Recently, Google's murder of his wife by a Chinese engineer caused an uproar. According to the public report of the United States**, the suspect Chen Liren admitted at the scene that he "punched his wife". Due to the repeated postponement of the trial, more details of the case and Chen Liren's motive for committing the crime are unclear. In any case, Chen Liren's domestic violence against his wife cannot be excused. In today's article, J.D. Zhan Qingyun will analyze how the law defines domestic violence through specific criminal precedents. At the same time, how to provide long-term support for victims of domestic violence to escape dangerous relationships at the economic, legal and cultural levels, and to nip the tragedy in the cradle as soon as possible. Male Sense of Authority and Domestic ViolenceWhen it comes to domestic violence, I immediately think of an impressive domestic violence case in the book "Guilt". When the heroine of the story marries her husband, she does not know that he has serious violent tendencies. From falling in love to getting married, the whole process is very satisfying. Although her husband is very strong, two heads taller than her, and has practiced boxing, he has always been very gentle with her, and the two of them are very affectionate. Until one day her husband drank alcohol and then beat her. The next morning, the husband cried that it was all the fault of the wine and that he would never do it again. The wife chose to believe that it was a chance event and continued to live her life. Later, when their daughter was born, the husband began to refuse to sleep with his wife. The wife chatted with her friends and found that many husbands were like this and accepted this fate. Her husband, a car salesman, has been irritable and anxious since the bust of the entire auto industry, staying up all night, often needing alcohol to sleep. As this all happened gradually, he began to use violence against her more and more. 
The Room" gender psychology study found thatDomestic violence usually occurs when a man in the family feels his so-called male authority（masculinity）When it is shaken and weakened. For example, when his income declines, he is not satisfactory in his career, and women earn more than him, and he is intellectually suspicious ......Just like the husband in this story, as his career plummeted, he began to fall into more and more anxiety and needed to resort to violence to vent his emotions. After he hit the heroine for the first time, because the heroine's family was very good, she wanted to take her daughter back to her parents' house. The husband silently took back the luggage they had taken to the car and said to her, "Don't think anywhere, I'll find you." She then tolerated her husband's incessant violence from the age of 5 to 10. In order to allow her daughter to grow up in a healthy environment, she chose forbearance most of the time. Her husband is a boxer, and he can hit some places where there is no visible injury, but the injury is actually very serious, and he will punch her until she vomits, and make her clean up the room and sleep on the floor. There's also some very horrific sexual violence in between. Later, she met a man younger than her, who found out that she had been enduring her husband's violence for a long time and kept encouraging her to go to the police. One day when her husband said that his daughter was 10 years old and mature enough to "enjoy her", she finally couldn't take it anymore. She was devastated to fight her husband to the death, but because of the difference in physical strength, she was defeated again. Later, her husband was found dead in his home at night, having been hit on the head with a sculpture. Prosecutors think this is very obvious**. Because all the evidence indicates that the husband was killed by the sculpture while he was asleep. And "in a state of deep sleep" means that the aggression is not ongoing. 
The ending of the case is that the heroine is acquitted. The presiding judge said that her actions were out of legitimate self-defense, and also specifically emphasized that this verdict is an individual case, a special case, and only applies to this case. Because she wanted to protect her daughter, she had to worry about her own life. In this way, the presiding judge defined that the assault was ongoing, or that she knew exactly that the assault was going to happen. How does the law define domestic violence? The definition of domestic violence in China's Criminal Law is objective. Much discussion has argued that the concept of justifiable self-defence should not be too rigidly qualified, especially in the case of domestic violence. As long as it complies with some basic principles of justifiable defence, such as reciprocity of means of defence, and meets the criteria of "imminent" or "ongoing". We should give the judiciary more discretion to face each of the very heavy and different stories. This brings us back to the question we've been discussing: how exactly does the law delineate borders? If this boundary is too clear, it will not take into account the desperate dilemma that the client faces not only as a wife, but also as a mother, as in the case mentioned in "Guilt". But if this boundary is too blurred, the law loses its certainty and puts the perpetrator in undue danger. Although these people make us angry and hateful, they also have their own rights. In fact, violence in intimate relationships is a worldwide problem, not just in China. In the United States, for example, the statistics are staggering: every minute, 20 people become victims of intimate relationship violence. Every day, three or more women are by their boyfriends or husbands**. Each month, an average of 23,500 domestic violence** cases are reported nationwide** across the United States. Every year, violence in intimate relationships kills 1,500 people, 75% of whom are women. (2004 data).
