State v. Kelly

91 N.J. 178, 478 A.2d 364 (1984)

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Nature of the Case

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Facts

D had a stormy marriage. The day after the marriage, Mr. Kelly got drunk and knocked D down. The next seven years were accompanied by periodic and frequent beatings, sometimes as often as once a week. On many instances, Mr. Kelly threatened to kill D and to cut off parts of her body if she tried to leave him. Mr. Kelly often moved out of the house after an attack, later returning with a promise that he would change his ways. Until the day of the homicide, only one of the attacks had taken place in public. D saw her husband late that afternoon at a friend's house. She had gone there with her daughter, Annette, to ask Mr. Kelly for money to buy food. He told her to wait until they got home. After walking past several houses, Mr. Kelly, who was drunk, angrily asked 'What the hell did you come around here for?' He then grabbed the collar of her dress, and the two fell to the ground. He choked her by pushing his fingers against her throat, punched or hit her face, and bit her leg. A crowd gathered, and two men from the crowd separated them, just as D felt that she was 'passing out' from being choked. After finding her daughter, D observed Mr. Kelly running toward her with his hands raised. Within seconds he was right next to her. Unsure of whether he had armed himself while she was looking for their daughter, and thinking that he had come back to kill her, she grabbed a pair of scissors from her pocketbook. She tried to scare him away but instead stabbed him. He died, and she was indicted for murder. D asserted at trial that she stabbed Mr. Kelly in self-defense and then called a witness to testify about battered woman's syndrome. The trial court ruled that expert testimony inadmissible. D testified at trial that she was the victim of repeated beatings sometimes as often as one week. The final episode culminated in D being almost choked to death in front of a crowd of people after which Mr. Kelly came at her again and she grabbed the scissors and stabbed him. D was convicted of reckless manslaughter and appealed.