Reasonable Person Statutes and Identitarian Deference

One example of identitarian deference already established and recognized in the law--rightly, in my opinion--is the clarification to "reasonable person" statutes, like those requiring that in order for a genuine belief in the necessity of a violent act to defend oneself from imminent physical harm to rightly claim 'perfect self-defense' and fully exonerate one from criminal charges, that the standard of "reasonableness" must take into account the totality of the defendant's circumstances.

In People v Humphrey, the CA Supreme Court found that expert testimony concerning the effects of battered woman syndrome are relevant, and thus admissible, to determining whether the belief in the necessity of violent self-defense was objectively reasonable because the standard is defined as "what a reasonable person would do in her situation", i.e. as a long-term victim of battering and suffering of battered woman syndrome.

Hence there is an identitarian deference here, and assertion of an unbridgeable gap in the understandings of those who have been battered women and those who have not.