into the control of MLB over the airwaves, the federal appellate court ruled that the telecasts were indeed copyrightable works and that clubs were entitled to the revenues derived from them. As a result of these cases, economic decisions regarding baseball have been left to the players and owners. For this reason, baseball has been seen as an anomaly with regard to U.S. antitrust laws, and its exemption has been called “an aberration confined to baseball” (Flood). The push for congressional action to eliminate this exemption intensified with the baseball players’ strike from 1994 to 1995. The strike left many in baseball, including fans , disenfran- chised. Senator Howard M. Metzenbaum, an Ohio Democrat who headed the subcommittee on antitrust laws, led the fight to remove the antitrust exemption from baseball. However, the 234-day strike ended in an agreement between owners and players, in which owners promised to pay “luxury taxes” on clubs with high payrolls. Congress was spared the necessity of acting. Local communities, however, faced the possibility of losing their MLB franchises as the economics of baseball changed dramatically in the late 1990s. Major market teams, many of them now owned by corporations rather than wealthy individuals, drove up player payrolls. This change hurt smaller market teams and teams owned by individuals who either lacked the resources or the desire to match salaries. The Minnesota Twins, unable to secure a new, publicly funded baseball stadium, threatened to move to another state in 1997. The state of Minnesota sought unsuccessfully to probe the team’s finances and that of MLB, but in the end the Twins could not secure a sale or move for the team. Unable to curb rising costs, the baseball league proposed contracting two teams before the 2002 season. Under contraction, MLB would buy out the owners and distribute the players to other teams through a draft. The league argued that contraction would strengthen the financial wellbeing of the sport. The owners, however, needed to move quickly if contraction was to happen before the 2002 season. The Montreal Expos and the Minnesota Twins were rumored to be the teams selected for contraction. In Minnesota, the operators of the Metrodome, where the Twins play their home games, sued the Twins and MLB, asking a state court to order the Twins to play the 200 2 season. They sought either to win on the merits or delay contraction for a year. The judge issued a PRELIMINARY INJUNCTION and the Twins appealed, arguing that the team did have an obligation to pay the rent for the season, but they could decide whether to play the season. The Minnesota Court of Appeals, in Metropolitan Sports Facilities Commission v. Minnesota Twins Partnership, 638 N.W.2d 214 (2002), upheld the injunction, which meant that contraction be- came impossible for the 2002 season. The baseball league later abandoned the concept of contraction, at least fo r the near future. In addition to its ongoing financial trou- bles, baseball has faced other difficulties from incidence of steroid abuse. Baseball first began testing for performance-enhancing drugs dur- ing the 2003 season. The testing was a type of survey, designed to asses s the number of players using steroids in the league. The te sts were to be anonymous, and even those who tested positive would not be punished. In November 2003, MLB revealed that more than 5 percent of the tests conducted during the 2003 season were positive , prompting the first- ever mandatory testing and punishment for players who tested positive for performance- enhancing drugs. Donald Fehr of the Major League Baseball Players Association addresses the findings of the Mitchell Report, which investigated steroid use in baseball. AP IMAGES GALE ENCYCLOPEDIA OF AMERICAN LAW, 3RD E DITION 528 BASEBALL In 2004 MLB faced increasing pressure from government to strengthen its drug policy or face legislative intervention. In 2005 MLB signifi- cantly increased the pen alties for testing positive for performance-enhancing drugs. The more stringent standards required a 50-game suspen- sion for the first offense, 100-game for the second offense, and a lifetime ban from baseball for the third offense. In 2006 baseball commissioner Bud Selig appointed former U.S. Senator George Mitchell to investigate the use of performance-enhancing drugs in major league baseball. Senator Mitchell’s investigation culminated with the delivery of the “Report to the Commissioner of Baseball of an Independent Investigation into the Illegal Use of Steroids and Other Performance Enhancing Substances By Players in Major League Baseball,” also known as the “Mitchell Report.” The Mitchell Report, issued in 2007, found that the use of performance-enhancing drugs had been perva- sive for more than a decade, and it made recommendations for MLB for the future. As of 2009, the legal ramifications of the steroid investigation include government probes into drug distribution and indictments against major league players for PERJURY and OBSTRUCTION OF JUSTICE , related to allegedly false denials of steroid use. FURTHER READINGS Burk, Robert F. 1994. Never Just a Game. Chapel Hill: Univ. of North Carolina Press. Helyar, John. 1994. Lords of the Realm. New York: Villard Books. Kovaleff, Theodore P. 1994. The Antitrust Impulse. New York: Sharpe. Laitner, Colin. 