A Milwaukee woman has been jailed for 11 years for killing the man that prosecutors said had sex trafficked her as a teenager.
The sentence, issued on Monday, ends a six-year legal battle for Chrystul Kizer, now 24, who had argued she should be immune from prosecution.
Kizer was charged with reckless homicide for shooting Randall Volar, 34, in 2018 when she was 17. She accepted a plea deal earlier this year to avoid a life sentence.
Volar had been filming his sexual abuse of Kizer for more than a year before he was killed.
Kizer said she met Volar when she was 16, and that the man sexually assaulted her while giving her cash and gifts. She said he also made money by selling her to other men for sex.
I am outraged, a plea deal to avoid life imprisonment? What the fuck did I just read?!
This guy trafficked, raped and tortured her, and other underage women. Police did jack shit. And she was supposed to be watching him just walk away? Grotesque.
Any jailtime is ridiculous. She’s been in prison for 8 years. The judge had a chance to try and rebuild her life, but they gave her punishment for getting trapped in a bad situation. What’s the issue, does the judge think she’s going to go out and start shooting other rapists and traffickers?
If this was how my cards were dealt, I would likely make it my life’s mission.
This country certainly goes all in for cruel and unusual punishment.
Well the very act of shooting someone in the head twice, burning their home down, and stealing their car is cruel and unusual punishment.
Despite what everyone in the comments seems to think you’re not legally protected from going John Wick on someone regardless of how much they’ve wronged you or if the system failed you.
They were dead when they got shot in the head, everything else is largely unrelated to the punishment in my opinion its just cathartic. She couldve done far far worse to him than a quick execution, id have probably ripped out his nails and teeth and then killed him with a power washer via the worst enema.
Id have cut off his dick and made him choke to death on it.
What if the house fire she set caused other houses to catch on fire and kill the families living there?
There’s an argument for her going to jail for arson if anything.
Thats actually valid, I was simply pointing out that its just not adding to the cruel and unusual punishment element.
You don’t believe the state destroying all of someones possessions after conviction then death doesn’t add to cruel and unusual punishment?
Mutilating a corpse is also grounds for worse punishment.
However she chose burning down the house to hide the evidence no matter how much sympathy we have for the victim, it’s hard to get past that she was free, she showed premeditation, she drove a considerable distance to find him, she murdered him, and she attempted to hide evidence.
What part of not cruel and unusual punishment since ya cant punish the dead are ya not getting. Im only addressing that element not the rest of the shit, improper handling of a corpse, grand theft auto, and arson are their own charges.
The guy raped several children and sex trafficked them.
I’m of the opinion this girl did the world a favor. There is no rehabbing sex pests
What’s the issue, does the judge think she’s going to go out and start shooting other rapists and traffickers?
The issue is that the patriarchy must uphold rape culture, and that the absence of justice for rape survivors is a feature of that, not a bug, and the courts can’t have that power taken away from them.
Could it be the judge more cares about being the one to impose sentences and doesn’t like others doing it?
Like, it’s easy to see this same decision happening even in a non-patriarchal context - at least for me.
That’s the bottom line, yeah.
This is a good point. Prison is supposed to be rehabilitation. But how can you rehabilitate someone who has run out of targets. Plus if she has been in 8 years as you say. Time served. I am guessing she had a public defender who gave her bad advice.
I don’t think the judge did have that chance if I’m honest.
Despite her understandable motive, the fact is that she murdered the guy.
I think it would be easy to prove that she suffered a mental break at most and get mental help instead of jail.
This is a shitty corrupt judge in a shitty corrupt system.
I’m certain that even the worst lawyer in history would have considered this angle if it were viable.
I dont know how it could be argued anyone was in their right mind after going through what she went through.
Obviously she wasn’t in her “right mind” but that doesn’t mean she had no capacity to understand that killing someone is murder.
Or she decided to end the threat to her before he hurt her again. Self defense is generally not considered murder and rapists get, what, 5 years in prison in this country then go on to rape more? If convicted at all?
I can easily see where she felt like she had no other choice.
This is exactly what jury nullification is for
With or without a jury, the inescapable fact is that she murdered him.
Right, that’s my point – jury nullification is the mechanism by which juries find that a crime was committed by the letter of the law but the defendent is not guilty.
