Commonwealth v. Rose

LEIBSON, Justice.

Respondent, Mary Jane Keffer Rose, was convicted in Pike Circuit Court of Manslaughter II, “wantonly causing] the death *589of another person,” and sentenced to five years. At trial her defense was that she had killed in self-protection, bolstered by evidence that she was a battered wife suffering from a so-called “Battered Wife Syndrome.”

The shooting occurred in a house trailer occupied by the respondent, her husband, and two young children. The shooting terminated a stormy seven year marriage during which the wife had been beaten, threatened with death, and otherwise abused on…