Chrystul Kizer jailed for 11 years for killing her abuser

Stopthatgirl7@lemmy.world to News@lemmy.world – 742 points –
Chrystul Kizer jailed for 11 years for killing her abuser
bbc.com

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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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Wouldn't the judge then be in the line of fire, technically, as well as those that own him?

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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.

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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 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.

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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.

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

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.

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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.

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.

No but it was deserved justice for a crime that was going unpunished

Do we really want vigilantism though? Because that's where this leads.

Maybe the police should do their job for a change.

Not defending the cops here but the guy was arrested. The justice system set him free again.

Fair enough, the courts didn't do thier job. The courts and the police work for us. If they fail us, we have to take over. That should be the defense.

Just a thought: what happens when that "we" is people who - say - think the courts and the police are not doing their job in sending home all "these illegal immigrants" or something like that?

That is supposed to be the motivation for the system to do it's job... preventing groups with minority opinions from taking matters into thier own hands. But that doesn't seem to be enough anymore. I don't suggest this path because it is a good choice. It's a horrible choice. Innocent people will be hurt or killed for sure. But that is already happening in larger and larger numbers from the systems inaction. And the cost of inaction is past the tipping point with the cost of action. And I see no other choice. But I am open to suggestions.

Then we have a nice little civil war again, kill a few million of them, and this time when they surrender for the second time, we do a hard reset of their entire culture - no monuments, no statues, no memorials, no representation or voting for any of them or any who aided or abetted them, or their children, or their children's children.

Right, violence works usually works to eradicate ideas and standardize morality!

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Which is true, and also doesn't address the point. (Also, obligatory ACAB.)

The problem with vigilantism is that the vigilante both decides whether an offense has been committed, and what the punishment should be for that offense. If I've been hit repeatedly by people speeding in my neighborhood, and cops aren't giving the speeders tickets, no one in their right mind is going to say that I should start shooting at people driving in my neighborhood. (Or, I would hope no one in their right mind would say that.)

She knew whether an offense had been committed.

That doesn't prove it to anyone else, of course, but it doesn't seem like anyone is (now?) contesting the the offense in question was committed. Just that he got off free and she had no recourse. This is not a one time event, either, it's a pattern where the law fails to protect people in this situation and then throws the book at them if they take matters into their own hands. If she had not, do you think this dude would still be free? Or would the law have eventually caught up to him, after who knows how many more victims?

You don't get a license to kill just because the justice system failed you. I'm loving how everyone is screaming about how bad the justice system is with this case yet they think a bunch of pissed off ppl thirsty for revenge is a somehow the more measured and practical solution.

What if after she set the house on fire it burned down the whole block? What if the guy had a victim in the house with him when it happened? Another person pointed out she could've destroyed evidence from other victims. Two wrongs don't make a right

I'm not saying it's more measured or practical, I'm saying it's inevitable when the system doesn't serve the people. I'm saying chaos is preferable to tyranny.

Even if she didn't harm any other people - the criminal justice system in the US doesn't allow for the death penalty for cases of rape. (And in point of fact, part of the reason that we don't do that any more is because it tended to be disproportionately applied against black men accused of assaulting white women.)

There's still answers out there that are "more right" than others.

Jill, what do you think the price of this bag of rice is? $8.50? Unfortunately, not correct at all. Bob? The 1950s Hall of Rock and Roll on VHS? That's a thoroughly nonsensical answer that barely even respects the question! The answer was $11.

Sentencing judge, what do you think this man's punishment for rape should be? Nothing? Oh, wow, that's a very obviously wrong answer! Vigilante, your go. Well, we were looking for "A life sentence with chance of parole after 30 years", but I will say, "Shoot him in the head" is closer to correct.

I feel like some people there's a "magic light" applied to courtrooms with judges, that makes their judgments more fair by implication. But it's absolutely possible for three people in lawnchairs discussing matters over beer to make a more fair judgment than some judges.

I feel like some people there’s a “magic light” applied to courtrooms with judges

That's certainly true if "fair" in your view isn't the same thing as, "consistent with the law and precedent".

Let me pose this a slightly different way: a person murders a baby. Should the person be arrested? Should they be tried for murder? Should they be executed? What if the 'baby' is actually an 8 week old fetus, and the person is a doctor performing a legal elective abortion? Religious zealots and right-wing misogynists are going to argue that killing the doctor is morally justified and "fair". Should each person get to apply their own moral code?

We need to change the precedent so that rapists get life in prison.

Precedent can be shit too. Remember when “separate but equal” was precedent?

Ah, yes, so that rape is treated the same as murder. Which will result in more murders. Because if you go to prison for the same amount of time either way, why not go all-in an murder your victim?

This isn’t a case of fighting moral codes. This is a case of battles of safety.

There are many issues of safety that affect all people, including food safety, mental safety, economic safety. All of those have resulted in court battles, as well as court failures. Safety from violence is the basic one, and people will often need to make their decisions around it on a faster basis than courts can proceed.