Interesting. I’d never heard of this.
A quick read of this wikipedia article makes it sound very sovereign citizen.
This part is particularly salient:
…by clearly stating to the jury that they may disregard the law, telling them that they may decide according to their prejudices or consciences (for there is no check to ensure that the judgment is based upon conscience rather than prejudice), we would indeed be negating the rule of law in favor of the rule of lawlessness. This should not be allowed.
Basically, a jury’s one job is to determine whether, based on the facts, a person committed a crime. “Jury Nullification” is a perversion of that role. It may be “just” but it’s not justice.
If Jury Nullification is a thing, then essentially juries can decide the law in any given case. What’s the point of laws? You could just have public kangaroo courts where citizens decide the fate of the accused based on the vibe.
If Jury Nullification is a thing, then essentially juries can decide the law in any given case. What’s the point of laws? You could just have public kangaroo courts where citizens decide the fate of the accused based on the vibe.
That’s basically what white juries have been doing for the KKK since Reconstruction. One reasonable argument for nullification is that dishonest jurors will just vote “not guilty” anyways and aren’t required to justify their reasoning. So nullification tips the scales to give honest jurors the same power to acquit a woman who didn’t do anything morally wrong.
If the races involved were reversed, she’d be walking free.
Your summary seems to imply that whatever happens to currently be written into law is considered “justice”. But we’ve always known that the law is not perfect and needs constant corrections for true fairness.
Jurors, laws, judges, witnesses, none of them are perfect. Each has stoked fears that they will overpower the rights of the others. Courts do their best to have each balancing the power of the other.
Sov Cits try to use it all the time but it usually doesn’t work for them.
However it has been used to prevent convictions for unfair laws in the past. Juries used to use it to prevent people who harbored escaping slaves from being convicted for example.
I don’t have experience with it personally, only heard about it from a possibility perspective – apparently prosecutors do a very thorough job screening jurors to make sure that never happens. Just knowing about jury nullification can get you dismissed. I don’t think you’re off the mark with that read, but where I think it comes back from kangaroo court and sov cit land is all jurors have to agree, even one objection to a nullification would stop it; if twelve strangers all agree, there’s probably some merit to it. But, certainly can be abused in the wrong hands.
Wouldn’t the judge then be in the line of fire, technically, as well as those that own him?
Who is the f’ing prosecutor?
Someone who understands she was free from the person who was trafficking her and she sought them out and killed them. Yeah it’s glorious justice on the big screen but in the actual legal system this is vigilante justice.
In my state under the Castle Act or whatever it’s called, someone can break into your house, threaten you and your family’s life but until you prove your ability to flee was prevented physically you cannot fire a weapon for protection regardless of intent to scare, injure or kill.
That is the framework used by our legal system to prosecute cases of self defense. You as a citizen cannot take the law into your own hands like the defendant did. No matter how justified it may seem.
I don’t understand why she wasn’t tried as a minor
Most 17 year olds charge with murder, or some variation of killing someone, aren’t charged as minors. That’s not taking a position on this specific case, it’s just a fact.
They need to re-evaluate that especially in cases where somebody has been robbed of years of development like this one
Totally agree. Mitigating circumstances, absolutely. Self defense, nope. There should be some punishment. What that should be, I do not know.
This lady needs to be pardoned or it’s the origin story for a villain who has an understandable grudge against the justice system.
If I was on the jury, I’d nullify.
And they have processes in place to make sure you wouldnt be on that jury.
Vocal knowledge of jury nullification is grounds for dismissal.
Prior intent to nullify is basically perjury. Now you are both in jail
See, the system works! /s
I assume I can’t be on any jury, as I have moral opinions that are contrary to the status quo.
I assume you mean it’s “basically perjury” given the questions they’ll ask. Because they keep asking us questions like that when I have jury duty, and I keep getting dismissed.
Nonetheless, it’s still helpful to spread awareness of jury nullification. It forces the prosecution to pick the next most lenient person, and eventually so many people might know about nullification that it has to remain on the table.