2006. “Steroids and Drug Enhancements in Sports: The Real Problem and the Real Solution.”De- Paul Journal of Sports Law and Contemporary Problems. 3 (Summer). Lewis, Michael. 2003. Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game. New York: Norton. Manfred, Robert D., Jr. 2008. “Federal Labor Law Obstacles to Achieving a Completely Independent Drug Program in Major League Baseball.”Marquette Sports Law Review. 19 (Fall). Radomski, Kirk. 2009. Bases Loaded: The Inside Story of the Steroid Era in Baseball by the Central Figure in the Mitchell Report. New York: Hudson Street Press. Sands, Jack, and Peter Gammons. 1993. Coming Apart at the Seams. New York: Macmillan. U.S. Congress Subcommittee on Economic and Commercial Law. 1993–94. Baseball’s Antitrust Exemption: Hearing before the Subcommittee on Economic and CommercialLaw. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office. U.S. Congress Subcommittee on Oversight and Govern- ment. 2008. The Mitchell Report: The Illegal Use of Steroids in Major League Baseball. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office. Zimbalist, Andrew S. 1992. Baseball and Billions: A Probing Look Inside the Big Business of Our National Pastime. New York: Basic Books. Zimbalist, Andrew S., and Bob Costas. 2003. May the Best Team Win: Baseball Economics and Public Policy. Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution. CROSS REFERENCE Sports Law. BASIC BOOKS V. KINKO’ S GRAPHICS CORP. See COPYRIGHT “Copyright Law in Action” (Sidebar). BASIS The minimum, fundamental constituents, foun- dation, or support of a thing or a system without which the thing or system would cease to exist. In accounting, the value assigned to an asset that is sold or transferred so that it can be determined whether a gain or loss has resulted from the transaction. The amoun t that property is estimat- ed to be worth at the time it is purchased, acquired, and received for tax purposes. In a simple case, the basis of property for tax purposes under the INTERNAL REVENUE CODE is the purchase price of a piece of property. For example, if a taxpayer purchases a parcel of land for $500,000, and no deductions apply to that parcel of land, the taxpayer’s basis is $500,000. If the taxpayer later sells the property for $550,000, the amount of gain realized by the transaction is the sale price ($550,000) less the adjusted basis ($500,000), or $50,000. Where a taxpayer is allowed to depreciate property with a limited useful life, such as an automobile used primarily for business pur- poses, the taxpayer’s adjusted basis is reduced. Assume a taxpayer purchases an automobile for $30,000, and then claims deductions for $5,000. The adjusted basis of the automobile is then reduced to $25,000. When the taxpayer sells the automobile for $26,000, the amount of gain realized is $1,000 (the sale price of $26,000 minus the adjusted basis of $25,000). FURTHER READINGS Bankman, Joseph, et al. 2008 Federal Income Tax: Examples and Explanations. 5th ed. Frederick, MD: Wolters Kluwer Law & Business. Hudson, David M., and Stephen A. Lind. 2007. Federal Income Taxation. Eagan, MN: West. GALE ENCYCLOPEDIA OF AMERICAN LAW, 3RD E DITION BASIS 529 McEowen, Roger, and Neil Harl. 2008. Estate Planning, PM–993. Available online at http://www.calt.iastate. edu/basis.html; website home page: http://www.calt. iastate.edu (accessed August 28, 2009). CROSS REFERENCES Internal Revenue Code; Profit. BASTARDY ACTION An archaic name given to a court proceeding in which the paternity of an illegitimate child is determined in order to impose and enforce support obligations upon the father. The term bastardy action is derived from the early common-law use of the word bastard to describe a child born out of wedlock. Modern legislation refers to such proceedings as filiation proceedings or paternity suits because of the derogatory connotation of the term bastard. Although such proceedings are typically civil actions, a few states have established such actions as criminal proceedings. CROSS REFERENCE Illegitimacy. v BATES, DAISY LEE GATSON Daisy Lee Gatson Bates, a CIVIL RIGHTS activist and newspaper publisher, was a key figure in the integration of public schools in Little Rock, Arkansas, in the late 195 0s. When a storm of violent public protest swept Little Rock, Bates orchestrated the strategies that would reverse 200 years of state-sanctioned segregation. Bates was born in 1920 in Huttig, in the lumbering region of southeast Arkansas. When she was a baby, her mother was raped and murdered. No one was prosecuted for the crime, but suspicion in the town centered on three white men. After her mother’s death, her father fled, leaving Bates with his best friends, Orlee Smith and Susie Smith, who adopted her and raised her as their only child. They were kind and indulgent parents and Bates grew to be a strong-willed and determin ed child. When she was eight, she learned of the circumstances of her birth and