Battered Woman Syndrome:Genosa case
People vs. Genosa
G.R. No. 13591, January 15, 2004
Panganiban, J.
Facts: Pat’s husband, who was a habitual drinker, had been beating her on several occasions. One night, Pat’s husband came home drunk. Her husband was irate at the fact that earlier that evening, Pat went to search for him. Her husband hit her and attempted to strangle her despite her pregnancy. Pat ran to the other room to escape her husband’s wrath. That evening, Pat proceeded to pack her husband’s belongings. Upon seeing the packed clothes, Pat’s husband assaulted her. As Pat’s husband attempted to wield a blade cutter on her, Pat smashed a pipe at her husband’s nape. Later, Pat shot her husband while he was sleeping with a gun which she got from the drawer in their room.
Pat was convicted of parricide for killing her husband while he was sleeping. The trial court sentenced her to death. On appeal, Pat admitted killing her husband but prayed for acquittal on the ground that she suffered from the “battered woman syndrome” (BWS), which constitutes self-defense.
Decision: The Supreme Court found the appeal to be partly meritorious. It affirmed Pat’s conviction of parricide, but reduced the penalty imposed after appreciating two mitigating circumstances, without any aggravating circumstance. Since Pat had been detained for more than the minimum penalty, the Supreme Court suggested that the director of the Bureau of Corrections look into the possibility placing Pat on parole.
The Supreme Court noted the novel concept of BWS in our jurisprudence. The existence of the BWS in a relationship does not itself establish the legal right of the woman to kill her abusive partner. “Evidence must still be considered in the context of self-defense.” The Court stated that “crucial to the BWS defense is the state of mind of the battered woman at the time of the offense – she must have actually feared imminent harm from her batterer and honestly believed in the need to kill him to save her life.” In this case, Pat explained that her husband was about to cause her and her unborn baby imminent harm. To this the Supreme Court replied that “unlawful aggression is the most essential element of self-defense, [that] it presupposes actual, sudden and unexpected attack – or imminent danger thereof – on the life of the person.” In Pat’s case, there was sufficient time interval between her husband’s unlawful aggression and her fatal attack on him. The unlawful aggression or the imminent threat has accordingly ceased. “(A)ggression, if not continuous, does not warrant self-defense.” Hence, without such aggression, Pat’s killing of her husband was not completely justified.
The Supreme Court, however, qualified that it is not discounting the possibility of self-defense as a result of the battered woman syndrome. It referred to a definition of battered woman as “one who is repeatedly subjected to any forceful physical or psychological behavior by a man in order to coerce her to do something he wants her to do without concern for her rights. Battered women include wives or women in any form of intimate relationship with men. Furthermore, in order to be classified as a battered woman, the couple must go through the cycle at least twice. Any woman may find herself in an abusive relationship with a man once. If it occurs a second time, and she remains in the situation, she is defined as a battered woman.”
The Supreme Court summed up the main points vis-à-vis cases relating to BWS, as follows:
“(F)irst, each of the phases of the cycle of violence must be proven to have characterized at least two battering episodes between the appellant and her intimate partner. Second, the final acute battering episode preceding the killing of the batterer must have produced in the battered person’s mind an actual fear of an imminent harm from her batterer and an honest belief that she needed to use force in order to save her life. Third, at the time of the killing, the batterer must have posed probable – not necessarily immediate and actual – grave harm to the accused, based on a history of violence perpetrated by the former against the latter. Taken together, these circumstances could satisfy the requisites of self-defense.”
Unfortunately, in this case, the Supreme Court found that all these elements were not duly established.
N.B. Name of complainant is not her real name, to protect her privacy.
June 10th, 2006 08:40
glad to read that bws has been acknowledged by the sc as a mitigating factor. my clinical experience with clients reveal a host of posttraumatic stress disorder symptoms for survivors of domestic violence for years, if not during the entire lifetime. people need to realize that such battering is evil and must stop. literature also suggests that children witnessing such violence are similarly traumatized and/or take on the ways of the battering parent and inflict more pain on the battered parent.without appropriate intervention by tained counselors/clinicians, the cycle of violence continues from one generation to another.