Here’s a related headline. Haven’t read it yet:
‘I just wanted peace’: my 35-year fight to bring my abusive father to justice
Carol Higgins was 15 when she first reported her father’s abuse to the police. They told her he wouldn’t be charged. But she refused to let it rest until he finally stood trialSorry, America governors only pardon you when its the pedophile doing the murdering.
her sentence absolutely should have been reduced further as that asshole not just raped but trafficked her, this is only fair for her to delete his ass.
The sentence that ass would have got would never ever bring her any justice.
His sentence might have been shorter then hers. The justice system is a joke.
He was white. How much could one jail sentence be? 10 years?
If they even would have charged him. They took my abuser to dinner instead.
I hear you. My wife was put through the wringer (to put it mildly) so I understand. None of them ever experienced justice. I had an old girlfriend who was abused by her stepdad. No justice. That was all almost 40+ years ago. I hope we’re doing better as a society now, but we still have a long ways to go.
That’s horrible :( I hope we are too
I crunched the numbers a while ago ~ 3 out of 100 people who commit rape will be sentenced in the US. His odds of being adequately punished for his crimes were incredibly low. Most rapists serve less than 10 years as well. On a good day he probably would’ve gotten 3-5 years tops
Most cases of rape are probably in private: no witnesses or evidence. The literal “he said vs she said” situation with no objective support for either side. Of course prosecuting that is difficult.
This ought to have been easier to find evidence, after they knew what was happening and by whom
Can you recalculate for Sex Trafficking?
Try 5 with being let out in 3 for good behavior.
justice system
There’s your problem - we don’t have a justice system, we have a legal system.
The sentence that ass would have got would never ever bring her any justice.
Yes. If sex-trafficking rapists could get life sentences, that would be great.
So now we judge the law as to what you deem “fair”? What about what I deem “fair”? What if we differ? If you want to argue this, why even have law?
She came back later, with a gun, and murdered him, then burned his house down and stole his car. We all good with vigilantes now?
I’m with her, but she got a fair sentence.
Maybe humanity just deserves to die, all of it. That’s why I joined the submarine force, so I can be there to flip the toggle when the order comes to end it all. I even look forward to it, sometimes, like when I read shit like this.
deleted by creator
My mother was abused by her father. No one helped. Her own siblings, also abused, blamed her when she spoke out about it. She was then abused by my father. When the police came round after physical violence, they laughed at her.
I find myself not really expecting moral behaviour from humans as a group. That women must endure worse punishment for killing their abusers than their abusers would have received is unpleasant.
I’m just a flyby idiot on Lemmy, but I am blown away that she was charged. The one article I read didn’t go into a ton of details on th actual shooting, but she was raped and trafficked and shot her abuser. Did the DA pursue it because she is black?
She traveled from Milwaukee to Kenosha of her own volition with intent to kill, shot him twice, burned his house down, and stole a car.
Going to someone’s place uninvited with intent to kill that person is premeditated murder. Burning down a house is extremely reckless, others could’ve been easily caught up or injured in this rampage. Not to mention that the house fire likely destroyed a lot of potential evidence. Other victims might have more difficulty finding their own justice as a result, or worse if he had any accomplices their collaboration could be harder to prove.
Cool motive. Very understandable motive even. Still murder. Vigilante justice is no justice.
That’s what I was afraid of. Shooting him when she was about to be raped is different to a prosecutor than planning to kill her rapist and then making it happen.
Im just some random dude on the internet, but if i was raped and sex trafficked I personally wouldn’t feel safe until the rapist was dead. Our legal system is fucking garbage.
…I personally wouldn’t feel safe until the rapist was dead.
If humans had a justice system which prioritised protecting people from sex traffickers and rapists, that would be great. Put them in prison for a long time.
The law doesn’t let you kill anyone who pisses you off.
Hahahahaha this fucking guy. Also not what I said, also im pretty sure rape is not equivalent to pissing someone off. Holy shit my guy what an absolutely dumb comment. Cheers 🥂
Yes, killing someone in self defense is different from going back later with intent to kill them. That’s always been true
Do people think we have to let murderers go free because of their skin color? It sounds like 1950 again.
Every time I hear about something like this, I find myself thinking that climate change is a good thing. And then I fantasize about a head on gamma ray burst or a lovely coronal mass ejection stripping away the atmosphere.
Life was a mistake.
Humans aren’t so great. But they also seem to be self-limiting, so it all evens out.
