Battered women jailed for "letting" abuse happen

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http://www.buzzfeed.com/alexcampbell/ho ... ls#1rfsp8g

These are really difficult cases.

There have been cases where a partner has been complicit in abuse, had opportunity to stop it, of course in other case where they are completely terrified, and did every they could to protect the child.

My mother could be considered guilty of this (wrt. my brother, not me), but in her defense she was raised to be a 'good little Catholic girl' where one does not challenge the patriarch.

A percentage of serial killers have been abused. It doesn't change the intent though.

Abuse always need to be taken into consideration as do other facts.

Part of the problem is the law doesn't handle opinion very well, and juror are fallible.

There should be a the presumption of innocence. On other hand, you might be able to "prove", that they didn't do as much as they could to prevent, and they might appeal with psych assessment. The reality is it is inexact and there is no way of changing that, such is real life.

I don't get it. In a way, this law makes sense but then why isn't it applied equally to mothers and fathers? Also, there are quite a few other issues that complicate matters. For example, what happens if you are also being abused along with the children and are thus unable to stop the abuse?

You have to look at the context thought. Blindly comparing cases where are partners and children involved doesn't cover it.

It may be a "no win situation". Marissa Alexander fired a gun one time near her abusive husband to scare him away, and was convicted in 2012 of three counts of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon and sentenced to 20 years. The three counts, because her two kids were present. [source 1]

She granted new trial, and was released on bail on November 27, 2013. [The prosecutor]Corey announced that she intended to re-prosecute Alexander, this time aiming for three consecutive 20 year sentences, amounting to a mandatory 60 year sentence if Alexander is found guilty in a second trial [source 2]

sources:
1. http://www.cbsnews.com/news/florida-wom ... -60-years/
2. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marissa_Alexander_case

Last edited by LoveNotHate on 03 Oct 2014, 6:57 pm, edited 1 time in total.

From that site, it looked like that law doesn't care, which is scary and idiotic if that's true.

Were I on the jury of the Lindsey case, I would have voted to acquit. I would have argued to the other jurors that the defendant was reasonable to believe that calling 911 would not have provided adequate protection to her and her son, as evidenced by the actual inadequate reaction of the police when 911 was called by another party. She was reasonable to believe that calling 911 would not have accomplished much, save to arouse the violent anger of her boyfriend. Escaping from an abusive relationship can be very difficult for women, and she did make multiple attempts to leave, which all ended in failure. She was simply trying to make the best of a bad situation, a situation in which she was in dire distress, by trying to calm her boyfriend by leaving for a while, once it became clear that she could not leave with her son. This was corroborated by a witness statement.

The murder of her son was all on her boyfriend.

I would have hung the jury if I had to in order to prevent conviction, at least for a while. That would have resulted in a mistrial and the state, if they still wanted to prosecute, would have had to start a completely new trial.

That's called 'the tax', the practice of prosecutors seeking the maximum sentences they can, regardless of context or circumstance, against defendants who insist on going to court and not taking plea deals, with the idea of intimidating others into taking pleas, whether guilty or not. It's a grave miscarriage of justice, and a major reason for my own personal disdain for the entire profession of prosecutors.

As an aside, it bugs me that the 'slimy defense attorney' is still a favorite stock villain in entertainment and that people still seem to think that criminals getting off on technicalities is a major problem, when calculating and ruthless prosecutors flagrantly violating the law and getting away with it are a much more common and serious problem. A prosecutor can lie, withhold exculpatory evidence, suborn perjury, and otherwise make a mockery of the legal system, be caught on tape doing so, and you still can't so much as civilly sue them because they have absolute immunity, beyond even what the police have, for anything they do in the course of their work. Add in the fact that they're often elected, and that what they run on is conviction ratings (not 'justice' ratings), and you have a recipe for abuse of power on an unprecedented scale, which is exactly what is happening today.

I also object to plea bargaining.

In the UK plea bargaining is not possible except, where there are additional charges, and those are not perused, in return for the more serious charge being perused. I'm not a lawyer, but I believe the charges have to be separate concepts. For instance reckless endangerment, and failing to inform the police of a road traffic accident.

Plea bargaining is why the Meredith Kirchner trial was a sham, and why Rudy Guede was never properly cross examined, and got a fast track trial, reduced sentence, despite being the only one there was proven to have carried out the offense.

If you had been a juror you would have heard all the evidence, not media reports and opinion pieces. You never know you may have taken a different view.

It all depends on the strength of the defense. If this goes to appeal it may provide a better deference.

The whole concept of the plea bargain is flawed, from alternative punishment, incentive to falsely implicating other people, incentive to lie your way out of trouble.

Aside from that, few things offend me like a prosecutor first offering someone a plea bargain with a fairly low custodial sentence attached, then grandstanding in court about this dangerous offender that must be locked up for the maximum amount of time for public safety after they reject the deal, it's pure vindictiveness, not justice.

Yes in legalese it perverts justice, by putting incentive/disincentive to a particular plea.

There is an argument that if someone pleads guilty on their own accord, and they are found to be guilty, then that should be taken into account during sentencing, with regard to showing remorse.

However sentencing should not be take place until after a trial.

Witnesses and accused parties should be allowed to be cross examined.