MSNBC: Did preacher’s wife get away with murder?

Submitted by anthony on Fri, 2007-08-17 21:04

Article here. Excerpt:

'Mary Winkler, the Tennessee woman who shot her minister husband to death while he slept, was released back into society this week after serving just 67 days, most of it in a prison hospital.

Did she get away with murder? Many think she did, including two TODAY experts, former judge and prosecutor Jeanine Pirro, and forensic psychiatrist Dr. Keith Ablow.

“You can’t give Mary Winkler, in my opinion, any kind of clean bill of health that she won’t be violent in the future,” Ablow told TODAY host Meredith Vieira on Thursday.'

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Comments

I posted a variation to the site's story submission that took a bit different spin --suggesting how brilliant her lawyers were for using a combination of the famous "Battered Women Defense" combined with "expert" psychological testimony about post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).

Essentially, her lawyers successfully argued that she was a severely abused wife who consequently was in PTSD mode and was "dissociating" when she shot and killed her husband. (Not quite insane, but not in her "normal" mind...)

Interestingly, all the expert shrinks who consulted on the trial and the article do not even agree that her PTSD is "real."

Moral of the tale?

Any woman who can dial 9-1-1 and tell a credible lie can now commit murder and get away with it.

Am I exaggerating?

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Submitted by Roy on Sat, 2007-08-18 21:34

It seems that a major crisis is looming in the America.

----------------------------------------------------
Two pillars of the World of the Future:

Asexuality
Artificial Reproduction

"What freedom men and women could have, were they not constantly tricked and trapped and enslaved and tortured by their sexuality."

J. Steinbeck.

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Submitted by nbdspcl on Sat, 2007-08-18 23:19

About the same time as the Mary Winkler judicial farce was carrying on another trial farther north in New Jersey was happening. Melanie McGuire was convicted of killing her husband, chopping him up and putting the various body parts in suitcases. The jury in this case was probably more educated and less intimidated by slick lawyering than the bunch of hillbillies in the MW trial. So, it shows IMO anyway that misandry and misguided chivalry can be trumped by education and common good sense. Ignorance and just plain stupidity got Mary Winkler off the hook.

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Submitted by Luek on Sun, 2007-08-19 02:02

I hereby vote for Mary Winkler for the position of poster child for the dual legal system so commonly practiced in the US. Throw away the key for men versus the acceptance of any feeble excuse for women.

Every reasonable person in Tennessee should be humiliated by this pathetic charade.

Mary Winkler - 67 days! Just rewrite the statutes in Tennessee to reflect reality. It would be far more honest than to go through this kind of farce when a woman decides to assassinate a man.

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Submitted by Arty on Mon, 2007-08-20 17:08