Judge to Allow ‘Battered Wife’ Defense Tactic

In what is believed to be the first such decision in Los Angeles County, a Superior Court judge has agreed to allow an expert to testify on the “battered wife syndrome” during the trial of a 70-year-old woman charged with killing her husband.

Pasadena Superior Court Judge Coleman A. Swart said the use of expert testimony in such cases is “an idea whose time has come.”

But Swart ruled that Dr. Nancy Kaser-Boyd, a clinical psychologist, can testify only in general terms about the syndrome, in which women submit to abuse from their husbands for many years before taking revenge, often violently.

It will be up to defense attorneys, the judge said, to prove that the defendant, Frances Mary Caccavale, actually suffered from the syndrome during her 49-year marriage to her husband, Frank.

‘I’m Delighted’

“I’m delighted,” Barbara Roberts, one of Caccavale’s attorneys, said of the judge’s ruling.

“It’s about time that people realize that women don’t respond to violence the same way men do. Women are socialized and trained to avoid violence, and as a result they can become trapped. What the judge’s decision does is let the jury fully understand what led up to and what happened the night Frank Caccavale died.”

Caccavale, a grandmother of three who was a few months shy of her 50th wedding anniversary, is scheduled to go on trial June 5 on a charge of murdering her 68-year-old husband last Aug. 31. He was stabbed five times in the back as he was packing his bags to leave the couple’s San Gabriel apartment. The prosecution said it will argue that Caccavale killed her husband out of anger because he was leaving her. In an interview with The Times a few weeks after the slaying, Caccavale maintained that she had endured years of physical and emotional abuse by her husband. She said she stabbed him in self-defense after he had threatened her and reached for a gun he hid under the bed.

“Mrs. Caccavale was acting out of anger as opposed to acting out of fear for her life,” said J. Whitney Morris, the deputy district attorney who will prosecute the case. “Therefore, we will argue that the facts of this case do not fit the battered wife syndrome defense.”

The battered wife syndrome defense is an unusual and still evolving legal concept seeking to expand the traditional theory of self-defense. Self-defense has been based on the theory that a person can use that degree of force reasonably necessary to defend him or herself against what is believed at the moment to be an imminent attack.

The battered wife syndrome defense, however, holds that past abuse is relevant in understanding a woman’s state of mind at the moment of attack and that years of physical and emotional abuse can justify the killing of a spouse under certain circumstances. It argues that the battered wife--because of low self-esteem and economic reliance--does not always have the option of leaving her abuser.

Other States

Several states, including Illinois, Washington and New Jersey, recognize the syndrome as a factor in deciding whether a homicide is an act of self-defense. Because no self-defense case involving a battered woman has reached the appellate court level in California, the concept lacks the weight of case law in this state.

“Those familiar with other cases of this kind in California tell me that this is the first time a Superior Court in Los Angeles County has allowed the introduction of expert testimony on the syndrome,” Roberts said. “We were fully prepared to appeal it if the judge ruled against our motion.”

In making his ruling, Swart rejected arguments by Morris that the syndrome does not meet the rules of admissibility of expert testimony because the theory is not accepted in the scientific community.