adoption. The painful knowledge of her parents’ suffering and the harsh realities of life in the rural south became driving forces in Bates’s life. Although she grew up during difficult economic times, Bates’s childhood was relative- ly comfortable. Her relatio nship with her adoptive parents was warm and loving, and she was especially close to her father. Neverthe- less, Bates’s childhood was not easy. Like other black children, she experienced the sting of racial discrimination from an early age. She attended a segregated public school, using worn textbooks handed down from the white chil- dren’s school. Her school was little more than a room with a potbellied stove that gave so little heat she and her classmates often kept their coats on all day. In 1941 Orlee Smith became gravely ill. When he knew he was going to die, he called his daughter to his side. He was aware of the anger and pain she carried because of her mother’s death and her father’s disappearance and because of the bigotry that was a part of their everyday life. He counseled her not to let hatred and hostility control her but rather to use her strong feelings as a catalyst to work for change. He said: Don’t hate white people just because they’re white. If you hate, make it count for Daisy Lee Gatson Bates 1920–1999 ▼▼ ▼▼ 19751975 1950195019251925 ❖ ❖ ◆◆◆◆ ◆ ◆◆◆◆ 1920 Born Huttig, Ark. 1954 Brown v. Board of Education decided by U.S. Supreme Court 1952 Elected president of Arkansas State Conference of NAACP branches 1939–45 World War II 1942 The Arkansas State Press first published 1950–53 Korean War 1957 Little Rock Nine integrated Central High School 1959 State Press closed for financial reasons 1962 The Long Shadow of Little Rock published 1971 Public school busing to achieve integration began 1967 Elected to NAACP national board 1961–73 Vietnam War 1978 U.S. Supreme Court rejected racial quotas in University of California v. Bakke 1986 The Long Shadow of Little Rock reprinted 1988 The Long Shadow of Little Rock won American Book Award 19951995 ◆◆ ◆ 1999 Died, Little Rock, Ark. 2001 Arkansas state law established annual state holiday in memory of Bates GALE ENCYCLOPEDIA OF AMERICAN LAW, 3RD E DITION 530 BASTARDY ACTION something. Hate the humiliations we are living under in the South. Hate the discrimi- nation that eats away at the soul of every black man and woman. Hate the insults hurled at us by white scum—thentrytodo something about it, or your hate won’t spell a thing. Smith’s death became a kind of rebirth for Bates. She did not know it then, but his words would strengthen and sustain her resolve during the difficult struggles she was to face. In 1942 Bates married Lucius Christopher Bates, an insurance agent and friend of her late father, and settled in Little Rock. Her husband had majored in journalism at Wilberforce College, in Ohio, and the young couple pooled their savings and began publishing the Arkansas State Press. While writing and publishing the fledgling paper, Bates also enrolled in business administration and public relations courses at Shorter College, in Rome, Georgia. The State Press quickly became the largest and most influential black paper in Arkansas. With the entry of the United States into WORLD WAR II, Camp Robinson, near Little Rock, was reopened. The influx of soldiers, many of whom were black men from northern cities, caused racial tensions to rise in the city. The State Press had gained a reputation as an independent “voice of the people” and regularly attacked police brutality, segregation, and inequities in the criminal justice system. When the paper reported a particularly gruesome incident in which a black soldier was killed by a white policeman, many advertisers who were wary of antagonizing their white patrons withdrew their support, and circulation of the paper dropped. However, the Bateses were able to stay afloat and eventually regain their advertisers and rebuild the paper’s circulation. Their tenacity paid off in changes in working and living conditions for blacks in Arkansas. For example, as a result of their reporting on police brutality in black neighborhoods, black police officers were hired to patrol those areas. From their earliest days in Little Rock, Bates and her husband were active in the local branch of the National Association for the Advance- ment of Colored People ( NAACP). In 1952 Bates was elected president of the Arkansas State Conference of NAACP branches. In 1954 when the Supreme Court handed down its historic decision in BROWN V. BOARD OF EDUCATION 347 U.S. 483, 74 S. Ct. 686, 98 L. Ed. 873 (1954), declaring that segregated schools are “inhere ntly unequal,” she and her colleagues began pressing for implementation of the Court’s man date to desegregate the schools “with all deliberate speed” (Brown v. Board of Education, 349 U.S. 294 at 301, 75 S. Ct. 753 at 756, 99 L. Ed. 1083 [1955]). Because of her prominent position with the NAACP, Bates found herself a central character in the integration battle that soon erupted in Little Rock. The Little Rock School Board chose nine black students to be the first to integrate Little Rock Central High School. Planning and