She pleaded guilty to manslaughter and was sentenced to 15 years in prison.
For years, I’ve been reporting on women around the world who have resorted to violence to survive. I studied hundreds of cases of abused women who were prosecuted to protect themselves, and interviewed dozens more in prison. The more we learn about these women, many of whom took up guns and knives after decades of abuse, the more we realize that vulnerable people sometimes have to resort to violence to survive, and that America I now have a better understanding of the legal system. It wasn’t built to fit this reality.
One US study found that women were twice as likely as men to be convicted after claiming self-defense. The odds are even lower for women of color. (For example, Ms. Gray was black and her abuser was white.) The women asked why they did not leave their abusers, why they were incomplete victims, and why the police and the courts (who could not protect them) did not leave their abusers. You will be asked if you did not seek help from a local agency. They in the first place.
Such cases must be treated as self-defense. But our nation’s self-defense laws were originally written by and for white men defending their property, not for women who may be experiencing domestic or sexual abuse. , requires that the threat be imminent. They do not take into account that abused women are often unable to defend themselves at the moment of attack. And they don’t take into account that she may have been assaulted for years.
The solid law has further flaws. Their applications have been found to be colored by racial and gender bias and fail to protect abused women. Caroline Wright, a lecturer at Harvard University and author of “Stand Your Ground: A History of America’s Love Affair with Lethal Self-Defence,” said that despite their seemingly neutral language, It would enable further murderous violence, especially armed violence, by the usual suspects, while closing the door on abuse victims.”
Many people seek a peaceful way out of abuse. The problem is that these often don’t work. Some women do not report violence because they fear retaliation from their abuser. Some people do not take any action even if they report the incident. Others try to report or leave their abusers and are killed before authorities can respond. When women fight back, they are often treated as criminals rather than long-standing victims.
This challenge of “criminalized survival”, as it is known, is not new. Advocates have been sounding the alarm for decades.
Rachel Whitedomain, director of the Women and Survivors Project at the Illinois Prison Project, said some of her clients “live in constant fear and violence” and have never endured so much. He said it’s no wonder that some people can’t see others. Exit. Because women and men often differ in size and strength, women tend to defend themselves with guns and knives, while men often use their hands and fists. However, prosecutors and judges are unable to put the woman’s response into proper context because “the people on the other side of the mirror simply do not live a life where violence continues.”
It is a common tactic of prosecutors to try to discredit abused women by making it appear that their belief that they are in danger is unreasonable. Consider the case of Brittany Smith, the Alabama woman who shot and killed her rapist and was charged with murder. When she claimed self-defense, Ms. Smith was told by prosecutors that her rapist was unarmed. She protested that Ms. Smith said her man’s hands and penis were the murder weapon. Her rape kit recorded 33 wounds. She said she feared she would die, but the court was not convinced. She pleaded guilty to murder and was sentenced to 20 years in prison.
Although no national data exists, White Domain estimates that since the creation of U.S. prisons, tens of thousands of women have been criminalized to protect themselves. The legal system is beginning to evolve to deal with female defendants with histories of abuse, but not fast enough.
Since the 1970s, some lawyers have used a theory and defense called “battered woman syndrome” to help courts properly consider the experiences of abused women. Currently, an increasing number of defense attorneys are arguing that the actions of abused clients constitute self-defense.
However, our nation’s self-defense laws need to be expanded to recognize the dynamics of violence between intimate partners, particularly with regard to timing and what constitutes reasonable fear. When the law does not allow for this, it becomes more difficult for lawyers to invoke self-defense on behalf of abused clients. The fact that we can’t do that is a double standard that hurts survivors.
Some state laws seek to correct problems during or after sentencing. Since 2012, California’s “guilt by silence” law, which builds on an earlier law, has allowed courts to consider new evidence against women whose abuse may not have been properly presented at trial. In 2016, a revised law in Illinois added abuse as a mitigating factor in sentencing. And in New York, the Domestic Violence Victims Justice Act of 2019 allows for reduced sentences for victims of domestic violence.
More states need to pass similar legislation. Even better, law enforcement and prosecutors need better information so that women with histories of abuse are less likely to be arrested or brought to justice in the first place.