By ANGELA GREGORY
Battered women who murder their abusive partners could be spared a life sentence under proposed law changes.
Justice Minister Phil Goff says he supports a Law Commission recommendation that judges be allowed to consider sentencing a battered defendant to less than the mandatory minimum life sentence of 10 years for murder.
The commission said there should not be a special defence to murder for battered men or women, but judges should be able to take serious domestic violence into account when sentencing.
Mr Goff said providing judges with the discretion to reduce a murder sentence would allow for an honest verdict by juries.
Juries had in the past taken into account things such as mercy killing and retaliation for years of violence by finding a verdict of manslaughter out of sympathy, when it was clear the death was a result of an intentional killing.
Mr Goff said a limited discretion for imposing sentences of less than life for murder, where there were strongly mitigating circumstances, would be introduced in a bill due before Parliament next month.
He agreed with the commission that provocation as a partial defence, and any new defence of diminished responsibility, were complex and difficult concepts to explain to a jury.
He said these matters were better taken into account at sentencing.
Law Commissioner Judge Margaret Lee said more information was now known about the effects of severe and prolonged domestic violence, which should be recognised when defendants were dealt with by the criminal justice system.
Judge Lee said mitigating circumstances to reduce murder sentences from life might also include mercy killings and diminished responsibility, where a person was not fully mentally functioning.
She did not believe reducing murder sentences was risky.
"All the studies show people are not put off killing because they will go to prison - it is not a deterrent."
The law change could see some murderers escape any jail term, but she thought that extremely unlikely.
Women's Refuge chief executive Merepeka Raukawa-Tait supported the sentencing discretion as it would allow the total picture of a battered woman's situation to be considered.
"In the past it has been one size fits all, but every battered woman's situation is different."
Defence lawyer Judith Ablett Kerr, QC, said she was encouraged that self-defence might be extended to include the inevitability of violence.
She was disappointed there was no support for introducing diminished responsibility, which would allow a murder charge to be reduced to manslaughter.
Mrs Ablett Kerr said giving judges sentencing discretion would create uncertainty over what happened to those convicted of "the most heinous crime of all."
Wellington Crown Solicitor Ken Stone also had reservations about the proposed change, which he said would create even more public controversy about sentencing.
"I wonder whether it will create more problems than it will solve."
Judges may look more kindly on battered killers
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