As you imply, humans have an overall negative impact on the human world that they create for themselves and each other. I don’t emotionally identify as a human because of that. I just exist, and watch it all happen without blaming myself.
Doing nothing in the face of great evil is half the problem with human beings.
What was it mlk said about moderates?
"First, I must confess that over the last few years I have been gravely disappointed with the white moderate. I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro’s great stumbling block in the stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen’s Council-er or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate who is more devoted to “order” than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who constantly says “I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I can’t agree with your methods of direct action;” who paternalistically feels he can set the timetable for another man’s freedom; who lives by the myth of time and who constantly advises the Negro to wait until a “more convenient season.”
Shallow understanding from people of goodwill is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will. Lukewarm acceptance is much more bewildering than outright rejection."
Letter from Birmingham Jail, by Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., 16 April 1963
But if you’re the only one doing something against that great evil you’re a nutter.
And if what you are doing to fight that evil is against the societal norm - then at best you are a nutter, at worst you are a dangerous threat.
Yes, the status quo can easily put pressure on people to not counter forces which harm humans. Meaning you end up with a human society that harms humans.
My fantasy is that mutually-assured destruction scenario plays out. Give us some good fireworks before our eyeballs are roasted into particles. Humans suck, and it ain’t gonna get better.
If a woman is the abuser does the man get to murder her?
Men do murder their female partners at a much higher rate already.
Research shows around 10% of college aged males self-report as having sexually assaulted women. This has been replicated in multiple countries: https://jimhopper.com/topics/sexual-assault-and-the-brain/repeat-rape-by-college-men/
Men, on average, serve two to six years for killing their female partners: https://www.theguardian.com/news/datablog/2019/jan/12/intimate-partner-violence-gender-gap-cyntoia-brown
So, yes, men get to murder women. They get to rape women. They self-report having done so as if it’s not that big a deal. They get to enjoy shorter sentences than 11 years, on average. I hope this answers your question.
I’ve just read a comment from a woman who was held captive and tortured by an ex:
"Male friends who know what happened tell me I didn’t fight back hard enough. “Just say no.” I did. “You should have left.” I tried. “You need to put up more of a fight. Don’t let these men walk all over you.” He beat me to the point I was bleeding internally and gave me permanent brain damage.
They will never get it. Nothing we can ever say will make them understand how it feels.
Compassion is not something that many humans are good at, I guess.
To preface, I am not defending the police or the piece of shit abuser. This was handled extraordinarily horrendously. Police even knew about the guy’s crimes and let him off without a slap on the wrist.
The basis of my thoughts comes from this paragraph in the article:
Police said that Kizer travelled from Milwaukee to Volar’s home in Kenosha in June 2018 armed with a gun. She shot him twice in the head, set his house on fire and took his car.
I don’t know any info beyond what the article gives, but it sounds like at that point she wasn’t being held captive and murdered to get away from her abuser. She actively plotted and had the freedom to travel and kill him. Unless there’s something I’m missing, I don’t think I could consider this as actively being self defense.
That’s essentially what happened here. She wasn’t at risk any longer and the murder was premeditated. The prosecutor did their job here as they are supposed to, and it was sentenced as it should have been according to the law.
That being said, this is really why we have pardons, and I hope one is granted in this case.
Do we know she wasn’t at risk any longer? I don’t see that in the article. Or what about this guys other victims. Are they also no longer at risk? Again, don’t see mention of that in this article
If it was a movie she would be the protagonist at least
There’s a whole season of Dexter with basically this premise
Trauma is a hell of a thing to deal with. Feeling unsafe as long as a person’s abuser walks freely, even if they are far away, is VERY common. I’d imagine if it was someone who was repeatedly abused that’d magnify the trauma response.
Not saying she didn’t murder that guy, but knowledge about the psychological effects of sexual abuse does give context to her actions. If she was feeling tortured by this unsafe feeling, like he could come back at anytime to hurt her again, and almost obesessing over it(trauma can do this to anyone) I can see why she did what she did.
It’s not like mental health care and support is widely available to people here in the US. Shit is expensive, and that’s if your insurance covers it…if you even have insurance. Add in trying to find someone who specializes in trauma care and it can get really overwhelming and discouraging. People give up on seeking help and spiral.