coordination of the activities of the group, which came to be known as the Little Rock Nine, fell to Bates. By September 1, 1957, angry crowds had begun milling around Central High to protest and try to prevent the enrollment of the black students. On September 2, the day before school was to open, Governor Orval Faubus dispatched the Arkansas NATIONAL GUARD and ordered it to surround Central. Claiming that he was protecting Little Rock’s citizens from possible mob violence, he declared that no black students would be allowed to enter the Daisy Bates. AP IMAGES GALE ENCYCLOPEDIA OF AMERICAN LAW, 3 RD E DITION BATES, DAISY LEE GATSON 531 school and that “blood [would] run in the streets” if any attempte d to do so. NAACP lawyers Wiley Branton and THUR- GOOD MARSHALL (later a U.S. Supreme Court justice) promptly obtained an injunction against Faubus for his interference, but Faubus refused to withdraw the troops. Bates decided to have the students enter the school in a group. She contacted eight of them and told them to assemble at a designated intersection the morning of September 4 and travel to school together. The ninth student, Elizabeth Eckford, did not receive word of the plan. Unaware of the maelstrom awaiting her, Eckford arrived at Central High alone and was taunted, jeered, and accosted by hundreds of white people as reporters and photographers from around the world observed and recorded the scene. The National Guard did not attempt to help Eckford but instead blocked her entrance to the school. Neither she nor any of the other members of the Little Rock Nine—who arrived later in a group, as arranged—were allowed to pass through the line of Guard members surrounding the school. The attempt by Bates and the nine students to enter Central set off a series of violent incidents that continued for 17 days. On September 20, attorneys Branton and Marshall obtained an injunction barring the use of the National Guard to interfere with integration at Central High. By this time, the Bateses’ home had become the unofficial center of activity and communication for the integration effort. Reporters from all over the United States came and went, some staying days or weeks. On September 23 all the Little Rock Nine met at the Bates home to try again to exercise their right to enter Central High. Traveling in two cars they drove to a side entrance of the building, away from the persistent throng, and were escorted into the school by police officers. Again mob violence spread through the city. Later in the day the students were secretly removed from the school through a delivery entrance, and the chief of police declared that Little Rock was under a reign of terror. The next day the black students remained at home. The mayor and the chief of police appealed to the U.S. DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE for assistance. In response, President DWIGHT D. EISENHOWER federalized the Arkansas National Guard and ordered Secretary of Defense Charles E. Wilson to enforce the integration order. Wilson ordered 1,000 paratroopers from the 101st Airborne (“Screaming Eagles”) Division of the 327th Infantry Regiment into Little Rock to restore order. On September 25 the Little Rock Nine assembled again at the Bates home. Under the protection of the paratroopers they were taken to Central High, where they entered under the watchful eyes of hundreds of reporters, photo- graphers, and news camera operators. The paratroopers remained at Central until Septem- ber 30, when they withdrew to Camp Robinson, 12 miles away. The federalized Arkansas National Guard remained on patrol at Central until the end of the school year. Although it was not necessary to recall the paratroopers, and the number of minority students in Little Rock’s formerly white schools steadily increased, vio- lence, hatred, and acrimony continued to plague the city for many years. Bates endured many attempts to harass and intimidate her, including rocks thrown through her window, gunshots fired at her house, dynamite exploded near her house, and crosses burned on her lawn. In late October 1957 she was arrested under a newly enacted ordinance that required officials of organizations to supply information regarding membership, donors, amounts of contributions, and expenditures. Although she was found guilty under the ordinance, the conviction was later overturned by the Supreme Court on grounds that the ordinance requirement interfered with the members’ freedom of association (Bates v. City of Little Rock, 361 U.S. 516, 80 S. Ct. 412, 4 L. Ed. 480 [1960]). In 1959 Bates and her husband were forced to close the State Press for financial reasons. Through all the harassment Bates remained determined to keep the wheels of the integra- tion movement going forward. After closing the newspaper she traveled throughout the United States working on behalf of the Democratic National Committee and the Johnson adminis- tration’s antipoverty programs. In 1965 she suffered a stroke and returned to Little Rock, but she continued to be active in the NAACP and in 1967 was elected to its national board. In 1968 she moved to Mitchellville, Arkansas, to