse by the defendant immediately subsequent to the killings.
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Figure 2a Dimensions 1 and 2 of the Scaling Solution Are Shown. The Line Marked A Corresponds With the Position of a Vector Defined by Dimension 1. The Line Marked B Corresponds With Vectors for Five Attributes, All Associated With Culpability of the Defendant
2.5

B 1.5

12 A Dimension 2 .5 14 6 16 4 13 2 7 .5 10 5 8 1.5 9 15 1 11

2.5 3 2 1 Dimension 1 Note: Dimension 1: Importance of Premeditation; Dimension 2: Culpability of the Defendant; 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. 1 2 3

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
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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 C 13

1.5 6

10

12 2 Dimension 3 .5 14 3 7 8 9 11 15

.5 5 16 1.5 4

2.5 3 2 1 0 Dimension 1 1 2 3

Note: Dimension 1: Importance of Premeditation; Dimension 2: Culpability of the Defendant; Dimension 3: Severity of Abuse in the Relationship.

was morally justified in her actions was not included in the above scaling solutions. It appears that individuals do not spontaneously use the morality of the act in their groupings. This may suggest the constructs most prominent in the minds 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.

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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 exhibited fewer 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 defendant. Results suggest that participants judgments were influenced by the level of premeditation, general culpability, and the severity of the abuse suffered by the battered woman in the relationship. These three cognitive factors combine to drive judgments in cases of battered women who kill. In addition, participants did not consider the length and/or type of relationship, 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 representations 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 the cases of battered women who kill their abuser. Instead of morality, participants 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 reasonableness 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 premeditation 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 mitigating factors) constructs (i.e., severity of the abuse without regard to the immediacy of the abuse to the killing) in making their judgments about battered women who kill. Taken together, the results indicate that participants commonsense, psychological representations of battered women cases

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are primarily consistent with the rule of law in most jurisdictions but also (secondarily) encompass psychological concerns related to a battered womans plight. In sum, the current results confirm that MDS can be used to spatially represent the judgments of similarity among cases that involved the battered woman defense. The resulting spatial solutions indicate that participants characterization of the cases and of their patterns of similarities and dissimilarities are quite complex, as evidenced by the resulting threedimensional scaling solution, the several case attributes that correspond with dimensions in this space, and the multi-attribute nature of the groupings in this space.

Individual Case Solutions

Additional analyses were conducted to examine the possibility that variables that were thought to affect jury decision making will relate to differences in cognitive structure (Young & Hamer, 1987). These analyses were conducted for several factors, including (a) participant gender, (b) participants domestic violence history, (c) participants rating of the degree to which the defendant should be legally responsible, (d) participants 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 computed 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 distinctions. 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

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Table 1 Individual Solutions Based on Sorting Across Four Dimensions (Values are Goodness-of-Fit Indices and Numbers in Parentheses Indicate Stress for the Pairings)
Group 1 2 3 4 5 .749 (.112) .691 (.314) .783 (.211) .887 (.191) .792 (.182) .913 (.076) .960 (.063) .966 (.069) .971 (.061) .961 (.052) R2 (stress) .929 (.058) .980 (.043) .983 (.041) .993 (.034) .973 (.043) .941 (.049) .987 (.030) .992 (.025) .996 (.021) .978 (.029)

Table 2 Correlation Coefficients for Individual Solution Groupings Across Dimension 1 and Dimension 2
1 1 2 3 4 5 .35 .41 .32 .27 2 .73 .18 .24 .19 3 .71 .80 .27 .26 4 .73 .61 .74 .20 5 .74 .64 .64 .71

Note: Upper right corner represents Dimension 1 and lower right dimension represents Dimension 2.

solution fits better than a one-dimensional solution and nearly as well as a three-dimensional solution (see Table 1). Pairwise comparisons of the twodimensional 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 along Dimension 2 indicate a complete breakdown in agreement among these groups in terms of the rules they have used in the sorting of cases. The current results reveal that the participants did not represent a single homogeneous population with respect to their cognitive framework for examples of

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battered women who kill. Even though there was general agreement as to the composition of the Dimension 1 of the rotated solutions, there were differences as to the attributes that define and position that dimension and further 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 differences 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 inherent 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 relying on relatively simplistic explanations for verdict differences when in fact differences are far more complex. The current results suggest that individuals make verdict decisions independently of their own demographics (e.g., gender, history of marital violence) or case specific factors. Their judgments 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 extralegal factors (e.g., severity of abuse) as relevant. However, notions of commonsense 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 peoples 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 suggests such focused inquiries would be in order. Moreover, the current study indicates 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

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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 complexities 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 patterns: In other words, when a battered woman kills her abuser after years of horrific abuse, the case may be perceived differently if the defendant has hired 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 three presumptively relevant variables could be unlikely to capture the cognitive complexity, which jurors probably use to arrive at decisions. Although complicated phenomena, these are basic, psychological questions. Basic, psychological methodology may be useful to tap into individual judgments and identify peoples 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.

References
Ammons, L. L. (2003). Why do you do the things you do? Clemency for battered incarcerated women, a decades review. American University Journal of Gender, Social Policy and the Law, 11, 533-565. Biggers, J. R. (2003). A dynamic assessment of the battered woman syndrome and its legal relevance. Journal of Forensic Psychology Practice, 3, 1-22.

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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 forensic 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 NebraskaLincoln (UNL) Law/Psychology Program. He received a BA degree from Boston University (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, UrbanaChampaign, and a research assistant professor at St. Louis

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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 NebraskaLincoln 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 perception. 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 interested 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 community 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 NebraskaLincoln, 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 NebraskaLincoln as an undergraduate student and is current pursuing a PhD in clinical psychology at Fuller Theological Seminary.

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