A lot of things could’ve prevented this. Things like easy access to mental health support, or I dunno…actually putting rapists in jail where they can’t hurt more people.
What could have prevented this is not shooting someone. Can we go around shooting all the people who wronged us in life?
Man, if I went around shooting all the people that raped and imprisoned me for years, the streets would be awash with a whole 0 gallons of blood.
Rapists could just not rape people. Seems simple right? It’s not like that rapist raped someone in self defense. It not like he raped her because he felt unsafe. He did it because he was a terrible human being.
On another note, looking at your comment history you’ve said the same thing multiple times on this article.
Why? Why are you pushing so hard on this topic? Why go so hard defending a rapist? Are you his public defender or something?
Let me save you some trouble. We don’t agree. End of story.
Have a good day sir or madam.
Dude would have gotten like two years for his SA but defend yourself from SA and its over a decade.
For all the lip service America pays to pedos being bad, its shown VERY consistently its real opinions on the matter.
We literally have child marriage in some states.
Please, tell people. We deserve to be shamed and judged for the gold plated shithole we are.
Also, we are extremely weird, backwards, and prudish about healthy adult expressions of sexuality due to our puritcanical roots, so we don’t even have any good to go with the bad. We’re a garbage place with a garbage culture all the way down.
Trust me, I never shut up about how Republicans in like 12 states are either currently fighting or within the past couple years have fought minimum marriage age laws.
Child brides and child workers… next up is child soldiers. Next big war, they’ll just take kids from the border and put them on the front lines. Win/win.
Only after they’re done conscripting all males 18-26, using the existing system that’s been in place for decades.
You know, the one that’s really unpopular to invoke, the one that’s a quarter million dollar fine to not sign up for but enforcing that was so unpopular that they merely made proving you’ve signed up a requirement for things like going to college or getting some jobs if male, the one they recently made signing up all males of appropriate age for automatic?
I love that you said “gold plated” because I’ve always said America’s gilded age never ended.
We literally have child marriage in some states.
If you define “child marriage” as there being any scenario where someone under 18 might be married, then it’s most states. Only 13 states actually ban child marriage under that definition.
The rest generally require you to be 18, but have exceptions with approval by the parents and/or a court (depending on the state). Four states have no hard minimum at all, one has a hard minimum of 15, most have a hard minimum of 16.
i don’t understand how incredulous people are in the comments. is this your first time hearing any news? he was white.
Imagine if the races were reversed how much hysteria there would be nationally. If an older black man seduced and sold a white teenage girl into sex slavery.
I fucking hate our culture
You’re being down voted but you’re so right. Had little jessica murdered a person of color for trafficing her i doubt shed face any jail time. Honestly i wouldnt be suprised if little ole jessica were to shot a completely random person of color and still not face jail time.
This is a failure on her attorney to make a good case. There is no way a normal person votes to convict here. There has to be something we’re missing as to why they agreed to a guilty charge.
She actively plotted and traveled to get revenge and clearly didn’t act in self defense. While it’s easy to be sympathetic to her story, her guilt seems difficult to deny.
This:
Police said that Kizer travelled from Milwaukee to Volar’s home in Kenosha in June 2018 armed with a gun. She shot him twice in the head, set his house on fire and took his car.
Whatever we think about this guy, it still was a murder.
Ehhh it was a nice murder.
Oddly applicable
*chef’s kiss*
This is a classic case of the differences between lawful good, lawful neutral, and neutral good.
Lawful good would feel conflicted but settle on conviction, because it was premeditated and not self defense.
Lawful neutral would convict and feel no conflict at all. The law was broken, nothing else matters.
Neutral good would not convict, because they don’t think the law adequately handles this kind of situation.
The problem is, within the legal system, neutral good is seldom an option – by definition it’s going to be some kind of lawful. And that sucks here.
She accepted a plea deal. No trial no jury.
Trials are expensive and she clearly didn’t have money to spend in her own defense.
Sounds like it was a reasonably high profile case, and some kind of test case. I suspect she could’ve secured a great pro-bono lawyer.
Its not.a test case though, people have murdered those that wronged them before, it’s still.murder.
This is from the article:
Kizer’s case had tested the leniency granted to victims of sex trafficking. Some states have implemented laws - called “affirmative defence” provisions - that protect victims from some charges including prostitution or theft, if those actions were the result of being trafficked.
