A gay man who killed his lover can use “battered-wife syndrome” as a defense at his trial, a Brooklyn judge ruled yesterday.
Supreme Court Justice John Leventhal’s landmark ruling marks the first time a man has used the psychological-defense strategy created for beaten women.
“It’s never been done before, but if you change the gender, this is a textbook battered-woman’s case,” said Arthur Aidala, lawyer for accused killer John Pickett.
Leventhal and the lawyers on the case have been struggling to come up with a new term to describe what Aidala says happened to Pickett.
“Battered-intimate-partner syndrome,” “battered-spouse syndrome,” and “battered-person syndrome” were all suggested.
Leventhal said Aidala could call an expert on battered women and an expert on abuse in gay relationships as part of his defense case.
Prosecutors had argued against allowing the expert testimony. Pickett, 32, stabbed live-in lover John Stagno to death in their Crown Heights apartment in December 1997.
The bloody confrontation came after Pickett told Stagno he was sick of taking abuse and was finally leaving him, Aidala said.
Aidala said Stagno charged at Pickett with a bottle or a knife, and his client sunk a knife into his chest in self-defense.
The fatal fight culminated a 10-month-long abusive relationship in which Stagno slowly took over every part of Pickett’s life, Aidala said.
Aidala said that after one beating, Pickett called the cops, but when the officers showed up “they just laughed at him.”
“If he had been a woman, they would have arrested [Stagno] right there,” the lawyer said.
Stagno’s dominating ways and sudden outbursts of violence got Pickett expelled from college and fired from a job, Aidala said.
It got so bad that Stagno eventually took all of Pickett’s money and kept him on a strict, 50-cents-a-day allowance.
One day, he paged Pickett twice on a beeper demanding to know what he was doing, and then beeped him a third time.
When Pickett called back, Stagno began shouting, “I only gave you 50 cents! Where’d you get the other quarter?”
Aidala said Pickett was completely isolated.
“He is a black, HIV-positive, gay man who was getting abused,” Aidala said. “Who was around to help him?”