You are on my jury - do you convict?

In My Humble Opinion
141

I’d be curious about a few things

a) As **Bouncer **mentions - who called the police on the previous occasions? Wife, kids or neighbours

b) Although charges were never laid because of a lack of evidence of abuse, is there other evidence (outside of the children’s) of abuse? ER visit? Visible bruises that the neighbours saw? Pictures of bruises she took on her phone? Or that a neighbour took?

c) Any prospect that some form of improper behaviour / bias can be shown on the part of the police in “protecting one of their own”? (the lack of prior arrests to my mind lessens the nature of the abuse he allegedly heaped on her, and needs to be pushed back against)

d) How was this instance of violence different from others - in that this instance put her in fear of her life, but other instances didn’t? (i.e what made her get the gun this time and not other times?)

e) Although she had to “work out” how the gun works - does she have any prior experience with firearms, or firearm violence? If she is an immigrant, where does she come from? (is it someone where we can expect her to have seen people shot with guns before)

f) Are there any documented instances of her trying to leave the home before, or seek help from any sort of woman’s support group, domestic violence shelter or similar?

g) Have the kids ever been involved in the violence? Has he ever hurt / beaten the kids?

h) If the answer to (g) is NO, what then about this time made her hide the kids in the closet? Had they been hidden in the closet before?

i) I think I missed it - but aren’t at least one of the kids school age? Does she go to school? How does that play out with the mother taking her to school, talking to teachers, what the child talks about in class? If the kid is attending any sort of school or childcare outside of the home - is there anything that can help or harm the case?

j) It’s pretty difficult for me to believe that she has been in the country for 10 years and is not in contact with either some family back home, at least some local friends or something similar? Is there any exchange of emails or text messages? Or was she completely incommunicado? What was the content of any such messages?

I am thinking Murder 1 - she had the full intention of killing him, and thought about it.

Although I would be willing to settle for Murder 2.

This would be changed however if it could be proven / shown that he was systematically terrorising her, with emotional abuse on top of the (alleged) physical abuse, in other words - if she could mount a highly credible battered woman defense (although I do note that your state doesn’t allow this)

As a further note - I would be wary about calling what he did attempted murder.

Pinning a smaller person against a wall with your forearm across their throat, I would be skeptical if that rose to the level of intentionally trying to kill her. I have seen this before, and it is as much about trying to threaten or restrain somebody as it is about trying to actually kill them with full knowledge and intent of what you are doing.

And as a side note - for the defense attorney, I’d be thinking that he would need to be very, very, sure that there is no evidence that she ever got violent herself - either towards the husband or the kids. If there is any suggestion that she also like to “talk with her hands” - then it could move the balance a whole lot out of her favour.

Edit - on review I see the kids are 9 and 7 - more than old enough to be going to school. How is that going to play out as regards who they talk to at school? What about teachers? Does mum drop them off? Does she talk to the other mums?

142

Have you read the books by Elizabeth Smart and Jaycee Dugard? These young women suffered horrible abuse and psychological torture from their abusers over the course of years. It rendered them completely incapable of thinking clearly. Even when given repeated opportunities to escape, neither fled. In fact, Smart repeatedly denied to the POLICE that she was Elizabeth Smart, because she so feared her abuser’s retaliation. That’s not rational behavior. Had they not been rescued, both women would probably still be with their abusers because they had no self-esteem, no sense of self preservation left.

So I’ll argue with you that battered women HAVE been driven to insanity. And IF the “facts” presented in the OP are to be taken at face value, and she felt like escape wasn’t an option because she’d been so beaten down, then the abuser himself essentially handed her a free pass to kill him.

FYI, there was a fear that the “Burning Bed” defense would open the door to women offing their husband and later claiming abuse. It hasn’t turned out to be the case. Like other more traditional cases of self-defense, the burden shifts to the defendant to prove that they were acting in self-defense. That can be a pretty tall order. A juror’s job is always to listen to the evidence presented and try and separate fact from fiction. It’s no different here. Let them decide if her abuse rises to the level where she can invoke the battered woman defense.

Seems reasonable.

143

That’s sort of a generic BAC = Effects for an average person. Functional Tolerance for a chronic drinker can greatly mitigate the incapacitating factors of a ‘mere’ .25 BAC. He might be as volatile as a regular dude with that much alcohol, but if he’s got some tolerance then he’s probably mentally impaired but considerably more nimble and dangerous than a stumbling drunk.

144

Not guilty.

A juror has the right to vote however s/he wants. The jury gets to hear the arguments and the evidence presented in court, and hear the judge’s instructions concerning the law that tells them on what basis they’re to make their decision.

But the jury doesn’t have to follow those instructions. And sometimes the law assumes an ability to wait until the last possible moment before you defend yourself (for civilians, at least; less so for police, apparently) that many if not most of us are incapable of.

If I were her, if I wait for him to start up the steps before firing the gun, it’s more likely than not that I’m going to fail to shoot him in self-defense, and the gun will get used on me and my children. So in order to defend myself against a threat that’s a good deal more imminent than that which sufficed for Bush and Cheney, I’ve got to shoot him while I’ve got the opportunity. And if I let him live, that will in all likelihood merely postpone the day when he kills me. So I’m gonna finish the job.

