I know he cheated on me because of his childhood abuse
but I shot him because of mine.

Caption from a cartoon that appeared in the New Yorker in August 1999

    Alan Dershowitz wrote a book called The Abuse Excuse.  In this book he looks at the numerous abuse excuses that are enabling people to get away with murder.  The abuse excuse was even used by Hillary Clinton to explain why her husband cheated on her.  A critique of her doing this appeared in the Wall Street Journal.