Stand Your Ground

Martin Luther King Jr. This post is to remind people that even though Martin Luther King Jr. did great work in Selma and Montgomery, there’s still work for us to carry on in Alabama. The ultimate weakness of violence is that it is a descending spiral, creating
the very thing it seeks to destroy. Instead of diminishing evil, it multiplies it.
Through violence, you may murder the liar, but you cannot murder the lie, nor
establish the truth…adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars.
Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that.
Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that. ​Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Christian Minister & Civil Rights Activist, 1968 ​Stand your ground!  There’s a case taking place in Alabama that deserves more attention than it’s been warranted.  It’s based on a stand your ground defense implemented to protect victims of abuse. Brittany Smith faces life in prison for killing the man who raped her. Photograph by Nydia Blas for The New Yorker It was January, 2018. Brittany Smith, age 32, had stopped at McDonalds with her brother Chris, after being hired to work at a flooring company.  Brittany had a history of struggling with substance abuse and 3 of her 4 children had been removed from her custody.  She was finally clean and getting her life back together.  She had recently received increased visitation with her children.
 
Brittany received a call from Todd Smith (no relation) indicating he needed a place to stay.  Brittany had bought a pit bull from Todd.  Smith, age 38, indicated he was stranded in a city park and freezing.  Todd had recently been arrested after an altercation with his father.  Chris advised her not to allow Todd to stay.  Todd had expressed a romantic interest in her in the past.
 
After picking Todd up, Brittany had him assist her with giving her new puppy, Athena, a bath.  Todd had buzzed hair.  Todd was high on meth and under the influence of alcohol.  As she spoke of her sobriety, he apparently felt she now thought she was better than him, so he head-butted her and called her a bitch.  She ran to the bedroom, but he busted through the door.  He choked her until she passed out and raped her.  Todd told her, “Don’t say a fucking word or I’ll kill you.”
 
Brittany clawed at him so hard she ripped some of her fingernails off.  He twisted her head against the side of the bed until she thought her neck would break. When she woke up, he was finishing the assault.  Todd said that if she told anyone what had happened he would kill her and her children.  Todd wanted cigarettes, and Brittany offered to call someone to take them to the store, since she didn’t have a car.  Her brother Chris picked the two of them up, and took them to a gas station.  Brittany entered the store to purchase the cigarettes.  The cashier, Paige Painter, noticed her tangled hair, and scratched face. She asked, “What happened to you?”
 
Brittany asked for a piece of paper, and wrote, “Todd Smith.” Brittany reported having been raped and told Paige that if she was dead by morning, he was the person to blame.  She made Painter promise not to call the police as she was afraid Todd would kill her if he heard the police approaching.
 
After dropping them off, Chris returned to the gas station to speak to Paige.  Chris then retrieved a .22 caliber revolver.  Brittany texted her mother, “Mom Todd has tried to kill me literally.”
 
Chris entered Brittany’s home and requested Todd leave.  Chris fired a shot into the cabinet.  When Todd refused to go, Chris set down the gun and attempted to wrestle Todd out of the home. Todd won the battle and placed Chris a headlock and began choking him.
 
Brittany, picked up the gun, and told Todd to let her brother go. When he kept choking Chris, Brittany fired a shot. When Todd didn’t let go, she fired two more rounds. After he fell, she called 911.  The operator told her how to do CPR, and Brittany performed mouth-to-mouth resuscitation on Todd while Chris did chest compressions.
 
A rape kit was performed on Brittany revealing bruises on her neck, breasts, arms, legs, and pelvis, evidence of strangulation, bite marks on her neck and chin, and secretions on her neck and in her vagina.
 
Chris initially told the police he had killed Todd Smith.  Chris stated he had concerns that in Jackson county Alabama, “Women, get the short end of the stick.” Men are 10% more likely to have a killing determined justified than women.  In Alabama, where Brittany was charged with murder, men are 25% more likely to have a killing determined justified than women.  Within 48 hours, Brittany Smith had been charged with murder. 
 
Sandra Goodman, a Jackson County rape-victim advocate, described the violence in the county as an epidemic. “A lot of the time, they take the woman’s statement and that’s where it stops,” she said, referring to the local police.  From 2000 to 2011, Alabama was a state where a woman was most likely to be murdered by a man.  In 2011, Alabama stopped submitting its data to the FBI, because of the bad publicity. 
 
