Defending Battered Women on Trial

Elizabeth A. Sheehy is Shirley Greenberg Professor of Women and the Legal Profession in the Faculty of Law at the University of Ottawa. She is a leading scholar on the legal system’s treatment of battered women in Canada. In 2013 she was awarded the Ramon John Hnatyshyn Award for Law by the Canadian Bar Association, an annual award that recognizes outstanding contributions to law in Canada.

In Defending Battered Women on Trial: Lessons from the Transcripts, Sheehy offers a compelling and startling account of the criminal justice system’s failure to protect women from the men who batter them. She begins the book by situating the issue in its historical legal context. Making the work accessible to an audience much broader than just those well-versed in criminal law, Sheehy provides the reader with ample background to understand the legal context in Canada both prior to and in the years following the Supreme Court of Canada’s 1990 recognition of battered women syndrome in R. v Lavallee.

Greg Brodsky, QC, Brodsky & Company:
A powerful examination of cases involving battered women who kill their male partners. Shooting an abuser in the back of the head as he is leaving the room is self-defence even if the battered victim had the chance to leave and didn’t. This volume is a must-read not only for battered women and their advocates but for all vulnerable persons.

Myrna Dawson, Department of Sociology and Anthropology, University of Guelph:
Using in-depth, case-based analyses, Elizabeth Sheehy takes a long overdue look at whether or not criminal justice outcomes for battered women are just, answering this question in wonderfully clear language and making a complex topic accessible. Through skillful weaving of social science research and legal analysis, this book makes an exciting, original, and significant contribution that will have an important impact in law and the social sciences.

Janine Benedet, Faculty of Law, University of British Columbia:
A landmark achievement ... This book moves beyond traditional debates in the field to show the complex interactions of institutional actors and legal processes with legal doctrine. It will quickly become a classic work on abused women and the criminal justice system in Canada.