organize the Mitchellville Office of Economic Opportunity Self-Help Project. The project was responsible for new water and sewer systems, paved streets, a community center, and a swimming pool. WE’VE GOT TO DECIDE IF IT ’SGOINGTO BE THIS GENERATION OR NEVER . —DAISY BATES GALE ENCYCLOPEDIA OF AMERICAN LAW, 3RD E DITION 532 BATES, DAISY LEE GATSON In 1984 Bates revived the State Press and was awarded honorary degrees by the University of Arkansas and Washington University. In 1986 the University of Arkansas Press published a reprint edition of her autobiography, The Long Shadow of Little Rock, and in 1988 the book received the American Book Award, the first reprint edition to be given that honor. In 1987 Bates sold the State Press but she remained a consultant for the paper. In the same year Little Rock named a new facility the “Daisy Bates Elementary School”. Bates contin- ued her involvement in community activities until shortly before her death on November 4, 1999, in Little Rock. President BILL CLINTON honored her by allowing her body to lie in state at the Capitol. FURTHER READINGS Bates, Daisy. 2007. The Long Shadow of Little Rock. Fayetteville: Univ. of Arkansas Press. Branch, Taylor. 1989. Parting the Waters: America in the King Years, 1954–1963. New York: Simon & Schuster. Hine, Darlene C., Elsa B. Brown, Rosalyn Terborg-Penn, eds. 1993. Black Women in America: An Historical Encyclopedia. Bloomington: Indiana Univ. Press. Jacoway, Elizabeth, and C. Fred Williams, eds. 1999. Understanding the Little Rock Crisis: An Exercise in Remembrance and Reconciliation. Fayetteville: Univ. of Arkansas. Smith, Jessie C., ed. 2002. Notable Black American Women. Detroit: Gale Research. CROSS REFERENCES Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas; Civil Rights Movement; NAACP; School Desegregation. v BATES, EDWARD Edward Bates served as U.S. attorney general in the cabinet of President ABRAHAM LINCOLN from 1861 to 1864. Bates was born September 4, 1793, in Belmont, Virginia. He left his native Virginia at the age of twenty-one and settled in Missouri, where he concentrated his career efforts. Bates was admitted to the Missouri bar in 1816 and was attorney general from 1820 to 1822. He was also a member of the Missouri Constitutional Convention in 1820. In 1822 Bates began the legislative phase of his career as a member of the Missouri House of Edward Bates 1793–1869 ◆◆ ◆ ◆◆ ❖ ❖ 1793 Born, Belmont, Va. 1814 Moved to Missouri Territory 1821 Missouri statehood granted 1822 Elected to Missouri House of Representatives 1821–26 Served as U.S. district attorney 1827–29 Served in U.S. House of Representatives 1830–34 Served as member of Missouri Senate 1834 Reelected to Missouri House of Representatives 1850 Appointed secretary of war by President Fillmore; declined appointment 1861–64 Served as U.S. attorney general under Lincoln 1861–65 U.S. Civil War 1869 Died, St. Louis, Mo. ▼▼ ▼▼ 1800 1790 1825 1850 1875 Edward Bates. LIBRARY OF CONGRESS LIBERTY CANNOT EXIST EXCEPT UNDER GOVERNMENT OF LAW . —EDWARD BATES GALE ENCYCLOPEDIA OF AMERICAN LAW, 3RD E DITION BATES, EDWARD 533 Representatives. In 1827 he became a representa- tive for Missouri in the U.S. House of Representa- tives, serving for two years, and then returned to state government as a member of the Missouri Senate, serving from 1830 to 1834. In 1834 he became a member of the Missouri House of Representatives for a second time. Bates was also a U.S. DISTRICT ATTORNEY from 1821 to 1826. Bates was an uns uccessful presidential nominee at the Republican National Conven- tion of 1860. He died March 25, 1869, in St. Louis, Missouri. BATTEL Physical combat engaged in by an accuser and accused to resolve their differences, usually involving a serious crime or ownership of land. It was recognized by the English king from the eleventh to seventeenth centuries. Trial by battel was introduced into England by William the Conqueror. It was based upon the belief that the winner of the battle, which was tried by God, was the party who was in the right in the dispute. BATTERED CHILD/SPOUSE SYNDROME A condition created by sustained physical, sexual, and/or emotional abuse, which creates a variety of physical and emotional symptoms. Violence of any kind is traumatic to victims, and the thought that someone could exert extreme violence against a loved one or a child is repulsive. Battered-child syndrome and battered-spouse syndrome are both the result of repeated violence—beatings, choking, sexual ASSAULT, verbal abuse, or any co mbination. The resulting trauma leaves its victims with physical and emotional scars, which can show up in a variety of symptoms that can come on gradually or suddenly. Often the symptoms are similar to other, less dangerous conditions. Sometimes there are no visible symptoms. From a legal perspective, this makes both syndromes difficult to prove. The fact that there is heated disagree- ment about these syndromes, what they repre- sent, and in fact whether they are true syndromes at all, only adds to the difficulty. Although both syndromes stem from the same violent behavior (and in some cases, the same perpetrator), they need to