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<font size=3><br><br>
</font><font face="Arial, Helvetica" size=4><b>State appeals court
expands use of battered-women's syndrome<br><br>
</b></font><font face="Arial, Helvetica" size=2>Defense could apply to
being forced to murder, judges rule<br><br>
Bob Egelko, Chronicle Staff
Writer
Saturday, December 16, 2006<br><br>
Battered-women's syndrome, typically invoked by defendants charged with
murdering abusive partners, can also be used by a woman who argues that
her partner forced her to take part in a murder, a state appeals court
has ruled.<br><br>
A 2-1 decision Thursday by the Fourth District Court of Appeal in San
Diego granted a new trial to a woman serving a life sentence for a 1998
murder, and appeared to represent an expansion of a defense that
California courts first recognized in the early 1990s.<br><br>
Battered-women's syndrome, renamed "intimate partner battering'' by
a sex-neutral state law last year, offers a rationale for violent actions
committed by someone who has suffered sustained domestic abuse.
Defendants accused of murdering their abusers have cited the syndrome to
seek acquittals or reduced charges.<br><br>
The appeals court said the same rationale could apply to a defendant who
said she was so terrified of her partner that she followed his orders to
help him commit a murder.<br><br>
The defendant in the case, Ny Nourn, was 18 when her lover, Ronald
Barker, killed David Stevens, Nourn's boss at a dating service in San
Diego County. Barker was sentenced to life in prison without parole.
Nourn, convicted of aiding in the murder, was sentenced to life with the
possibility of parole.<br><br>
The court said Nourn had told police that she had sex with Stevens the
previous night and falsely told Barker that Stevens had raped her. Barker
said he would kill Stevens and told Nourn to help him.<br><br>
She said she feared she would be killed if she refused, so she lured
Stevens out of his apartment by claiming she had car trouble. Once
Stevens was outside, Barker shot him in the head.<br><br>
At Nourn's trial, her lawyer argued that she had acted under Barker's
control. But the lawyer called no witnesses, explaining later that he was
unwilling to put Nourn on the stand because she had told him she knew
Stevens would be killed.<br><br>
The appeals court said the attorney should have called psychiatric
witnesses who were prepared to testify that Nourn, who came from an
abusive background, had been made submissive by Barker's threats and
emotional abuse.<br><br>
Such testimony, the court said, might have persuaded the jury that <br>
Nourn had helped Barker under duress, or that she had not intended to
<br>
hurt Stevens. Without that evidence, the court said, she had no
defense.<br><br>
The ruling by Justice Alex McDonald drew a sharp dissent from Justice
Patricia Benke, who said it was an unprecedented extension of the
battered-women's defense that could not have been anticipated by Nourn's
trial lawyer.<br><br>
"I cannot join the majority's new defense of 'the batterer made me
do it,' " Benke said.<br><br>
Nourn's appellate lawyer, Patricia Ulibarri, said the ruling wasn't
entirely unprecedented, because the state Supreme Court had referred to
the possibility of such a defense in a 2004 case. She said that Nourn may
get a lesser conviction in a retrial but that an outright acquittal
seemed unlikely.<br><br>
E-mail Bob Egelko at
<a href="mailto:begelko@sfchronicle.com">begelko@sfchronicle.com</a>.<br>
<br>
<a href="http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2006/12/16/" eudora="autourl">
http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2006/12/16/</a>
BAGI9N0SA81.DTL<br><br>
©2006 San Francisco Chronicle<br>
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