“Trapped in the dark”: Marissa Alexander and how our twisted legal system re-victimizes domestic violence survivors

My latest on Salon.com:

“Why does she stay? Why doesn’t she leave?” These are the questions one hears when talking about people, particularly women, in abusive relationships. These same questions become key points when survivors of abuse defend themselves after years of violence and trauma. These may also be some of the key questions Marissa Alexander will face on Friday as she argues her right to invoke Florida’s “stand your ground” law.

Alexander, a Florida mother of three, made headlines in 2012 when she was convicted of aggravated assault after firing a warning shot to stop her husband from attacking her. Alexander fired the shot into the ceiling, harming no one. She attempted to invoke Florida’s “stand your ground” law, but a pre-trial judge ruled that she could have escaped through the front or back doors of her own home. The prosecutor, Angela Corey, added Florida’s 10-20-Life sentencing enhancement, mandating a 20-year minimum sentence when a firearm is discharged. In September 2013, an appeals court reversed her conviction. Alexander’s trial is scheduled for July 28, 2014. Angela Corey is seeking consecutive sentences, meaning that Alexander faces 60 years in prison if convicted.

Alexander’s case is a stark example of how the legal system frequently revictimizes survivors of domestic violence, prosecuting and imprisoning them after failing to respond to their calls for help. The continued prosecution of Marissa Alexander highlights how the legal system frequently ignores experiences of domestic violence, instead painting the abused person as the perpetrator and the abuser as the victim. But Alexander’s case is no anomaly. Across the country, survivors of abuse face prosecution and long prison sentences, often after failed attempts to seek protection from the legal system. In New York, “Vanessa” was arrested after stabbing her abusive boyfriend while he was choking her. She was not read her rights although the district attorney questioned her at length and took a video statement. She did not see her lawyer until just before her trial, for which she waited five and a half years. She was convicted of second degree murder and sentenced to 19 years in prison. She has spent the last 10 years behind bars.

Studies have shown that the majority of women behind bars have experienced childhood abuse or domestic violence. In New York state, for example, 90 percent of women incarcerated in Bedford Hills Correctional Facility have experienced physical or sexual violence in their lifetimes. Eighty-two percent report childhood histories of severe physical and/or sexual abuse. The New York State Department of Corrections and Community Supervision found that 67 percent of women sent to prison for killing someone close to them were abused by that person. In California, a prison study found that 93 percent of the women who had killed their significant others had been abused by them. Sixty-seven percent of those women reported that they had been attempting to protect themselves or their children.

Read the rest(which includes organizing efforts by incarcerated survivors) on Salon.