Kizer had tested whether an “affirmative defence” for trafficking victims could be used for homicide. In 2022, the Wisconsin Supreme Court ruled she could.
The ruling allowed Kizer to use evidence to demonstrate her abuse at the time of the crime. The case attracted widespread attention and Kizer received support from activists in the #MeToo movement.
Would you bet your entire life on that?
No, I don’t think I would.
I don’t really know that much about the case and the likelihood of a favourable outcome. Chrystul does, and she decided to take the deal, so I probably would too.
I’m simply saying that she could’ve mounted a defence at trial if she chose to do so.
The guy was criminal scumbag that deserved justice, for sure.
But after she was free at him, she came back with clear premeditation then burned the house to hide evidence. If not for the circumstances of her abuse, she’d likely get a much worse charge
There has to be something we’re missing as to why they agreed to a guilty charge.
You and all the commenters in this thread not doing a single moment of research before commenting is what is missing.
Thank you fuzzy. You comment was as worthless as the moment you spent typing it.
You’re welcome! Sorry I can’t jump on the premeditated vigilante murder normalization train, looks fun!
Nobody said normalize it. This is an extreme case where the punishment doesn’t fit the crime. Yes she’s a murderer. She killed a serial child rapist. She deserves some leniency. I guarantee your world view would be different if you were a victim.
The world isn’t black and white.
Regardless of your opinion on vigilante justice, can we all agree that this is what gubernatorial pardons should actually exist for?
If I was an AG this shit would’ve never gone to trial. Jesus Christ.
And that’s why you’re not.
I don’t see the governor of the red state of Wisconsin pardoning a black girl convicted of murdering a white man. Maybe i’m too cynical but I don’t see that happening.
Alright kids.
There’s this wonderful thing called “Jury Nullification”
That means if 1 juror refuses to convict then there is no conviction.
It is your privilege, right, and I daresay even duty to use this helpful tool when you deem it necessary. If you’re called for Jury Duty on a case. Let’s say non violent drug case. I don’t believe nonviolent drug offenses should be against the law at all except in the case of something really bad like Fentanyl. So if I was called I would refuse to convict if the defendant was there for let’s say Mary Jane.
But don’t ever say those words. Don’t allude to it. Don’t discuss it with your fellow jurors. Don’t Google it after you’ve been called. It’s your secret. But it’s a secret everyone should know if you get my meaning.
Now go forth and make the world a better place.
She took a plea deal. No jury.
One juror refusing to convict is a hung jury and a mistrial, which prosecutors will then retry.
Jury nullification would require a unanimous vote to acquit.
I just posted this somewhere else but it belongs here…
It’s a jury’s job to find a defendant guilty or not guilty of a given charge.
When a jury starts considering whether they feel a charge is fair, they’re pretty much just making up the law. At that point you don’t need a court and a jury you could just have a bunch of people deciding the defendants fate based on the vibe.
When you say they “don’t want jurors to know”, they simply want jurors who understand their role in finding a defendant guilty or not guilty. Thinking that nullification is a possible outcome is tantamount to a refusal to fulfil the role of a juror.
Whether a jury feels a charge is fair is the whole reason trial by a jury of peers exists.
It’s a feature of the system, not a bug.
This is patently false.
It might feel like a nice idea to have a jury sitting around thinking about what the fairest outcome might be but that is simply not their role.
A jury’s sole job is to determine whether a defendant is guilty of the charges against them.
If it was a jury’s job to decide on fairness she would’ve gone to trial rather than taking the deal.
I don’t think her decision to take the deal took into account whether jury nullification exists or not. The way you explained it sounds like retrocausality, though I don’t know if that’s the way you meant it.
Jury nullification isn’t about fair outcomes, I should clarify, but about whether the law itself is lawful, representative of the people, or applied lawfully. Maybe that fits into the definition of fair I had in mind, but I was thinking on it more objectively, not subjectively.
There are proponents and opponents within the United States, true, but if a legal system does not permit punishment of jurors, then jury nullification is a logical byproduct of the system. And an important one I would argue. It fits into why trials by jury are important in a democratic legal system - the people have the final say, whether they realize it or not.
Jury nullification doesn’t exist as an intended option to be afforded Jurors.