Night and Fog in Tin Shui Wai
While we've been talking about violence in intimate relationships, looking at the data, it can be even more terrifying than we think. Many horrific criminal cases are rooted in violence in intimate relationships. In Connecticut, for example, one-third of criminal court cases involve violence in the family. We can try to find the boundaries of the law through the judgment in specific cases. There is a typical case in New Jersey where the defendant Kelly has been subjected to domestic violence by her husband for a long time. One day, her husband ran towards her menacingly, raised his hand, and felt like he was going to hit someone. At that time, Kelly argued that she didn't know if her husband had other **, so she took out a pair of scissors from her purse and stabbed her husband to death. One of the central changes in the case was the fact that the factor influencing the verdict was a newly certified mental illness in the United States at the time, battered woman syndrome. It refers to women who have been abused for a long time in their families and intimate relationships. They are in a state of high pressure, tension, and fear for a long time, which affects their judgment of many things. Common law judgments of imminent danger are subjective and involve the concept of a "reasonable person". When a person with rational judgment is placed in the circumstances of the time, does he feel that he is in imminent, serious, life-threatening danger? This determines whether they can justifiably defend themselves by means that endanger the lives of others. The core controversy in the Kelly case was that an expert witness pointed out that the judgment of the defendant Kelly was different from that of a rational person. The jury is then forced to understand the situation as a victim of battered woman syndrome. Under New Jersey's evidence laws, the credibility of expert witnesses' testimony is left to a jury verdict. Whether it is related to this case is up to the judge to decide. 
The Court of Appeal rejected the expert witness's testimony at first instance. Subsequently, it was re-ruled that the testimony was relevant to the case and remanded for a new trial. Under New Jersey law, the so-called perfect justifiable defense is objectively an imminent and life-threatening danger. ButA person's subjective determination that he or she is under imminent threat can be considered imperfect justifiable defense, but it is also a type of justifiable defense. How to protect victims of domestic violence? China's anti-domestic violence law stipulates that physical, mental and other violations committed by family members in the form of beating, mutilation, restriction of personal freedom, as well as frequent verbal abuse and intimidation are all domestic violence. There are some important advances in this definition. For example, it stipulates that there are no rigid gender boundaries between family members. It broadens the definition of domestic violence beyond that of husband and wife. It also treats acts such as psychological abuse as part of domestic violence. Although it is difficult to determine in the process of actual implementation, it may take a longer time to explore in judicial practice. Another very important point is the personal safety protection order. In reality, it used to be very difficult to apply for a personal safety protection order, but the Anti-Domestic Violence Law makes a series of more detailed provisions for personal safety protection orders. There are many successful cases, which should also be seen as a way forward. 
Naomi and Kanako" is different from punishment and prosecution in the general sense, and the personal safety protection order is to restrict the behavior of the potentially violent party in order to prevent the occurrence of danger in advance. It is a fairly broad design that follows international trends. For example, in the guidelines issued by the Supreme Court for the trial of matrimonial cases involving domestic violence, a personal safety protection order may prohibit the respondent from beating or threatening the applicant or the applicant's relatives and friends, and it may also prohibit the respondent from harassing or stalking the applicant, and one party may not dispose of the joint property of the husband and wife without authorization. It even prohibits the respondent from moving within 200 metres of certain premises. Of course, a personal safety protection order is not a bodyguard in the real sense, nor is it a 24-hour bodyguard. After the respondent violates the personal safety protection order, the law can only further impose a penalty of detention or a fine on the respondent after the fact. Therefore, it can play a protective role, and in essence, it still relies on the deterrent power of the law. It still requires victims of domestic violence to stand up bravely, expose their experiences of being harmed by violence, and then use the law to punish them retroactively after the fact, so that deterrence can truly be established in society. This is actually very difficult to do, because people who are really in the violence of intimate relationships have a lot of difficulties and suffering. This is a global problem. Data from the World Health Organization in 2017 shows:Globally, 1 in 3 women have experienced physical or sexual violence, and less than 10% have reported it to the police. In the United States, for example, victims face a very real dilemma: after the victim reports to the police and the police impose a temporary punishment, the victim may be subjected to more violent retaliation. In particular, in the case of economic dependency, if the perpetrator is financially punished or has his freedom of movement restricted, it is also a disguised harm to the victim, so many victims of domestic violence ask the court for leniency. 
Night and Fog in Tin Shui Wai The U.S. law reform took place comparatively longer. Some states have introduced mandatory reporting laws, such as when neighbors hear about domestic violence, they must choose to report it to the police. Other states have passed mandatory arrest laws that require the police to arrest the perpetrator immediately when serious domestic violence injuries occur. However, these laws still have no way to solve the problem of secondary retaliation and economic dependence. SoThe international trend of justice to address domestic violence is all about how to provide long-term protection for victims. For example, providing shelters where people can live with peace of mind for a period of time, providing financial support for victims for a period of time, and even job training. It can be said that in order to give women the courage to leave the family and seek help from society, it is necessary to establish economic and legal support, and also to change the traditional cultural concept that "family ugliness cannot be publicized". This is clearly a very long way to go.