Danielle Tyson

Sex, culpability, and the defence of provocation

Feminists have long identified the justice system as one of the formal social institutions through which male dominance is both discursively asserted and physically instantiated. Nowhere is this truer than in legal cases that exist at the intersection of male power, violence, and the governance of sexuality. Each of these books sheds light on a different aspect of the complex relationship between law, social ordering and gender – in the case of Tyson’s book, the ways in which the legal doctrine of provocation both creates and maintains women’s subordination to male violence, and in the case of Shuy’s book, the ways in which legal actors consciously (and sometimes unconsciously) manipulate discourse in order to secure a legal advantage in cases involving allegations of sexual misconduct. Danielle Tyson focuses her book on a traditionally sanctioned legal defence to homicide in common law jurisdictions, that of provocation. This defence allowed a person who killed someone (almost always an intimate partner or someone having a sexual relationship with that intimate partner) to reduce the degree of his culpability from murder to manslaughter if his actions were the product of what the law deemed to be ‘provocation’ by the deceased. As Tyson demonstrates, it is entirely appropriate to

The implementation of feminist law reforms: The case of post-provocation sentencing

In 2005, the Australian State of Victoria abolished the controversial partial defence of provocation. Part of the impetus for the reforms was to challenge provocation’s victim-blaming narratives and the defence’s tendency to excuse men’s violence against intimate partners. However, concerns were also expressed that these narratives and excuses would simply reappear at the sentencing stage when men who had killed intimate partners were convicted of murder or manslaughter. This article analyses post-provocation sentencing judgments, reviewing cases over the 10-year period since the reforms in order to determine whether these concerns have been borne out. The analysis suggests that at the level of sentencing outcomes they have not been borne out, although at the level of discourse the picture is more mixed. While sentencing narratives continue to reproduce the language of provocation, at the same time, post-provocation sentencing appears to provide opportunities for feminist judging – picking up on the spirit of the reforms – which have been taken up by some judges more than others.

Filicide in Australia

Drawing on the most recent research on filicide in Australia and internationally, this chapter highlights a number of risk factors evident in Australian research including the vulnerability of very young children, the mental illness of the perpetrator, prior domestic violence inflicted by the male perpetrator or suffered by the female perpetrator, parental separation, prior child abuse, substance abuse, the criminal history of the perpetrator, the presence of a step-father and the perpetrator’s use of or failure to engage with services. The chapter argues that the constellation of factors varies according to perpetrator group and that professionals carrying out risk assessments need to take this into consideration.

Leaving violent men: A study of women’s experiences of separation in Victoria, Australia:

Despite decades of feminist efforts to educate the community about, and improve responses to, domestic violence, public attitudes towards domestic violence continue to misunderstand women’s experiences of violence. Underlying such responses is the stock standard question, ‘Why doesn’t she leave?’ This question points to a lack of understanding about the impacts and threat of violence from an abusive partner on women’s decisions to leave the relationship. Moreover, it places sole responsibility for ending the relationship squarely upon women, assuming women are presented with numerous opportunities to leave a violent relationship and erroneously assumes the violence will cease once they do leave. This study explores women’s experiences of separating from an abusive, male partner through women’s narratives (n = 12) in Victoria, Australia. Findings reveal that fear was a complex influencing factor impacting upon women’s decision-making throughout the leaving process. The findings show that women seek to exercise agency within the context of their abusers’ coercively controlling tactics by strategically attempting to manage the constraints placed on their decision-making and partner’s repeated attempts to reassert dominance and control.

Family Violence in Domestic Homicides: A Case Study of Women Who Killed Intimate Partners Post-Legislative Reform in Victoria, Australia

This article examines the impact of legislative reforms enacted in 2005 in Victoria, Australia, on legal responses to women charged with murder for killing their intimate partner. The reforms provided for a broader understanding of the context of family violence to be considered in such cases, but we found little evidence of this in practice. This is partly attributable to persistent misconceptions among the legal profession about family violence and why women may believe it necessary to kill a partner. We recommend specialized training for legal professionals and increased use of family violence evidence to help ensure women’s claims of self-defense receive appropriate responses from Victorian courts.