It smells no better from this side
January 23, 2010NY man accused of beheading claims he was battered
BUFFALO, N.Y. (AP) – A western New York man accused of beheading his wife at the Muslim-oriented television station they founded will claim he was a victim of years of abuse at home.
Muzzammil Hassan (moo-ZAHM’-mel HAH’-sahn) was in a Buffalo courtroom Friday, where he fired the lawyer who has been representing him for nearly a year and hired a new one with a different strategy.
New lawyer Frank Bogulski says he’ll pursue a battered-person defense.
Battered person’s defense, whatever the gender of the person who invokes it, should be viewed with a lot of skepticism. I almost view it akin to the insanity defense. There probably are some people for whom this qualifies, but the lawyer’s gonna have to pull a hell of a case for me to buy it. And just from a quick glance of the facts, you’re going to have to have Clarance Darrow to convince me that abuse was so great to necessitate beheading.
But in spite of the gruesome facts, I view this case with no more or less skepticism than I do with a woman who shoots her husband while he’s sleeping, or one who violate a restraining order and guns down her ex-husband and his new wife for simply going for the phone and then claims battered wife syndrome.
