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Criminal Law Keyed to Kennedy
Brooks v. State
Citation:
630 So. 2d 160 (1993)Facts
The defendant was convicted of murdering her husband and sentenced to life imprisonment.
The undisputed evidence at trial established that the the defendant was a battered wife who had suffered physical abuse not only at the hands of her current husband, Lewis Brooks, but also at the hands of her former husband and another male companion with whom she had once cohabited. The State’s expert witness, Dr. Karl Kirkland, a psychologist and certified forensics examiner, testified that the appellant suffered from “battered woman syndrome,” a type of post-traumatic stress disorder. The doctor testified that the defendant’s “status as an abused woman or wife played a major role in her behavior at the time of the offense.”
The trial court instructed the jury that battered woman syndrome did not constitute legal provocation. The defendant appealed.
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