What kind of message should the law send when it comes to a woman who kills a man who has been abusing, assaulting, or threatening her?

“I think it is important that we send the right moral message in the law,” Joshua Dressler, a respected authority on criminal law and procedure said in a lecture at the Marquette University Law School. 

In the annual Barrock Lecture at the Law School last week, Dressler said that even as some feminists advocate for expanding what is justifiable under the label of self-defense, the law should proceed cautiously. 

Do feminist concerns regarding violence against women justify expanding the self-protection defense in criminal law?  This was the topic of the second annual George and Margaret Barrock Lecture on Criminal Law, which was delivered Thursday afternoon by Professor Joshua Dressler of Ohio State.  Dressler left no doubt about where he stands on the issue: whether motivated by domestic-violence concerns or otherwise, recent proposals to expand the right to use deadly force are inconsistent with a due regard for the value of human life.  To be clear, Dressler would not deny the right to use deadly force when a woman is actually being attacked or threatened — his focus is more on cases in which a sleeping or otherwise nonthreatening batterer is killed. 

The webcast of Dressler’s provocative lecture is available here.   The lecture will also be published later this year in the Marquette Law Review.