Letters to the Editor
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The legal system
"didn't take into account" their domestic situations? Since when? In both the guilt/innocence phase and the punishment phase of a criminal trial the issues these women bring up are relevent and material. If they weren't brought up, it's their lawyers' fault, not that of the judicial system.
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Additional Domestic Violence Resources
Family Violence Prevention Fund: http://www.endabuse.org/
National Network to End Domestic Violence: http://nnedv.org/
National Coalition Against Domestic Violence: http://www.ncadv.org/
You might also be interested in the work of the volunteer lawyers at the California Habeas Project: http://www.habeasproject.org/. There is a provision in California law that allows domestic violence victims convicted of killing their abusers a re-trail, if evidence of their abuse was not heard in the original trial. Thank you for reporting on such an important topic, and calling for your readers to take action and inform themselves.
Camille Hayes
Membership & Communications Coordinator
California Partnership to End Domestic Violence
Toll Free: 800-524-4765
Direct: 916-444-7163 x110
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Sympathy
Boy, this is sure going to rev up some of our "more enthusiastic" posters.
It seems by the article that they did a pretty thorough review on a case by case; some get pardoned, some get released, and some get referred early to parole. But I do think that the aforementioned enthusiasts might actually have a point this time around; surely there is a man somewhere in jail that killed his wife in self-defence or in reaction to prolonged abuse of one kind or another. Not likely to get much sympathy under current cultural norms.
Well, things are better in different places; we've only had a handful of domestic murders hereabouts in that last few years; and yes, one of them was a woman killing an intimate partner, where there was no possibility of abuse really (an affair gone bad, apparently). But domestic violence cases have a tendency to be insanely complex and difficult to sort out, with lots of parties, mostly all behaving badly (whether under duress or not).
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Robert Franklin
Actually a history of being abused is often not considered relevant in our legal system. Even in situations where a woman, or a woman's child, was being battered at the time the woman took whatever action caused the batterers death, women have still been convicted of murder or manslaughter. A history of abuse is often used AGAINST battered women. Often prosecutors will argue that the woman should have left, hence she had no right to defend herself, or that while she may have been being beaten, she'd been beaten before and not killed so her use of lethal force was not justified. If she had ever left her batterer but returned (even if it was because her safety, or that of her family, was threatened) she's got little to no hope of being aquitted. I kid you not. Here is an example
http://articles.citypages.com/1999-04-14/news/the-fist-and-the-knife/full/
Then you have situations, like the Burning Bed, where a woman will kill her batterer after he's beaten her when he is sleeping or passed out drunk. Because the batterer isn't an imminent threat, in the law's eyes, he's no threat at all, she can't even raise the issue of self-defense. So she's convicted of murder, even though he may have threated hundreds of times that he'd hunt her down if she ever left. In the case the Burning Bed is based on, the woman was convicted of involuntary manslaughter, basically her lawyers were allowed to argue (and yes, a judge can decide that a woman is not allowed to argue) a form of diminished capacity, that she'd basically been driven crazy by the years of beatings, not that she was right in thinking her batterer would hunt her down and kill her and her kids.
Most battered women who are killed by their batterers are killed AFTER they leave. Judges rarely will hold a batterer in jail without bail, so reporting him to the police won't keep a woman safe. Orders of Protection are worthless, many women who have OFPs have been hunted down and killed by their batterers, sometimes their children are killed as well. Our justice system has a very difficult time dealing with the fact that some women will never be safe so long as their batterer is alive.
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I Miss My Husband, But My Aim is Getting Better
Finally, there is some compassion in these cases of abused women who end up killing their brutish husbands.
I left my husband one day when I found a small bit of fight (self esteem) left in me and I had realized I could be driven to shoot him with his own gun (one of many) if he came after me to hit me one more time. I decided better to leave than spend the rest of my life in prison for acting in "self-defense." Of couse, I was stalked and scared for months on end after I left. That passed and it is 20 years behind me now.
Unfortunately, most women in abusive situations are so beaten down mentally and physically, their ability to have a clear thought about consequences doesn't enter their minds. All they know is that the pain of another beating (after years of them) is coming their way and they have to stop it.
All women in prision for this type of crime should be pardoned. If a man thought his wife could get away with murder, maybe he would think twice about using her (and many times the kids, too) as a punching bag.
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Yet More Domestic Violence Resources
While the only product primarily serves the Lorain County, Ohio region www.networkofcare.org has a very good domestic violence section with a number of library articles and national links.
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Self-defense for people of both genders needs to be stretghened in this country.
Look up "castle doctrine" and "aggressor clause". If the man was not LITERALLY hitting them when the women killed him, they can not bring up abuse or self-defense as a defense in a number of states (Ohio is one of them- Louisiana another). This does not just affect women. It affects men in a number of situations as well (bar room brawling is the preferred example). There's a controversial case in Iowa involving a male Illinois cop caught by this doctrine who was allegedly hit from behind and when the dude came back cracked him in the face so hard the goofus landed in the hospital. The cop is going to jail, and people are arguing over what happened, but that's the outline.
Self defense is, inexplicably, no defense
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/chi-kass_bd28oct28,1,7323977.column?coll=chi_news_local_util
His crime? According to the judge's ruling, Mike threw one punch at an angry drunk who chased Mike down the street and attacked him verbally, physically, repeatedly.
The drunk is fine now, golfing, having attended college in Dubuque. The last time I checked he was adding to his resume with a DUI.
If people are attacked in their own homes by an unknown intruder and have a chance to flee, in 31 states they have to attempt flight (no matter how unreasonable the attempt is). This ranges from retreat and announcing intention to fire (which is stupid and dangerous) to simply retreating. The Castle Doctrine (passed in 19 states) lifts the flight mandate from people in their own homes or on their property.
http://www.register-herald.com/cnhi/registerherald/homepage/local_story_024225325.html?keyword=leadpicturestory
The Castle Doctrine potentially conflicts with the POlice No Knock rules, leading some analysts to worry about police being killed under the Castle Doctrine if they invade the wrong house (which seems to happen more than people think).
We need a right to self-defense. We should not have to guess at the intention of someone beating us up. This affects men as well as women, because a man who shoots someone who was kicking or beating him with a weapon can also be caught by "aggressor clauses".
Aggressor clause ohio
http://www.thefiringline.com/forums/showthread.php?t=217173&referrerid=36767
Analysis of where the limits on self-defense comes from, includes gender
http://prawfsblawg.blogs.com/prawfsblawg/2006/02/going_down_swin.html