"didn't take into account" their domestic situations? Since when? In both the guilt/innocence phase and the punishment phase of a criminal trial the issues these women bring up are relevent and material. If they weren't brought up, it's their lawyers' fault, not that of the judicial system.

No, I'm not overlooking that fact, although I admit I didn't say so. My only point is that statutory rape laws produce anomolous results as they did in this case and the one in the U.S. that I referred to. Here six of the males were underage. According to statutory rape laws, they are both victims and perpetrators and the girl is both as well. That just doesn't make sense. Abolish statutory rape laws and you allow juries to determine for themselves whether consent was given. That's something juries are at least as capable of doing as state legislators in my opinion.

As to the U.S. case, I can't give you a link off the top of my head and I have no time right now to look it up. But it made some national news recently, so it's not just a state or local issue. Sorry. When I get back from my errand, I'll try to find something.

I'm not a defense attorney and have practiced next to no criminal law in my 27-year career. But please understand that it's incorrect to say that consent is not the issue. It is precisely the issue. That is what statutory rape laws do; they remove from the jury's consideration the issue of consent when the alleged victim is under a certain age, say 18. That was ok as long as only girls could be victims and only boys and men could be perpetrators. Not too long ago the law assumed that girls under the age of consent could be victims of statutory rape but boys under the age of consent could not be. This was true despite the well-known fact that, generally, girls mature emotionally, physically and psychologically earlier than boys do.

Now we have a strange notion in the law called gender equality. Of course it's not very well applied, but it exists nonetheless. So now if a 24-year-old woman has sex with a 16-year-old boy, she can be found guilty of statutory rape. But if a 16-year-old girl and her 16-year-old boyfriend have sex, both are rapists and both are victims of rape.

It would be simple to avoid this odd result by repealing statutory rape laws and allowing juries to decide the issue of consent in all cases. In the Australian case, I don't imagine they'd have a very hard time.

YOu say we should write the statutory rape laws better. How?

Sorry to be so long getting back to you. The case I referred to can be found on CNN, November 19, 2007. It occurred in Marietta, GA.

The fact that opposing counsel can try to use a history of DV against the defendant does not mean that history is not relevent and admissible at both phases of the trial. The fact is, if the defense thinks it can help, it should be raised at trial. If not, it shouldn't be allowed to be raised after verdict and sentencing.

Price's article suggests that "the legal system" didn't allow issues of DV to be raised at trial. That is not true and I wanted people to know that.

Self defense is not the only way that DV can become relevant at the guilt/innocence phase of a trial. A plea of diminished capacity can make it relevant as well.

add the fact that popular culture encourages women's violence against men. Women's violence against men is frequently depicted on TV and in movies, and it is almost invariably portrayed as at least acceptable and sometimes an affirmative good. One way or another, he deserved it. We receive a pretty constant stream of messages saying that it's OK for a woman to hit, shoot, or otherwise injure a man. Juries and judges absorb the lesson, just as the rest of us do.

If you want to respond to what I post, please read what I write and respond to that. I said nothing about depictions of women killing men, so please don't try to set up that straw man. Do you seriously claim to have not seen TV programs, commercials, movies, etc depicting female violence against men? I would find that hard to believe.

You persist in misrepresenting what I've written. Since you do that, I can't take seriously what you're saying. If you want to have a "conversation" about what I post, I'll be glad to, but I've been doing this long enough to know that people who mischaracterize what you say aren't worth the time or effort. In the meantime, look up the PhD dissertation of Dr. James Macnamara currently a professor at Sydney Technical University. It's a lengthy read and not of course entirely devoted to the depiction of female violence against men, but that's included. It more than answers your questions.