Sometimes the concept is referred to as the abuse excuse, in particular by the critics of the idea that guilty people may use past victimization to diminish the responsibility for their crimes.
The Supreme Court of the United States has held on numerous occasions that the defendant should be permitted to present any information that they feel might affect sentencing.
Other defenses seek to attribute the criminal act to the society in which the defendant lives rather than his or her own choices; the pornography defense asserts that the proliferation of pornography causes men to commit acts of sexual violence, and urban survival syndrome claims that violent conditions in a city or neighborhood may justify violent actions by a particular individual.
[5] A growing concern among the American public is that guilty criminals are too often excused for their crimes or are given unsuitably short sentences, a problem that is exacerbated by the use of the abuse defense.
It was widely reported that White's counsel had earned him a reduced sentence by employing the so-called "Twinkie defense", despite the fact that the subject of sugar intoxication was only briefly touched upon during the trial.
[13][14] The Supreme Court of the United States has held on numerous occasions that capital defendants have the right to present information about an abusive childhood as mitigating evidence.
"[17] A similar conclusion was reached in the 1982 case Eddings v. Oklahoma, in which the Supreme Court held that United States law does not prevent a jury from considering a defendant's childhood abuse when determining the appropriate sentence.
[19] Dershowitz views the effectiveness of the abuse defense as a "lawless invitation to vigilantism" which will serve only to extend the cycle of violence.
[20] Although political scientist James Q. Wilson has also denounced the abuse excuse, he points out that it is only effective if a jury finds it to be compelling evidence of innocence or a substantial mitigating factor.