“I love teaching and immensely enjoy the intellectual exchanges with students. I hope that my passion and enthusiasm for teaching helps my students become engaged in class and excited about using the law to promote justice. I strive to create a learning environment that welcomes students from all backgrounds and makes everyone feel valued and comfortable in the classroom.”

Professor Michal Buchhandler-Raphael joined Widener Law Commonwealth in 2020 from Washington and Lee School of Law, where she was a Visiting Assistant Professor of Law teaching courses in Criminal Law and Family Law, as well as two seminars: "The Criminal Regulation of Vice" and "Freedom of Speech."

Professor Buchhandler-Raphael is a Criminal Law and Family Law scholar who studies domestic violence and sexual violence. In recent years, she has particularly focused on the relationship between victimization and offending, including the connections between homicide law and gender-based violence.

In a series of articles on individuals who are both defendants and victims of crime, she has examined how the criminal legal system treats defendants who are survivors of domestic violence. Drawing on insights from behavioral psychology and related disciplines, she advocates for reducing these defendants’ criminal responsibility and expanding the scope of existing defenses, such as provocation, self-defense, and duress.

In her article titled “Survival Homicide,” published in the Cardozo Law Review, Professor Buchhandler-Raphael proposes that state legislatures adopt a designated homicide offense tailored to survivors of domestic abuse who kill abusive intimate partners or other abusive family members.

In her recent article titled “Compassionate Charge Reduction,” forthcoming in the UC Davis Law Review in May 2026, she defines “victimized offenders” as individuals who have experienced domestic abuse and kill either their abuser or a third party as a direct result of that abuse. She argues that the criminal legal system should treat these individuals more leniently; her main thesis is that prosecutors should recognize the relationship between victimization and offending and refrain from filing murder charges in such cases, opting instead for lesser charges.

In a follow-up article titled “Excusing Abused Parents,” forthcoming in the Ohio State Law Journal in 2027, she focuses on parents—predominantly mothers—who are prosecuted for failing to protect their children from fatal abuse by their partners. Critiquing the criminal legal system’s refusal to account for a parent’s own experiences of domestic violence when assessing culpability under the “failure to protect” doctrine, she proposes a designated affirmative defense. This defense would recognize the impact of trauma and fear to absolve a parent of criminal liability if they reasonably apprehended that acting to prevent the abuse would result in serious bodily injury to themselves or the child.

Professor Buchhandler-Raphael also studies police responses to domestic violence. In her article “Police Minimalism in Domestic Violence,” published in the Arizona State Law Journal, she argues that police are ill-equipped to address the complexities of domestic violence. She advocates for the integration of civilian responders in domestic violence emergencies, either as independent responders or as co-responders alongside the police, depending on safety concerns and risk assessments.

Among other topics, Professor Buchhandler-Raphael explores the relationship between over-criminalization and over-enforcement on one hand, and the under-criminalization and under-enforcement of specific crimes, such as sex crimes, on the other. In her article titled “Underprosecution Too,” she argues that prosecutors frequently decline to pursue rape and other sexual offenses based on the assessment that juries are unlikely to convict, and she calls for greater consideration of victims’ interests in charging decisions.

Professor Buchhandler-Raphael’s articles have been published or are forthcoming in leading flagship law journals, including the Washington University Law Review, UC Davis Law Review, Ohio State Law Journal, Arizona State Law Journal, Cardozo Law Review (twice), Florida State Law Review, University of Richmond Law Review, Brooklyn Law Review, Temple Law Review, and Tennessee Law Review. Her work has also been cited in widely used Criminal Law casebooks and featured in the media, including The New York Times.

As a proud naturalized American citizen, an immigrant from Israel, and a first-generation college and law school graduate, Professor Buchhandler-Raphael is deeply committed to enhancing all forms of belonging and inclusion at Widener Law Commonwealth and within the Harrisburg community.

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