violence

I could not find any definitive answers, but the following articles offer some context on how the term might have started.

An essay called "The Endless Dream Game of Death", by Luis Rodriguez states that the LAPD began using the term during the 1980's, to dismiss victims of gang violence.

In "NHI-No Humans Involved," UCSD faculty member Elizabeth Sisco, traces the use of the term to the San Diego area during the 1980's and 1990's, by San Diego police, to address a series of murders and sexual assaults against women. Sisco wrote that the head of the task force assigned to investigate the murders claimed that the use of "NHI" is fictionalized by old detective novels, but another San Diego officer confirmed the use of the "NHI" term in a Sacramento Bee article to describe these murders.

Rodriguez, Luis J. and D. Cesare (1995). Endless Dream Game of Death. Grand Street, No. 52, Games. pp. 61-77. http://www.jstor.org/stable/25007852. Access December 6, 2009 from Jstor database through San Jose State University.

Sisco, Elizabeth. (1993) NHI-No Humans Involved. NHI-No Humans Involved. Accessed December 6, 2009.

Here are some sources I found on the subject...

Shapiro, Edward S. 2006. Crown Heights: Blacks, Jews, and the 1991 Brooklyn Riot. (You can check out the contents on Google book search)

Goldschmidt, Henry. 2006. Race and Religion Among the Chosen Peoples of Crown Heights. Published by Rutgers University Press. (Also visible on Google book search)

Fortis, Cherie (Producer). Fires in the mirror [videorecording] : Crown Heights, Brooklyn and other identities
Summary: On Aug. 19, 1991 in Crown Heights (Brooklyn, N.Y.) a Hasidic man accidentally ran over a 7-year old Black boy (Gavin Cato). Three hours later a young Jewish scholar (Yankel Rosenbaum) was murdered by Black youths. Four days of fire-bombing and riots ensued. Utilizing verbatim excerpts from interviews she conducted, Anna Deavere Smith acts out the roles of 18 people involved in the racial conflict, trying to present the differing viewpoints. Includes actual film footage of the riots and violence. (Book with same name also available, written by Anna Deavere Smith)

For those of you interested in reading about cases of clemency, it is easy enough to go to the New York Times website (which now does free searches for articles going back to 1981- going back further requires access to an electronic database) and do a search for the three terms "clemency abuse women" for a number of articles to show up. I haven't found out about mass clemencies of over 25 women, but i do have some leads on information relevant to clemency in general.

My Google search of "law clemency women murder" gave me two very good sites. One of them describes the The Michigan Battered Women's Clemency Project. The other is a description of a legal case related to that project: click me. Both of these articles list Carol Jacobsen as a contact person for more information on the topic.

The second website has a reference to a journal article Jacobsen co-wrote in the Hastings Women's Law Journal, 2007(no.18). The title is: "Battered Women, Homicide Convictions, and Sentencing: The Case for Clemency". Though written in 2007, the article deals with the decades between 1968-1988. If you are near a university library, they may have electronic access to this journal.

Lastly, using the database Genderwatch (which is, unfortunately, not available at the New York Public Library, the Brooklyn Public Library, or the Queens Public Library), i found a 2004 article from the Berkeley Women's Law Journal (vol.19, no.1) titled: "Unlocking Liberty: Is California's Habeas Law the Key to Freeing Unjustly Imprisoned Battered Women?", written by Jill Adams. The article discusses issues of clemency, or reduced sentencing, for women who killed their abusers.