This episode very carefully delineates the gender factor as it impacts the nexus between spousal abuse syndrome and the U.S. Legal system. Some strives have been made regarding battering services, education and rehabilitation; but it is also just one thread of violence pandemic erupting from the radix of social history: see the U.S. history timeline. Soldiers are trained to murder and returning to domesticity does not erase this pattern. We humans are creatures of habit: i.e., violence addiction.At first, the judge appeared so remote from any form of compassion; that I thought the story line would be that he battered his own wife.As it is; at least they didn't show that his freedom from any difficulty at all in imprisoning the now psychotic wife for first degree murder!