be treated separately. Battered-Child Syndrome Children can be subjected to violence at the hands of any adult with whom they have contact. It could be a parent, an older sibling, a babysitter, a day-care provider, a family friend, a parent’s romantic partner—in short, anyone. Some children are victimized by several people. The victimization can come in the form of physical violence, SEXUAL ABUSE, or verbal abuse. If one of these factors is present, chances are that others are present as well. Physical abuse can go undetected for a long time. A child who suffers repeated falls or broken bones might be considered “clumsy”, or the injuries might be brushed off as the kind of bumps and bruises all children get. Sexual abuse might have no outward signs, or the victim might be unusually forward or inappropriately flirtatious with adults. Even infants are not immune to abuse. In shaken-baby syndrome, a baby is shaken so violently that brain injury can occur; repeated shaking episodes or even just one particularly severe episode can result in death. A child suffering from battered child syndrome might be quiet and withdrawn, lethargic, depressed, or violent. Someone who does not kno w the particular child might not immediately spot emotional symptoms, but if the child displays unchildlike behavior, coupled with unexplained chronic physical bruising, chances are the child is a victim of abuse. Those who investigate child-abuse crimes must be extremely thorough, especially if the child is very young and thus unable to corroborate what the evidence shows. Some- times a ph ysician will spot signs of abuse or battered-child syndrome when a child is brought into an emergency room for treatment of some injury. A full investigation requires interviews with anyone who has access to the child, including parents, siblings, other relativ es, neighbors, day-care providers or babysitters, teachers, and doctors. Even those who are not involved in abuse might have valuable informa- tion to provide. Often, those who have committed the abuse will offer vague or conflicting information about what led to a particular injury. If warranted, a child could be placed in temporary PROTECTIVE CUSTODY while an investigation proceeds. Depending on the extent and severity of abuse, those who have committed the abuse might benefit from GALE ENCYCLOPEDIA OF AMERICAN LAW, 3RD E DITION 534 BATTEL counseling or other forms of treatmen t (e.g., substance or they might face criminal charges and serve a prison sentence. Battered-Spouse Syndrome Battered-spouse syndrome is more commonly called “ battered-women’s syndrome” because most of the victims are women, either wives or girlfriends of the perpetrators. However, abused husbands and boyfriends have gained increased attention, as have same-sex abuse by gay and lesbian partners. With CHILD ABUSE, investigators are often at a loss because the child is too young to testify. In cases of battered-spouse syndrome, however, the problem is that often the victim refuses to testify. Guilt and shame are primary reasons, particularly for men who expect they will be ridiculed for being abused by a woman. Fear is an even stronger factor in abuse victims’ silence. Typical symptoms of a battered-spouse syndrome victim include the openly physical ones—bruises, black eyes, broken bones, cuts and scratches. The emotional symptoms include depression, lack of self-esteem, and hopeless- ness. Sufferers might be “hypervigilant” to any signs of conflict on the part of the spouse. Denial that a problem exists is a common response to questions from concerned friends, loved ones, or even medical professionals. The phrase “battered-women’s syndrome” was first used in the early 1980s; in ensuing years lawyers began using the “battered woman” defense in HOMICIDE cases in which women killed their husbands or boyfriends. Many women claimed SELF-DEFENSE, explaining that the MURDER victim had been physically abusive for years. As the concept of battered-spouse syndrome became more clearly articulated in the 1980s and 1990s, the syndrome as a self- defense argument gained strength. In fact, it played into the CLEMENCY decisions of several governors, beginning with Governor Richard Celeste of Ohio, who in 1990 granted clemency to 25 women who had murdered their spouses. Their trials had been unfair, he concluded, because testimony about their abuse had not been allowed as evidence. Other governors followed suit in the ensuing years, including Maryland govern or Donald Schaefer, Massa- chusetts governor William Weld, and California governors Pete Wilson and Gray Davis. Experts in DOMESTIC VIOLENCE explained to skeptics the reason why many battered women did not simply leave their husbands, either to stay with friends or go to a women’s shelter. In some cases, they said, these women had been so emotionally broken that they were too fright- ened to leave. Some had been abused for so long that they had actually come to believe that they were responsible for their own abuse. In the 1990s a new movement emerged to point out that abuse can happen to men as well as women. The number of abused men was estimated at no higher