Brittany Smith has been indicted for murder, and if convicted faces 20 years to life.  Brittany believes if she had not shot Todd, he would have killed her and Chris. Brittany Smith as photographed by her mother. The Stand Your Ground defense was introduced in Alabama in 2006.  The statute makes it legal to use lethal force to defend yourself against threats, with no duty to retreat. The defense, now implemented in 33 states, empowers people to protect themselves in grave situations.  From 2006 to 2010, when Alabama stopped reporting its data, no women had won cases based on the Stand Your Ground defense. Brittany Smith with daughter, her brother Chris, and Todd Smith The following information was taken almost verbatim from an article in The New Yorker magazine on 1/20/2020 written by Elizabeth Flock, titled, “A Violent Defense.”

Example:  In 2014, in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, Tracey Grissom was sentenced to 25 years in prison for murder, for shooting her ex-husband, Hunter. The judge did not allow jurors to hear that, in 2010, Hunter had been charged with rape and sodomy after allegedly assaulting Grissom. Grissom said that he had knocked her to the ground, choked her, and sexually abused her until she lost consciousness. She said the attack caused rectal-nerve damage and required surgery, and that she now used a colostomy bag. On the day of the shooting, she said, she’d feared for her life, but eyewitnesses said that she had begun shooting without provocation. “I didn’t do anything wrong,” Grissom said, sobbing, after her conviction. “All I did was protect myself.” One of the jurors later said that if she’d been able to hear the details of the abuse, she would have voted to acquit. Tracey Grissom Paige Parker had been married to Todd Smith. “Two weeks after I was married to him . . . he had broke my nose, I couldn’t see straight,” Parker told an online-radio host in early 2019. “I was sitting there crying to myself for a second, and I’m, like, I am a strong person, but I was, like, Why was this happening?”
 
After that, according to Parker and to arrest reports from the time, the violence escalated. Todd broke her nose, ribs, and jaw, and bit her on the face. “I was also beaten and raped and sodomized for years by this man,” she said. “I know what Brittany went through that night, because I went through it for years.”
 
While they were married, Todd was charged with domestic violence five times, but he never went to jail for those charges. Even after Parker filed for divorce, in 2003, the violence did not end. She told the radio host that Todd had duct-taped her to a chair and threatened to throw her in the Tennessee River. In 2004, she got an order of protection.
 
After the divorce, Todd continued to be arrested on charges of domestic violence, including toward a woman with whom he had a child, but they were dismissed. Local law enforcement told me that his accusers often didn’t show up in court, a common reason that batterers escape consequences.
 
Police officers remember Todd well, since they arrested him about 80 times. A former dispatcher at the Stevenson Police Department said that, around 2009, when she failed to respond to his flirtation, he backed her against a desk and tried to tear off her shirt. 
 
It seems ridiculous that a woman who had just been raped by Todd Smith could be facing charges for murdering him.  Cases like this reflect the importance of media bringing injustice to light.  We will see how this plays out.
 
​
 Thanks for listening,
 
 Frank Upcoming Events​            ​January 24, 2020, Frank will be interviewed on film by the Department of Human Services for their national training on “Preventing, Identifying and Responding to Sexual Abuse in Nursing Homes with the provision of follow up care.”  This healthcare training video will be part of a national training for healthcare workers.Saturday, January 25, 2020, 11:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m.  Frank will be signing books and answering questions about writing True Crime and forensics at Cat Tales Books and Gifts in Brainerd.  Cat Tales is located at  609 Laurel Street in Brainerd, Minnesota.  Cat Tales is a large independent book store which offers a wide variety of great reads.Frank will be narrating an investigative show on the Oxygen channel, called Murdered by Morning . on Sunday, January 26, 2020 at 6:00 pm.  The show is about the murder of Morna Jean Brennen in Maplewood, Minnesota.Thursday, January 30, 2020, Frank Weber will be discussing forensic work and his latest true crime thriller, Last Call, from 6:00 p.m. to 7:00 p.m. at the  Sauk Centre Public Library .  Frank will be at the library from 5:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m. signing books and talking to patrons.  The library’s address is: 430 Main Street South, Sauk Centre, Minnesota.February 1, 2020, Saturday presentation from 5:00-6:00 on forensic work and the writing of True Crime mysteries at Hoops Brewing in Duluth.  Frank will be at the brewery signing and selling books from 4:00 to 7:00.  Stop in and have a cold beverage and ask the questions you’d love to ask about forensic work or forensic shows.  Frank will be sharing a little about what they get wrong on movies and TV.  Hoops Brewing is located at 325 South Lake Avenue, Duluth, Minnesota.