Domestic Violence Criminal Defense: Free after Being Wrongly Convicted
After serving 32 years behind bars, a California woman’s murder conviction relating to domestic violence was overturned, and she is a free woman.
The 74-year-old woman was convicted for a 1981 kidnapping and murder, but the jurors in her initial case did not hear the whole story. This, according to the University of Southern California’s Post-Conviction Justice Project, is the reason why defendant Mary Virginia Jones was allowed to serve decades of withering punishment for a crime she did not commit.
Women suffering abuse at the hands of their partners have faced similar fates with less successful outcomes in the criminal justice system. Statistics have showed the results of countless studies over the years: domestic violence takes a very real toll on society.
While presenting evidence of domestic partner violence has anecdotally been coined as a legal defense, “battered woman defense” is not actually that. Criminal defense attorneys present this type of evidence to discuss the effects that abuse takes on its victims. This article from the Center for Disease Control (CDC) discusses some of the physical, emotional, and psychological consequences, including many symptoms associated with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD).
In the case of the wrongly convicted Mary Jones above, her boyfriend shot at her young daughter and promised a violent death for both mother and daughter if either sought outside help. The incident occurred a week before the kidnapping and murder. Jones expected that she and her daughter would be killed if she did not participate in the crime that her boyfriend orchestrated.
This type of information is critical to produce during a criminal defense case, so that someone enduring this kind of abuse does not end up in prison for a crime committed under duress.
If you or someone you know has been charged with a crime, but domestic violence has factored into the situation, please know that you are not alone. Reach out for the assistance of the knowledgeable and experienced criminal defense attorneys at The Mazza Law Group. We understand that our job means presenting all the evidence in a criminal defense, including the evidence of extenuating circumstances.
Domestic Violence Criminal Defense: Free after Being Wrongly Convicted was last modified: August 24th, 2016 by Steven Trialonas