than five percent of the abuse cases, and to a large extent it was not taken seriously. Advocacy groups for women claimed that for a man to claim that his wife or girlfriend physically terrorized him were absurd. Law enforcement officials often took abuse charges less seriously when the complainant was a man. Since the late twentieth century, statistical evidence about male abuse has been gaining credibility. Moreover, gay and lesbian partner abuse has also begun to be taken more seriously. In 1999 a Brooklyn, N.Y., Supreme Court judge ruled that a gay man who had stabbed his partner to death could invoke battered-spouse syndrome at his trial. The bottom line from a legal standpoint is that battered-spouse syndrome, like battered- child syndrome, requires solid and substantive evidence if it is to be used as a defense in a murder trial. A woman who has no visible physical signs of abuse might have been abused, but simply claiming to have been abused with no evidence at all at least warrants a thorough investigation. Cases in which women—and men—have claimed that an estranged spouse has been violent, simply to gain custody of their children, are not uncommon. The issue of battered spouses may be clearer in the first years of the twenty-first century than it was in the 1970s and 1980s, but it continues to evolve. FURTHER READINGS Justice Department Web site. 2002. Battered Child Syndrome: Investigating Physical Abuse and Homicide. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Department of Justice. Available online at http://www.ncjrs.gov/pdffiles1/ojjdp/161406.pdf; web- site home page: http://www.ncjrs.gov (accessed July 6, 2009). Parrish, Rob. 2009. Abused Men: The Hidden Side of Domestic Violence. Westport, CT: Greenwood. Walker, Lenore E. 2009. The Battered Woman Syndrome. 3d ed. New York: Springer. CROSS REFERENCES Domestic Violence; Child Abuse; Women’ sRights. GALE ENCYCLOPEDIA OF AMERICAN LAW, 3RD E DITION BATTERED CHILD/SPOUSE SYNDROME 535 BATTERY At common law, an intentional unpermitted act causing harmful or offensive contact with the “person” of another. Battery is concerned with the right to have one’s body left alone by others. Both a tort and a crime, its essential element, harmful or offensive contact, is the same in both areas of the law. The main distinction between the two categories lies in the penalty imposed. A DEFENDANT sued for a tort is civilly liable to the PLAINTIFF for damages. The punishment for crimi- nal battery is a fine, imprisonment, or both. Usually battery is prosecuted as a crime only in cases involving serious harm to the victim. Elements The following elements must be proven to establish a case for battery: (1) an act by a defendant; (2) an intent to cause harmful or offensive contact on the part of the defendant; and (3) harmful or offensive contact to the plaintiff. The Ac t The act must result in one of two forms of contact. Causing any physical harm or injury to the victim—such as a cut, a burn, or a bullet wound—could constitute battery, but actual injury is not required. Even though there is no apparent bruise following harmful contact, the defend ant can still be guilty of battery; occurrence of a physical illness subsequent to the contact may also be ACTIONABLE. The second type of contact that may constitute battery causes no actual physical harm but is, instead, offensive or insulting to the victim. Examples include spitting in someone ’s face or offensively touching someone against his or her will. Touching the person of someone is defined as including not only contacts with the body, but also with anything closely connected w ith the body, such as clothing or an item carried in the person’s hand. F or e xample , a battery may be committed by intentionally knocking a hat off someone’s head or knocking a glass out of someone’shand. Intent Although the contact must be intended, there is no require ment that t he defendant int end to harm or injure the victim. In TORT L AW,theintent must be either specific intent—the contact wa s specifically intended—or gene ral intent—the de- fendantwassubstantiallycertainthattheactwould cause the contact. T he i nt ent e lement is satisfied in CRIMINAL LAW when the act is done with an intent to injure or with criminal negligence—failure to use care to avoid criminal consequences. The intent for criminal law is also present when the defendant’s conduct is unlawful even though it does not amount to CRIMINAL NEGLIGENCE. Intent is not negated if the aim of the contact was a joke. As with all torts, however, consent is a defense. Under certain circumstan ces consent to a battery is assumed. A person who walks in a crowded area impliedly consents to a degree of contact that is inevitable and reasonable. Con- sent may also be assumed if the parties had a prior relationship unless the victim gave the defendant a previous warning. There is no requirement that the plaintiff be aware of a battery at the time it is committed. The gist of the action is the lack of consent to contact. It is no defense that the victim was sleeping or unconscious at the time. Harmful or Offensive Conduct It is not necessary for the