Smith v. State

Hill, Presiding Justice.

The defendant was charged with murdering her live-in boyfriend. Her defense was that she shot him in self-defense. The case is before us to consider whether an expert’s opinion regarding the “battered woman syndrome” was admissible at trial, or was properly excluded on the basis that the expert’s opinion as to the fear of a battered woman and this defendant in particular was the ultimate fact to be decided and hence invaded the province of the jury. We granted certiorari to review the holding of the Court of Appeals that the expert’s opinion was properly excluded as an…