JUSTIFIABLE HOMICIDE

This is a study to set womens blood boiling. Seattle attorney Gillespie details how unjust the judiciary is to battered women who kill their tormentors. She shows that the law of self-defense is adjudged by many courts not to apply to battered women. . . . Gillespie presents recommendations that should be read by all lawyers and judges. -Publishers Weekly Gillespie offers a compelling view about women who respond violently to abuse and about the criminal justice system, which follows such acts with its own form of abuse. . . . Her thesis, that the law of self-defense is a law for men and therefore constitutes sex discrimination, is clearly, coherently, and substantively articulated. . . . This is an important, intelligent, and challenging contribution in the area of womens studies, womens rights, and the criminal justice system with respect to the law of self-defense. -Choice Valuable to the non-lawyer. . . . A cogent, readable argument with shocking examples suggesting that womens lives are threatened not oly sometimes by their men but by the courts as well. -Kirkus Reviews Gillespies goal, it appears, was to produce an easily-read, non-technical and persuasive overview of the legal problems facing women who fight back, and she has certainly accomplished it. Everything one needs for an introduction to issues of domestic violence is there