‘Battered Woman Syndrome’ Cited in Ruling

The Rhode Island Supreme Court overturned a woman’s murder conviction Friday, ruling that “battered woman’s syndrome” may have caused her to take the blame.

The court ordered a new trial for Ann McMaugh, reversing a lower court ruling that rejected the battered woman’s defense.

“Today we acknowledge that this court does recognize that battered woman’s syndrome is a mental or an emotional condition that can affect women and that it does have certain legal consequences,” Justice Donald Shea wrote.

Ann McMaugh and her husband, Bernard, are serving life sentences for the 1980 shooting death of Gregory Dube. She said at her 1985 trial that she shot Dube while trying to throw her husband’s pistol into the back seat of their car while the two men were fighting. She said she wanted the gun out of Dube’s reach.

In 1987, her lawyers said she admitted to the shooting because her husband had inflicted severe mental and physical abuse upon her. At a court hearing in 1990, medical experts testified that Ann McMaugh had been physically abused by her husband for at least six years before the shooting.