Wife Who Fired 11 Shots Is Acquitted of Murder

Submitted by Matt on Fri, 2011-10-07 22:35

Story here. Excerpt:

'She had always admitted to killing her husband, using two guns to fire 11 bullets inside the couple’s home in Queens. But she insisted she had no choice: if she had not shot him, he would have surely killed her first.

On Thursday, a jury in State Supreme Court in Queens agreed, clearing the woman, Barbara Sheehan, of second-degree murder charges in a case that had been viewed as a strenuous test of a battered-woman defense. Her son and daughter, the children of her slain husband, wept with joy.

During the trial, the jury heard how Ms. Sheehan had been relentlessly abused by her husband, Raymond Sheehan, a former police sergeant, during their 24 years of marriage. But the critical question at trial was whether Ms. Sheehan was in imminent danger when she killed her husband; New York State’s self-defense law justifies the use of lethal force when a threat to a person’s life is deemed immediate.
...

Ms. Sheehan testified that the couple had a fierce argument the day before, and she had decided to leave, carrying one of her husband’s guns for protection. When her husband saw her, she said, he reached for a gun on the bathroom vanity and aimed it at her.

Ms. Sheehan and her children burst into tears when the verdict was announced, and her lawyer, Michael G. Dowd, put his arms around her. Her supporters, adorned in purple in solidarity with victims of domestic violence, began cheering.
...
Nonetheless, the jury of nine women and three men unexpectedly reached a consensus on Thursday, in their third day of deliberations. Ms. Sheehan was acquitted of murder and of a gun possession charge, but was found guilty of a second gun possession charge, which carries a sentence of 3 1/2 to 15 years. The judge ordered her to return to court on Wednesday, when she will be remanded into custody. Her sentencing will follow.
...
Legal experts said the verdict was a vindication for the so-called battered-woman defense. Under this strategy the battered woman chronicles her abuse in intimate and graphic detail with the aim of convincing the jury that she reasonably feared for her life based on her abuser’s past behavior.

“The case is a good marker of the willingness of jurors to realize that a history of abuse can inform a woman’s sense of the need to act in self-defense,” said Holly Maguigan, a law professor at New York University.'

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Comments

Even if half missed, she put 6 rounds into him. You know, I don't know the truth of what happened here. I do know this: for whatever reason, if you shoot someone you have known for that long that many times, you have to really seriously hate them. Why she did, I don't know. The story seems dubious-- who keeps a gun in the bathroom lying around while shaving? But this sounds like one very messed-up family. Ultimately, I do know this: the support for battered women in the form of social services like DV shelters is quite extensive. She didn't need to kill him even if he were as bad as she said he was. She could have just disappeared with the kids while he was out of the house one day. Happens all the time. But apparently, filling him full of lead appealed to her more.

Can anyone possibly imagine the genders of the people reversed and a jury coming to the same conclusion? And did anyone else not notice that the jury was made up almost entirely of women?

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Update: Actually, according to this story, she did shoot all 11 rounds into her dead husband. Didn't miss a-one.

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Submitted by Matt on Fri, 2011-10-07 22:42

Female judicial leniency is a form of privilege.

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Submitted by anthony on Fri, 2011-10-07 23:05

There is one thing that is very much bothering me about this case. It nags at my curiosity... Why would someone who's in a dominant position in a relationship, such as what was claimed here, bring a weapon to the bathroom, consistently?

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Submitted by Kratch on Sat, 2011-10-08 04:26

One of the cornerstone of the battered woman defense is something called "learned helplessness." It was concocted out of thin air by Lenore Weitzman.

But it's used to explain why women don't leave. They're too helpless to leave.

But not too helpless to pick up a gun and shoot their husband.

Makes no sense to me, but it does to feminists.

This case, like others posted, is all about making it legal for a woman to kill her husband for any reason she wishes. It's another good reason for men to avoid marriage and play video games--the video game won't kill you in your sleep.

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Submitted by el cid on Sat, 2011-10-08 19:07