BATTERED WOMEN'S SYNDROME DEFENSE BOLSTERED.

Byline: Claire Cooper Scripps-McClatchy Western Service

The California Supreme Court paved the way Thursday for juries to acquit more battered women who kill their abusers.

The court said evidence of battered women's syndrome may be considered in determining whether a woman killed in reasonable self-defense. One characteristic of the syndrome is acute sensitivity to danger from a longtime abuser. Another is inability to walk away from an abusive situation.

Until now, California courts have allowed such evidence only to prove that a woman's fear for her own life was genuine - meaning that if the jury was convinced, it could convict her of manslaughter but not murder.

With the new ruling, trial courts must admit relevant battering evidence that the fear was also reasonable - and, therefore, was sufficient for a complete acquittal.

The Legislature in 1991 changed the law to permit expert testimony on battered women's syndrome where relevant but did not say whether it could be used to exonerate a defendant completely.

The Supreme Court said it could.

The decision, which is likely to affect hundreds of future trials, came in the case of Evelyn Humphrey, a Fresno woman sentenced to eight years in prison for manslaughter in the 1992 shooting death of Albert Hampton.

Hampton repeatedly had threatened Humphrey's life, according to the trial testimony. The day before she killed him, he hit her twice and shot at her, striking a tree. The next day, he began hitting her again and reached for his gun. She grabbed it first.

An expert on battering testified that Humphrey had ``about as extreme a pattern as you could find'' of battered women's syndrome.

But Superior Court Judge A. Dennis Caeton told a Fresno jury that it could not consider the battering testimony in evaluating the ``objective reasonableness'' of Humphrey's action. The Court of Appeal agreed.

In Thursday's decision, the Supreme Court threw out Humphrey's conviction on a 7-0 vote.

In determining objective reasonableness, Justice Ming Chin wrote, a jury ``must view the situation from the defendant's perspective.'' That may involve consideration of expert testimony on battered women's syndrome.

The court expressly reserved judgment regarding ``other possible syndromes in support of a claim of self-defense.''

It did not single out any. However, the prosecution's brief to the Supreme Court mentioned several possibilities, including urban psychosis syndrome, which was claimed to be the cause when a Wisconsin teen-ager killed another teen for her leather coat, and Holocaust survivors' syndrome, cited in Texas to show why a defendant was impelled to act. Neither defense succeeded.

While the court was unanimous in reversing Humphrey's conviction, it issued four separate opinions, and some justices signed more than one.

Chin's opinion had five signatures. A concurring opinion by the court's newest justice, Janice Rogers Brown, had three signatures. It was her first on the Supreme Court and was somewhat narrower than the majority opinion.

The impact on other cases can't be predicted without examining the details of each case, said Janet E. Neeley, the deputy attorney general in charge of domestic violence appeals.

``They are basically saying we'll have a different standard for battered women,'' she said. ``That may be just in some cases. In other cases it may allow acquittal of a person who most people would think was not acting reasonably. It remains to be seen.''

Jim Fahey, who represented Humphrey in the case, said the new standard would have been helpful to three of the four battered women he has defended.