Relatively Criminal: Spouses and the Criminal Process

Abstract

This article explores the interface between family law and criminal law in the criminal process, in the contexts of the spouse as a witness and the spouse as a victim. It probes the question of whether the criminal law should retain or develop special rules or policies when the marital relationship is potentially affected by the operation of the criminal process, contrasting the decline of spousal ‘exceptionalism’ in the context of spousal witnesses with the apparent vigor exhibited in the official reluctance to enforce the criminal law in situations of minor spousal violence.