In 1977 an abused Michigan housewife named Francine Hughes took revenge against her sleeping husband by setting the bed afire. A bit of gasoline sprinkled about abetted the flames. Francine was tried for murder and acquitted by a jury by reason of temporary insanity.
While the story has no shortage of drama, the interesting legal issue is whether Francine had a fitting legal defense apart from a sympathetic jury looking for a way to spare her.
The CLB views the abused wife as (most likely) beset with desperation, despair, low self-esteem, anxiety for herself and for any children in the household, and having an inner need of a resolution, whether that be from retaliation, escape, or intervention. While the CLB shares the widespread sympathy for Francine Hughes, the legal point is that her conduct against her husband is not necessarily excused by the defense of self-defense or insanity.
Indiana’s response to the prospect of an abused wife taking deadly revenge against her husband came in 1997 in the form of IC 35-41-3-11(b). The statutory defense is available (on pretrial notice) when the defendant in a prosecution raises the issue that she suffers “from the effects of battery” inflicted by her alleged victim. The statutory defense seems to be part insanity and part self-defense. Subsection 11(d) anticipates the introduction of expert testimony relative to the defense.
Peggy Sue Higginson was charged with the murder of her husband by shooting him in the chest. Expert testimony upon the statutory defense was the subject of Higginson’s interlocutory appeal in Higginson v. State, decided by the COA on February 4, 2022 with a reversal of the trial court’s pretrial order excluding the testimony of Peggy Sue’s retained expert.
The State’s theory (in the trial court) for excluding testimony of the defense expert was that her anticipated testimony about Peggy Sue’s PTSD would be inadmissible to support a defense under the cited “effects of battery” statute. During the State’s deposition of her the defense expert answered “no” to the question of whether Peggy Sue’s PTSD prevented her from understanding right from wrong in the killing of her husband.
The COA Opinion (by Chief Judge Bradford) artfully explains the chasm between claims of insanity and of self-defense. The latter defense rests upon rationality while the former is imbedded in irrationality. It seems unlikely that both could be asserted concurrently. Still, the “effects of battery” statute contains references to the insanity defense (“unable to appreciate the wrongfulness”) and to self-defense (“imminence of the use of unlawful force”). Notably, the SCOTSI has held that a defendant claiming that effects of battery prevent her from appreciating the wrongfulness of conduct must proceed under the insanity defense. Marley v. State, 747 N.E.2d 1123, 1127 (Ind. 2001).
In Marley, the SCOTSI substantially and consciously limited use of the battered woman’s syndrome defense. In Peggy Sue’s case the COA held that the defense expert should be allowed to testify as to effects-of-battery evidence respecting the self-defense claim, such as the reasonableness of one’s apprehension of imminent harm following batteries.
The COA reasoned that affirmance of the trial court would render the “effects of battery” statute useless. Uselessness of the statute may be the preference of the SCOTSI. Watch for Transfer.
The CLB harbors mixed feelings about the “battered woman’s defense.” While it should exist, there is certainly the danger of its overuse in cases where a morally culpable wife benefits from the death of her husband and from his consequent inability to rebut the killer’s accusations of serious abuse. In the wrong hands the “battered woman’s defense” is a license to kill with impunity.
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¹ In her post-“Charlie’s Angels” career the late Farrah Fawcett starred in the made-for-television movie “The Burning Bed” about an abused Michigan housewife who burned her husband to death.
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