That’s the practical analysis, rather than the idealistic view where every single disagreement of any kind would receive a protracted court debate with all evidence present.

People are all capable of in-the-moment vigilantism (heck, most murderers feel this way). Society can still evaluate their cases afterwards to say whether they were warranted or not. I argue people should feel some safety from repercussions if society can agree their actions demanded some form of immediacy beyond what courts could provide, and did something good for society or were necessary for their own safety.

A zealot would get no such votes unless they were given a jury of their fellow zealots, and if that’s possible then I can think of no fair justice system in such a society.

Safety from violence is the basic one, and people will often need to make their decisions around it on a faster basis than courts can proceed.

Anti-choice zealots argue precisely this: they are protecting babies from premeditated violence.

It's not what I believe. But it's the justification that they use to bomb reproductive clinics and murder OBGYNs.

That's the risk we run when we accept vigilante justice; we normalize it so that other people can use it for other reasons that we may or may not find morally acceptable.

Society can still evaluate their cases afterwards to say whether they were warranted or not.

Isn't that what happened here? She was charged with murder, and she took a plea deal since it's likely she would have lost a court case; she had no reasonable claim of being in fear for her life, and as a matter of law, her attorney wouldn't be allowed to make the argument that her abuser/victim deserved to be killed.

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When the official justice system fails people, some of them will take matters into their own hands. Frankly it's surprising there isn't more political violence targeting police and corrupt judges.

And remember, jury nullification exists.

In this case? Absolutely yes.

Are you willing to universalize that though? Are you willing to allow all people that believe that they have been treated unjustly to take justice into their own hands?

Absolutely not.

That's your risk though. You let this person administer their own justice, why shouldn't someone else?

Where, exactly, is the line? How do you keep that slope from getting covered with oil and grease?

I mean you talk like it isn't already a vigilante based system.

Everything you are arguing is already happening. Except the vigilantes are state sanctioned.

Cops pick and choose what laws to both follow AND enforce all the time. And the judges protect them.

By definition they aren't vigilantes if they're state-sanctioned. You can't be both a vigilante and state sanctioned.

Yes, cops pick and choose which laws to enforce (and I'm not addressing which laws cops follow, since it's not directly relevant here). But cops are also supposed to be disinterested parties; the idea with having cops enforcing the law rather than a person that feels wronged is that cops ar supposed to be more even-handed, even if that's not the way that it always--or even often--works out. Accepting vigilantism means that we throw out any semblance of impartiality, and make everything subjective.

If all you wanna do is argue definitions sure, but this ain't rocket science. The end results are the same.

...Except that they aren't even remotely the same.

Vigilantism results in lynchings. That's the end result.

So you think lynchings are a different than being shot 15 times in your home while complying.

Gotcha. You wanna be a 'rules lawyer'.

I'd rather have vigilante justice than no justice at all.

Vigilante justice has as notoriously bad false positive rate.

The theoretical extreme alternative is a society with two classes, criminals doing whatever they want and victims with no recourse.

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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

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.

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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.

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.

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.

"Four months before Volar died, police arrested him on charges of sexual assault but released him the same day."

Yeah maybe we are not told about how corrupt police is.

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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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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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.

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.

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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.

The solution is making "black lives matter" more before they are taken, so that people of color would have bigger economic and social power.

That's how these things work, humans are ultimately apes, this doesn't happen very consciously.

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.

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

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.

It should be legal to kill any person who traffics you.

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.

Legal systems exist to make simpler, faster, cheaper, better what you'd do anyway.

So everything inside them doesn't matter if they don't work.

It's like some kind of gold standard, where paper money is guaranteed with gold, while laws are guaranteed with violence. If you are willing to go to court, but are not willing to use whatever means you have, then eventually the courts will just confirm the abuse.

Anyway, about personally important things, there are many people thinking that any part of historical Armenia can be legally in a Turkic state. Imagine that. Fuck them and their idea of law.

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.

This woman needs a trophy and a monument not imprisonment. This will only encourage sex trafficking.

Now the only thing to do is make the best of the circumstances. Thankfully she avoided a life sentence.

  • Spend your time in prison reading everything you can get your hands on, Edmond Dantes-style.
  • Earn your law degree or something else essentially before you leave prison.
  • Write an autobiographical book; publish.
  • Profit.

its always like "man gets upset, kills somebody, 2 years"

"woman abused for years, kills him, 10 years"

Biden could pardon her

Only if she was prosecuted for a federal crime. IANAL, and I have no idea if this was federal or state, but the president doesn't have pardon power over the state, only the federal government.

False

It was just a shot in the dark, I have no idea about the laws preventing or allowing such a thing. I thought he could tie it in to boost support, but apparently it's a non-issue

That's ok. I do wish that for every time someone runs a political ad, someone else would run messaging about how this stuff actually works, because it isn't really well covered.

