Criminal Homicide
What constitutes the Corpus Delecti of an offense?
Can a defendant who lies about her role in spousal homicide still raise a "battered woman's" defense?
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QUESTIONS & RESPONSE:
1. What constitutes the Corpus Delecti of an offense?
Corpus Delecti is Latin for the "body of the crime." Used to describe physical evidence, such as the corpse of a murder victim or the charred frame of a torched building. http://www.nolo.com/definition.cfm/Term/384D330C-08CC-405D-A9721F6A4386BF84/alpha/C/
In law, the Corpus Delecti of an offence is the material evidence in a homicide, such as the discovered corpse of a murder victim, showing that a crime has been committed e.g. a corpse (http://www.answers.com/topic/corpus-delicti?cat=biz-fin).
2. Can a defendant who lies about her role in spousal homicide still raise a "battered woman's" defense?
Although widely misunderstood even among legal professionals, "battered woman syndrome" (BWS) is not a legal defense. Rather, it is one approach to explaining battered women's experiences. Like other "social framework testimony," (Vidmar & Schuller, in press, as cited in http://www.aaets.org/article138.htm), expert testimony concerning battering and its effects is used in the legal system to help ...
Solution Summary
Relating to criminal homicide, this solution responds to these questions: What constitutes the Corpus Delecti of an offense? Can a defendant who lies about her role in spousal homicide still raise a "battered woman's" defense? Supplemented with a case using Battered Woman's Syndrome as a defense.