ABSTRACT
This chapter provides an overview of potential defences and sentencing laws, and looks at their applications with respect to the special issue of battered women who kill, at the example of homicide law, drawing largely on a study by Gropengießer from 2008. As is the case with the justificatory defences, requires a subjective element of finality, namely that D act with the purpose of averting the danger; the wording and substance of the defence exclude acting in the mere knowledge of the facts that support it as a sufficient subjective element; as with it is enough if the purpose is part of a motive cluster. For example within the specific structure of homicide offences and especially, the traditionally high doctrinal systemic sophistication of the German criminal law and consequences of unprincipled tinkering on such a system should make the legislator wary of shots from the hip in order to appease understandable requests from pressure groups as part of day-to-day politics.