Let killer cops go free, jail the victims of the failed justice system.

The cruelty seems to be the point.

Power is the point. Cruelty is a side effect.

I hope someone shook her hand and thanked her for her service before they put her away.

Ill reserve the rest of my opinion but two in the head is cleaner than an abuser of that magnitude earned for themselves, feels like at that point you're basically just preventing any more victims they would have made. Cops have walked away free men after worse executions for worse reasons.

Good kill. Still murder. She is not a threat to society though...so...11years hardly-enforced house arrest might be more fitting.

Fuck that, give her a medal and a therapist and send her on her way. Killing this guy was not a crime it was community service.

The only punishment she should have ever received is mandatory therapy. This is a fucking traumatized woman, and you are adding to the trauma.

Sounds to me like she has a new abuser.

I feel like, if this was Texas... there would be no punishment for her. She was severely wronged and he was clearly a danger to society. He had multiple victims. The police had evidence and released him. If he had been in jail, if he had been in custody and not roaming around free, he'd still be alive if that was oh, so fucking important.

I'm going to say it louder for the people in the back. They found proof of multiple victims. They knew he did it, he was let go. The "legal" system failed not only Chrystul, but the surrounding community.

Texas!? She is a poc... She would probably be on death row!

The “legal” system failed not only Chrystul, but the surrounding community.

Excellent grounds to start a lawsuit. Not a murder, though.

Who you gonna sue? The pigs? They have no duty to protect. Hard to win that one.

She could've sued the man himself. She could also sue the courts and, yes, the pigs. All in civil court, but with the right lawyers she could've secured a bag.

Now she'll be in jail instead.

That poor girl, this world is so disgustingly unfair.

Now with that said, it is not your place to obtain whatever you may think is "justice". We have no need or want for vigilantism, all that creates is more opportunities for mistakes to happen and innocents hurt.

Was it vigilantism? Did you read up on the case? Do you ever stop to think, why is it so easy for these fuckers to sex traffic girls? How they typically manage to get away with it for so long, against so many different women? You know, it's ALMOST like the system is set up to make it easier for them to commit the crime than it is for the girls to find a safe way out. Weird, huh?

Now with that said, it is not your place to obtain whatever you may think is “justice”. We have no need or want for vigilantism, all that creates is more opportunities for mistakes to happen and innocents hurt.

Yes it is your place. If the law doesn't account for that and unjustly puts you behind bars, the problem is with the law.

This case is an easy one. The problem is folks seeking justice for slights that aren't so heinous and the whole drawing the line thing.

I'm totally on board with her killing the dude, if I was on the jury I'd have ignored the charge from the judge 100%. There should be a "what you did is illegal and you are guilty, but no jail for you" kinda deal.

That's jury nullification. And every district does it's best to make sure juries never hear about it. Some have even outlawed it. But it's a natural consequence of the jury system. If you can't nullify the charges as a jury then you aren't a jury, you're a rubber stamp.

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You are talking about jury nullification.

The problem is folks seeking justice for slights that aren’t so heinous and the whole drawing the line thing.

The problem of there being no justice to seek for would be worse. And attractiveness of using legal systems is in them being actually useful for victims.

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That's not vigilantism. That's escape. We're locking this woman up for escaping her situation.

Did you read the article? It sounds like she had escaped. Maybe her persecutor had psychological control over her but not physical, that makes it vigilantism.

The facts of the case are barely present in the public sphere because she was denied her self defense argument in court. It's entirely possible Volar had tracked down escaped women before and entirely possible she was in the process of escaping others working with him. Literally the only thing the prosecution said is that she traveled between cities.

And if this was vigilantism, why hasn't she gotten the same treatment as Kyle Rittenhouse? It's the same state but when she travels with a gun, gets in a fight and ends it she's not allowed the self defence argument he had?

Obviously Chrystul is aware of all the facts and she decided that her actions didn't meet the legal definition of self defence.

They literally denied her the defense.

So Chrystul is aware of all the facts and understands that her actions didn't meet the legal definition of self defence ?

According to the system. That did give that defence to the guy who traveled to a protest to shoot people.

I need that F to doubt button.

She'd already escaped. She was free of him. Then she got a gun, hunted him down, and shot him.

This is why she couldn't claim self defense or a battered woman defense - she'd already escaped.

So glad you're just taking the prosecution's word as fact. Her defense was that she was literally in the process of being raped.

Another uninformed and angry commenter getting upvoted by this awesome community.

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Absolutely outrageous.

I bet if this poor girl were white she would have walked

Best outcome she could have is she could get early parole, or serve some years of her sentence while the rest is suspended. There have been cases before of victims killing their captors/traffickers and received long term prison sentence, but were later paroled or their sentence had been reduced or commuted to something more lenient.

No its absolutely not. The best and only just outcome would have been acquittal via nullification by the jury.

She took a plea deal to avoid life sentence. Only hope is parole or a pardon.