Abuse defence

The abuse defense is a criminal law defense in which the defendant argues that a prior history of abuse justifies violent retaliation. While the term most often refers to instances of child abuse or sexual assault, it also refers more generally to any attempt by the defense to use a syndrome or societal condition to deflect responsibility away from the defendant. Sometimes the concept is referred to as the abuse excuse, in particular by the critics of the idea that guilty people may use past victimization to diminish the responsibility for their crimes.

When the abuser is the victim of the crime, as is often the case, the abuse excuse is sometimes used as a way to "put the victim on trial".

The Supreme Court of the United States has held on numerous occasions that the defendant should be permitted to present any information that they feel might affect sentencing. Despite this legal precedent, the availability of the abuse defense has been criticized by several legal experts, particularly in the aftermath of the trials of Lorena Bobbitt and the Menendez brothers. Legal scholar Alan Dershowitz has described the abuse excuse as a "lawless invitation to vigilantism".

The abuse defense is "the legal tactic by which criminal defendants claim a history of abuse as an excuse for violent retaliation". In some instances, such as the Bobbitt trial, the supposed abuse occurs shortly before the retaliative act; in such cases, the abuse excuse is raised as a means of claiming temporary insanity or the right of self-defense. In other trials, such as those of the Menendez brothers, the supposed abuse occurs over a prolonged period of time, often beginning during the defendant's childhood; this relates the abuse defense to the concept of diminished capacity. Because the victim of the act is often the person who committed abuse against the defendant in the past, the goal of the abuse excuse is to "put the victim on trial" and show that the abuser "had it coming".

...
Wikipedia