To me, this is about as much rationality as one can expect from the defendant in this case. Hence my vote to acquit.

145

I’m not terribly opposed to a Not Guilty verdict, but, just so you’re clear, the husband did *not *start walking up the steps.

146

Sorry if I was unclear, but that was my point. The woman in that case would have likely been digging her own grave if she’d chosen to wait until he did, which was why she was (IMHO) justified in not waiting for him to come up the steps.

147

That was my thought - who decided his attacking was over? He could have been heading to the front door to lock it then turn back on her.

148

This is a really interesting point and I have never thought of it quite that way before.

To what extent does the fact that they’re married (or that they both live in the house) change our judgment about the situation–and to what extent should it do so?

And does it make a legal difference?

149

Are you asking whether the marriage creates additional rights and duties beyond what would be expected between roommates or even total strangers?

Because if we can look to rights and duties regarding sexual intercourse, acceptance of the concept of marital rape seems to indicate it doesn’t matter whether you’re married and/or sharing a residence–you still don’t get to attack someone with impunity.

150

At the risk of outing myself… I just wanted to post this as a follow-up.
A large number of you participated in my poll. It was incredibly helpful, and I truly appreciate it.

151

You wrote earlier that you think she’s crazy, at least in the sense of stupidly incompetent to make rational decisions about her defense. Do you think she competently chose to plead as she did, or to plead at all? Did you advise her to do that? Do you think she got the best possible result this way?

I caught the mention that she had been in for a year and a half at the time you started this thread. And that was a while ago. Do you think the children could have remembered well enough to give meaningful and credible testimory after all this time and trauma? It’s tough enough getting adults to testify credibly after years pass.

152

As a judge that would have liked to have seen a 2nd degree murder charge, I would have accepted a plea for voluntary manslaughter.

153

Like Bricker, I’d be leaning towards first-degree murder while being open to a manslaughter/insanity (depending on the specific legal framework of the jurisdiction) based on the PTSD testimony regarding her intent.

Husband was choking her against the wall, but let her go - she had time to go get both kids, take them upstairs, hide kids in the closet, then leave and grab a gun (and play with it). Sounds to me like the imminent danger has passed - the husband isn’t following her around, for example. She just returns and shoots him - she doesn’t do anything like call out or threaten him with the gun and say “get away from the door and let me pass or I’ll shoot” etc. If she was really trying to escape, she could’ve run out the front door instead of going upstairs to grab the gun.

And this is all without even getting to the fact she fired a second shot to execute him when he was already on the ground.

Granted, I am a criminal lawyer and used to looking at things dispassionately… so I’m probably not a good litmus test for your average juror. Judging from a lot of comments in this thread, a lot of people seem to think that “he deserved it” is valid grounds for a not guilty verdict, which legally speaking, it isn’t. Of course, juror nullification being what it is, it’d depend on whether you get jurors who feel rebellious or those who will want to adhere to the law.

EDIT: Just saw that the case already pled, ah well.

154

This is all now public record. She was hospitalized twice to restore her to competency. Which of course was part of the delay in getting this case to trial in the first place. Is she truly competent? No idea. But the bar for competency is astoundingly low, unfortunately.

I think this is absolutely the best possible outcome given all the parameters. After two years, we had no idea how the kids would testify. Our client certainly could not. So we would be relying on her “confession” for the version of events. The court denied our motions for expert witnesses three times. This is the area where the indigent client is truly screwed. They are at the mercy of the court to get money to hire experts. And the prosecutors can challenge the release of funds.

So no experts. No reliable testimony about the events that led up to the shooting. This was an all or nothing case.

With the Alford plea, she is able to maintain her innocence but still not risk trial.

This was a very unique case in that that prosecution asked us to write the Commonwealth’s proffer of facts. They felt they needed to justify the plea, and so they asked us to write the proffer and include every single act of violence we could think of. So we included information that would have NEVER come into evidence in the trial.

Ironically, the Commonwealth’s Attorney put out a press release on their Facebook page, and immediately took a lot of flack. Most folks seemed to think she should have never been prosecuted in the first place. They had to release a second statement to clarify. Google Loudoun County Commonwealth’s Attorney Facebook. It’s interesting to say the least.

155

Second Degree Murder.

156

This woman is living an isolated life, trapped in an abusive situation. Authorities have failed her. She (and the kids) are in danger.

Perhaps she could’ve opted for a women’s shelter. Of course, these don’t exist in all localities, and many provide inadequate services. Even if one was available, though, I still personally have no issue with her finally being fed up enough to shoot this asshole.

So, my vote: not guilty.

157

I voted 2nd degree. I was on her side with going after the gun. She made a mistake in admitting she intended to kill him, but I could have chalked that up to stress of the moment. Her first accidental shot should have resulted in the husband heading for the door.

She left the bedroom and walked down the stairs. At this point, self defense is pretty much off the table for me and I am into the voluntary manslaughter zone. The guy was moving towards the stairs, which is also towards the door when she shoots him the first time. Shooting him a second time when he is on the floor bleeding turns this into second degree murder for me.

If she had stayed in the bedroom with the gun and stood between the door and her kids, shooting him until the gun was empty once he broke down the door would have been a clear case of self defense.