defend ant’s wrongful act to result in direct contact with the victim. It is sufficient if the act sets in motion a force that results in the contact. A defendant wh o whipped a ho r se o n which a plaintiff was riding, c ausing the plaintiff to fall and be injured, was found guilty of battery. Provided all other elements of th e offense are present, the offense ma y also be comm itted by causing the victim to harm himself. A defendant who fails to act when he or s he has a duty to do so is guilty—as where a nurse fails to warn a blind patientthatheisheadedtowardanopenwindow, causing him to fall and injure himself. Aggravated Battery When a battery is committed with intent to do serious harm or MURDER,orwhenitisdonewith a dangerous weapon, it is described as aggravated. A weapon is considered dangerous whenever the purpose for using it is to cause death or serious harm. State statutes define aggravated battery in various ways—such as ASSAULT with intent to kill. Under such statutes, assault means both battery and assault. It is punishable as a felony in all states. Punishment In a CIVIL ACTION for tortious battery, the penalty is damages. A jury determines the amount to be awarded, which in most cases is based on the harm done to the plaintiff. Even though a plaintiff suffers no actual injury, NOMINAL DAMAGES (a small sum) may still be awarded on the theory that there has been an invasion of a right. Also, a court may award PUNITIVE DAMAGES aimed at punishing the defendant for the wrongful act. GALE ENCYCLOPEDIA OF AMERICAN LAW, 3RD E DITION 536 BATTERY Criminal battery is punishable by a fine, imprisonment, or both. If it is considered aggravated the penalties are greater. v BAYLOR, ROBERT EMMETT BLEDSOE Robert Emmett Bledsoe Baylor achieved prom- inence as a jurist, a Baptist preacher, and a law professor. He was instrumental in the founding of the first Baptist college in Texas, which was named Baylor University in his honor. Baylor was born May 10, 1793, in Lincoln County, Kentucky. He began his political career in 1819 with service in the Kentucky legislature, moving to the Alabama legislature in 1824. He represented Alabama in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1829 to 1831. In 1839 Baylor settled in Texas and began a judicial career. He was appointed to a Texas district court in 1841 and also served as associate judge of the Supreme Court of the Republic of Texas from 1841 to 1845. Following the annex- ation of Texas by the United States, he rendered decisions as a U.S. district judge from 1845 to 1861. He was also instrumental in the formation of the Texas state constitution in 1845. As a Baptist preacher, Baylor helped to procure a charter for a Baptist college that would come to be named Baylor University. The university was originally located in Inde- pendence, Texas, but later moved to Waco in 1886, where it remained. Baylor began teaching courses in the science of law at the new university in 1849. In 1857, Baylor University established its original school of law, and Baylor served on the original faculty. With the excep- tion of the period of the CIVIL WAR, when the school of law did not offer classes, Baylor taught courses in CONSTITUTIONAL LAW and jurispru- dence until 1873. He died on December 30, 1873, in Washington County, Texas. FURTHER READINGS “1849 to 1883: The Early History.” Baylor Law School. Available online at http://law.baylor.edu/history/ Time_Periods/early.htm; website home page: http:// law.baylor.edu (accessed July 6, 2009). Baylor, Robert Emmett Bledsoe (1793–1874). In Biographical Directory of the United States Congress 1774–Present. Available online at http://bioguide.congress.gov/scripts/ biodisplay.pl?index=B000257; website home page: http:// bioguide.congress.gov (accessed August 28, 2009). McSwain, Betty Ann McCartney. 1976. The Bench and Bar of Waco and McLennan County, 1849–1976. Waco, TX: Texian. Robert Emmett Bledsoe Baylor 1793–1873 ◆◆◆◆ ❖ ❖ 1775–83 American Revolution 1793 Born, Lincoln County, Ky. 1824 Elected to Alabama legislature 1819 Elected to Kentucky legislature 1829–31 Represented Alabama in the U.S. House of Representatives 1839 Moved to Texas 1841–45 Served as associate justice of the Texas Supreme Court 1845 Founded the first Baptist college in Texas, now called Baylor University 1845–61 Served as U.S. district judge 1873 Died, Washington County, Tex. 1861–65 U.S. Civil War ▼▼ ▼▼ 17751775 18251825 18501850 18751875 18001800 GALE ENCYCLOPEDIA OF AMERICAN LAW, 3RD E DITION BAYLOR, ROBERT EMMETT BLEDSOE 537 . University 18 45– 61 Served as U.S. district judge 18 73 Died, Washington County, Tex. 18 61 65 U.S. Civil War ▼▼ ▼▼ 17 7 517 75 18 2 518 25 18 5 018 50 18 7 518 75 18 0 018 00 GALE ENCYCLOPEDIA OF AMERICAN LAW, 3RD E. Gatson Bates 19 20 19 99 ▼▼ ▼▼ 19 7 519 75 19 5 019 5 019 2 519 25 ❖ ❖ ◆◆◆◆ ◆ ◆◆◆◆ 19 20 Born Huttig, Ark. 19 54 Brown v. Board of Education decided by U.S. Supreme Court 19 52 Elected president of Arkansas. House of Edward Bates 17 93 18 69 ◆◆ ◆ ◆◆ ❖ ❖ 17 93 Born, Belmont, Va. 18 14 Moved to Missouri Territory 18 21 Missouri statehood granted 18 22 Elected to Missouri House of Representatives 18 21 26