State v. Norman,

324 N.C. 253, 378 S.E.2d 8 (1989)

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Nature of the Case

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Facts

Norman (D) was married for 25 years. Most of her marriage consisted of her being punched, kicked, burned with cigarettes, forced into prostitution, being degraded and humiliated in public, forced to eat pet food from a bowl on the floor, and constantly under the threat of maiming or death by her husband. The day before the homicide, D called the police because she was beaten so bad. When they arrived, they would not arrest the husband unless she filed a complaint. An hour later she tried to kill herself, and when the paramedics came to assist her, her husband tried to interfere insisting that they let her die. He was chased back into the house by a sheriff's deputy but was not arrested. The next day, D went to the local welfare office in order to get food for her children, and her husband followed her to the office and dragged her from the interview and forced her to return home. He then beat her and burned her with cigarettes. When her husband was finally asleep, she shot him in the head after fixing a jam in the gun and then fired two more shots into the back of his head after she determined he was still alive from the first shot. D testified at trial that she was too afraid of her husband to press charges against him or to leave him. She said that she had temporarily left their home on several previous occasions, but he had always found her, brought her home and beaten her. Two expert witnesses in forensic psychology testified that D fit the profile of battered wife syndrome. D was convicted and appealed. The Court of Appeals reversed. Based on the evidence that the defendant exhibited battered wife syndrome, that she believed she could not escape her husband nor expect help from others, that her husband had threatened her, and that her husband's abuse of her had worsened in the two days preceding his death, the Court of Appeals concluded that a jury reasonably could have found that her killing of her husband was justified as an act of perfect self-defense. The Court of Appeals reasoned that the nature of battered wife syndrome is such that a jury could not be precluded from finding the defendant killed her husband lawfully in perfect self-defense, even though he was asleep when she killed him. This review was granted.