When is killing an abusive partner an act of murder, and when is it self-defense? How does our criminal justice system deal with battered women who kill, and to what effect? Rachel Schneider traces the lives of women who sought clemency after being imprisoned for killing their abusers, drawing on a series of intimate interviews to explore the circumstances leading up to the killings, the women’s experiences in the courts and in prison, and the diverging paths of those whose sentences were commuted and those who will spend their lives behind bars.

Rachel Zimmer Schneider is lecturer in sociology at the University of Akron.