A Maryland woman released from prison as part of a mass amnesty because she suffered from "battered women's syndrome" at the time of her crime had hired a hit man to kill her husband, with whom she was not living at the time, and even collected on his life insurance. The Columbus, Ohio, Dispatch reported that of the 25 women pardoned by outgoing Gov. Richard Celeste in 1990, 15 said they had not been physically abused. Six had discussed killing their husbands beforehand, and two had even tracked down their estranged spouses to kill them.

A Los Angeles jury found a man guilty of a charge less than murder because he had supposedly bludgeoned his wife to death only after years of psychological abuse and only because his religion forbade leaving her.

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