The beauty defense : femmes fatales on trial / Laura James.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

James, Laura (Lawyer), author.

Series:

True crime history series

True crime history

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Trials (Murder).

Femmes fatales--Legal status, laws, etc.

Femmes fatales.

Beauty, Personal--Social aspects.

Beauty, Personal.

Physical Description:

xxii, 184 pages : illustrations, portraits, facsimiles ; 23 cm.

Place of Publication:

Kent, Ohio : The Kent State University Press, [2020]

Summary:

"Justice is blind, they say, but perhaps not to beauty. In supposedly dispassionate courts of law, attractive women have long avoided punishment, based largely on their looks, for cold-blooded crimes. The Beauty Defense: Femmes Fatales on Trial gathers the true stories of some of the most infamous femmes fatales in criminal history, collected by attorney and true crime historian Laura James. With cases from 1850 to 1997, these 32 examples span more than a century and cross cultures, ethnicities, and socioeconomic status. But all were so beautiful, as James demonstrates, that they got away with murder. When Madeline Smith, a Glasgow socialite, tried to end a relationship with one man to date another, her jilted lover proved difficult to shake. She solved the problem, James writes, with arsenic-laced chocolates. And in Warrenton, Virginia, mild-mannered heiress Susan Cummings gunned down her polo-playing husband, Roberto, following a disagreement. While these two women lived in different centuries and on different continents, both of their lawyers argued that they were too beautiful to be killers. And in both cases, the juries bought it. In telling the stories of Madeline Smith and Susan Cummings-and 30 others-James proves the existence of the so-called Beauty Defense and shines a spotlight on how gender bias has actually benefited femmes fatales and affected legal systems across the world"-- Provided by publisher.

Contents:

Introduction : The Femme Fatale

Beulah Annan

Elvira Barney

Adelaide Bartlett

Countess Linda Murri Bonmartini

Kitty Byron

Florence Carman

Jessie Costello

Susan Cummings

Germaine d'Anglemont

Blanca de Saulles

Pauline Dubuisson

Princess Fahmy

Laura Fair

Annie George

Clara Smith Hamon

Alice Hartley

Claudine Longet

Nellie May Madison

Julia Morrison

Charlotte Nash Nixon-Nirdlinger

Grace V. Nottingham

Madalynne Obenchain

Beatrice Pace

Gertrude Gibson Patterson

Nan Patterson

Alma Rattenbury

Daisy Root

Abe Sada

Madeline Smith

Marguerite Steinheil

Vera Stretz

Countess Marie O'Rourke Tarnovska

Epilogue: The Femme Fatale Lives.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 173-184).

ISBN:

9781606353943

1606353942

OCLC:

1121603589