Judges instruct jurors to find defendants guilty or not guilty, there is no third “nullification” option.
Jury Nullification is the name given to this type of frustrated process. A jury unanimously declaring a defendant not-guilty of charges they know them to be guilty of is a perversion of their function.
In a democratic legal system, the people elect governments to make the laws, police enforce the laws and judges apply those laws. There is no “juries ultimately decide based on the vibe” part of democracy.
I get what you’re saying, and yet it exists and a term exists for it.
I know there’s no “nullification” verdict and the binary guilty/not guilty are the only recognized options, but nullification is used to describe the not guilty verdict despite any charges and evidence in a trial, which I’m sure you understand.
The whole reason? Certainly not. The jury instructions themselves prove otherwise.
Part of the reason? Possible.
Tell that to those abolitionists who were not convicted of harboring fugitive slaves because of jury nullification.
Sometimes laws aren’t just. And as citizens we have a right to stand up to unjust laws.
as citizens we have a right to stand up to unjust laws.
Correct, but that is not the function of a jury.
Why do we have a jury to decide if a defendant is guilty or not guilty when a judge is trained to do the same thing? Why do we allow a jury at all? I think there’s more to the function of the jury than just guilty/not guilty or else they would be replaced with a different system.
I’m getting weary of repeating myself.
It is very clearly not the role of a judge to decide whether a defendant is guilty or not guilty. They are not “trained” to do that. That is the role of the jury. Hence the phrase “you have been found guilty by a jury of your peers”.
You have a jury to balance the power of the judge, such that a judge can not simply dole out “justice”.
Defendants can elect to have a jury trial. If they don’t have a jury trial, who finds them guilty or not guilty? Is it the judge? If it’s the judge, why do we allow jury trials to occur when every trial could be determined by a justice of the peace?
What is “training” if not education in the laws and legal system? Are judges not educated in law school before becoming lawyers and then justices? Is this irl experience not also considered training?
Honestly I’m not really sure what you’re talking about.
The role of a judge and the role of a jury is a fundamental characteristic of a court. You seem to be mixing them up?
That is exactly a function of a jury.
The function of a jury is to find the defendant guilty or not guilty of the charges against them. There is no “we feel sad for the defendant” option.
I can’t find the statistic right now, but it’s something like over 2/3 of women in US prisons (and likely elsewhere) are there for killing or otherwise harming the man who was abusing, raping, and or trafficking them.
Meanwhile a large majority of abusers rapists and traffickers walk away from their crimes scot free.
The purpose of a system is what it does.
On the one hand the guy was a scumbag. On the other she was away from him and sought him out to end him. One of the hardest things to accept in life is that your abusers often wont ever face any consequences for what they have done to you. Often you are punished for seeking it out and when someone does something like this it just gives the powers that be incentive to make a example out of you. After all many of them are similarly guilty and fear the same fate.
I think anybody who is sex trafficked for a year should legally get a freebie. Anybody who is willing to abuse or sex traffic another human being should just be at peace with the possibility of being ended by their victims. Good thing I don’t make the laws, I guess?
It’s mostly a matter of a right to a fair trial, these people deserve death but our legal systems are fragile and prone to failure. It’s important to prove guilt before condemning the damned. Even if they deserve it. Glad this guy got what was coming to him though.
What about people with abusive parents? Can they kill them too? Can they go to college and come back after graduation to kill their parents who they haven’t seen for years? You don’t think other people are abused too?
When our justice system doesn’t work vigilantism becomes ethical
On the other she was away from him and sought him out to end him.
I’d need a lot more info before I judged her for that. Had law enforcement been notified and done anything to stop him from victimizing others? If not then she did the right thing. If the “justice system” doesn’t do it’s job you can’t blame people for circumventing it.
Ide like to see Kamala start by pardoning this. Never going to happen but what a message it would send
State crime not federal. The Governor of Wisconsin, Tony Evers, would be the one to pardon her.
Ahh boo. But thanks for the correction
It should be legal to kill any person who traffics you.
If he was convicted of raping her what would he get 7 months slap on the wrist? … we need change in this legal system cause its backwards designed that way.
He trafficked her, meaning there are men walking around free who paid to r*pe her.
America is disgusting.
