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Sunday, March 23, 2008

More Violence in the Home - Murder!












Murder, or Double Jeopardy?

I have been following the strangest murder trial I have ever heard of. The case involves a 26-year old young woman defendant charged with committing the murder of her violent boyfriend.

One of the reasons that this case is so outstanding is that she was firstly a victim of physical abuse from a violent man. What a mess for a young woman to walk into. To fall in love with a man who turns out to be a person who somehow feels he has the right to physically beat her into submission. Unfortunately, this is a tale that is far too common. It is also not all that uncommon for the abuser in relationships to be either male or female.

What is at work in the thinking of the person who assumes the role of the Top over the Bottom? Is it such a human thing for one person to have to lord it over another, and is it about simple and raw power?

Back to this particular tale of alleged murder: Her story was that on the night in question, he came into her home, and as usual for him, began knocking her around. There had been an earlier incident outside the home that had sent him into a jealous frenzy, and he had come into the home pumped up. She said that things got out of hand with him punching her, and pulling her about the house by her hair.

The action moved to the darkened kitchen where he began choking her, having said that he felt like killing her while at the same time choking her. She said that she was fighting for her life, and while flailing around her hand touched some kind of kitchen utensil, which turned out to be a knife, which she slammed against his head, and in the process was plunged into his jugular.

He died of the wound! She claimed she was in a situation of self-defence, fighting for her life. His death was an unintentional consequence.

Given this scenario, a jury would simply have to decide whether this was a justifiable case of death at the hands of a woman struggling to save her own life from a man intent on taking her life; or whether it had to be determined an act of manslaughter.

Here, the case takes a most peculiar turn of events:

The prosecution chose to charge her with murder, that is to say, the unlawful taking of a human life, with malice aforethought. That was strange to begin with, given her story, but the outline of their case as to what had taken place was even curiouser. Without producing a single witness to describe the chain of events they allege, prosecution contend that during the altercation that took place that night she broke away from him and went to the kitchen to take up the knife with the intent of ending his life.

According to them, he fled into the bedroom and closed the door, but did not have time to lock it. Instead, he held the door against her by pushing back against it with his back to the door. He had also, they said picked up their baby and was holding her. On the other side, they alleged, she tried to get into the bedroom but could not budge the door. Instead, in a fit of rage she began stabbing the door. Several of the knife thrusts were so powerful that they penetrated the wooden door, and one went through and into the man’s neck and jugular. (The door was produced for the jury.)

This, the prosecution maintained amounted to the calculated murder of a man.

This scenario is, in my mind so bizarre that I fully expect Hollywood writers to take up the idea to be made into a movie, if they haven’t already done something like it. Sounds like something right out of the “Chucky” movies, or the Friday the Thirteenth series, or Jack Nicholson breaking through the door in “The Shining”, exclaiming, “Honey, I’m Home!”

It is simply impossible to murder someone by finding their jugular vein on the opposite side of a solid wooden door. If it happened at all that way, it would have been a very lucky strike, (or unlucky for the victim). And if some of the previous strikes saw the blade coming all the way through the door, you might think the man would have moved his neck out of the way. It could hardly be calculated as a method to murder. However, had she a gun, knowing that he was on the other side of the door, she could have fired several shots at random places and angles to be fairly sure that at least one would find its target. We know this can be done because we have seen it in the movies.

Was this a case of a very sympathetic prosecution making up a circumstance no jury could convict on, as they had probably concluded that this young woman had suffered enough and should be sent home to be a mother to her children. Unfortunately she stuck to her story that events had taken place as she described them, and the jury concluded that her actions amounted to manslaughter.

Thus, she, as the original victim suffered from double jeopardy, the being put at risk twice. Now she sits in jail.

I wish it were as simple as saying to other victims of abuse that in order to avoid this type of end result, you should walk away when the abuse first starts. Perhaps you might allow the first episode on the firm understanding that a repeat and you’re out.

When abuse is allowed to continue to be repeated over and over again, the one thing I believe the public cannot yet understand is the reason why the abused stays is because of love: Unless of course, it’s a love of abuse.

Copyright © 2008 Eugene Carmichael