A Male Defendant Case: Dong-Lu Chen

A male defendant case mentioned by Phillips (2003:510) is that Dong-lu Chen, who was a Chinese immigrant to New York, battered his wife to death some weeks after discovering she was having an affair. At his trial in 1988, an expert claimed that violence against women for adultery was commonplace in the traditional Chinese culture due to the fact that the adulterous act of a woman would be seen as an enormous statin on her husband and even affect his remarriage. Therefore, the judge made their judgments that Chen was ‘driven to violence by traditional Chinese values about adultery and loss of manhood’, and convicted him of second-degree manslaughter. Issues related to the culture backgrounds of the defendants may affect the level of punishment