Forensic neuropsychology in an intimate partner violence case

Women suffering Intimate Partner Violence show psychological problems including anxiety, depression or post-traumatic stress disorders. Nevertheless, neuropsychological consequences are rarely evaluated considering the high frequency with which women are beaten in the head by batterers. Furthermore, these neuropsychological deficits are not normally considered during the forensic procedures for establishing imputability o economic compensations. Our objective is to describe the case of Ana, a woman accused of murdering her husband, who suffer intimate partner violence during 3 years with very frequent blows on the head. A comprehensive neuropsychological battery was administrated to assess the main neuropsychological domains such as perception, attention, memory, language, executive functioning and malingering. The forensic neuropsychological assessment showed that Ana suffered attention and executive function problems concerning her working memory, flexibility and decision making functioning. Malingering was ruled out. Considering the neuropsychological report, the jury decided to declare Ana as unfit to plead for the murder. To our knowledge, this is the first case in which neuropsychological deficits caused by intimate partner violence are considered to in a case of murder to declare the crime unpunishable.