Legal and Moral Justification for Homicide in Susan Glaspell’s “A Jury of Her Peers”

Abstract

This article examines the legal, moral and social injustices resulting from women not having the right to serve as jurors, in the context of Susan Glaspell’s “A Jury of Her Peers.” I demonstrate how Glaspell provides a fictional window into moral justice based upon jury nullification, exercised by disempowered women, and I establish how Glaspell’s narrative helped to lay the foundation for legal recognition of women’s rights to serve as jurors, and acceptance of Battered Woman’s Syndrome as a defense. I conclude that Glaspell was an agent for change, whose work contributed to equal justice for women under law.