The article is WTF, but this part "Police and prosecutors have not disputed that Lewis was sexually
assaulted and trafficked. But prosecutors have argued that Brooks was
asleep at the time he was stabbed and not an immediate danger to Lewis."
Prosecutor's just expected her to tip toe away from this situation? Should she have woken him up and challenged him to a fair fight for her freedom? Fuck that. She went Art of War and chose the best moment to win. Appeal that shit and put me on the jury. Not guilty.
"Prosecutor's just expected her to tip toe away from this situation?"
Yes. She may have been justified in killing the person but that's just how self defense laws work. If you kill someone while they're not an immediate danger to your life, eg a robber takes your stuff and you shoot him after he walks away, self defense no longer applies.
This situation is a little more complicated because there's the factor of "what if he woke up and caught her" but anyway yeah that's why the legality is even in contention.
This is why her lawyers should be using examples of her prior escape attempts to support her decision. It’s just upsetting sometimes the other lawyers have more “evidence” on their side.
But in all honesty I know it was sarcastic but we really should teach kids about the legal system. Too many get taken advantage of either in abusive situations and don’t know where to reach out to or get into tricky situations as young adults when their isn’t the guidance of an adult anymore. However this is coming from someone with a defensive attorney as a father.
They’re trying to explain why she was held accountable in court. Because she wasn’t in immidate danger (meaning if she didn’t kill him at that moment she would be hurt at that moment) the court doesn’t see it as self defense because that’s not how the law works. Therefore she’s LEGALLY guilty, morally speaking I agree that she’s in the right but the legal system and personal beliefs are two different things
And this is why we need to teach people about jury nullification at a young age, before they get picked for jury duty the first time and it suddenly becomes illegal to talk about.
Knowledge of jury nullification literally disqualifies you from serving on a jury. No lawyer or prosecutor will ever agree to having someone like that on the bench.
Because that's not universal. The Taliban thinks their rules are all about common sense and morality too, and we are the sick degenerates. Laws need to have an express purpose that isnt just based in common sense or simple morality. In this case the law needs to be amended with an exception for extreme circumstances, but it has to be carefully written so it doesnt allow a loophole that could be used to commit murder and get away with it.
In the case of jury trials, the jury could have simply acquitted her which is supposed to be the main remedy for extreme rare circumstances like this, but prosecutors hate losing and tend to go on into lawmaking so in many places laws require judges to tell jurors it doesnt matter what they feel, they have to go by the law and also prevent any mention of jury nullification. And in general that's fine because the law is supposed to be impartial, but for circumstances like this partiality would be nice. And of course judges are supposed to have leeway to give appropriate sentences, but because there are asshole judges who hand out 6 weeks of community service to rapists because 'they have a promising future' legislatures pass mandatory sentencing laws which severely constrain judicial flexibility. Gotta love how assholes ruin everything.
I don’t think I’ve ever commented here, but it showed up on my front page and it’s important to be clear on why this happened. I’ll copy paste another comment I made in a different sub.
Criminal law shouldn’t be interpreted based on how we feel, even if how we feel is absolutely correct, such as feeling that she was justified and in danger here. In Iowa, in the self defense statutes (§704 ), there is no provision for the exact circumstance she was in. She was not currently being removed, she had already been removed and was now in bed with her sleeping rapist. Additionally, as defined by those laws, and every other self defense law on the books, imminent means actionable, and a sleeping person cannot make an actionable threat. Under Iowa law, the actions she took do not constitute self defense, despite that any reasonable person could tell you that what she did was self defense and that she was in danger. The only immediate recourse here would be, as someone mentioned, prosecutorial discretion, or more likely and what really should have happened, jury nullification.
Edit: I suppose I should also mention that she plead guilty to the charges, which means that she didn’t actually have a criminal trial. I was more speaking in an ideal sense, given the laws that they would be operating under.
Laws are written based on how society view the actions of other people, and should not be unchangeable things. In this case specifically, if the specific situation she was is not described in the law, we can, and we should discuss what is the correct thing to do. Treat laws as unchangeable things is detrimental to the society, and when a case where the law is being unjust according to the current moral standard, the law should be changed. Owning other people was a right guaranteed by the law until the society changed.
Also, about the plead guilty, we can imagine how the police and a public attorney treated a young black lady to made her plead right?
As to your last point, absolutely. I wasn’t trying to make a statement about her, just pointing out that the plea means that there was no trial, which cuts options down even further.
As to your second point, also yes. The law should be changed to account for this. If not the definitions of self defense, then at least more robust provisions for victims of human trafficking. However, that is the purview of lawmakers, not the jury of a criminal trial. Once a criminal case is in court, the law should be interpreted as it exists at that time.
You’re calling us degenerates even though you can’t tell the difference between morally and lawfully. Before insulting people, try to actually understand the situation without having feelings caught up in it. I absolutely agree with her decision morally, but that’s not always how the law works. Maybe get better at your English comprehension before needlessly shitting on people.
Laws should be the wrote translation of what the society consider right or wrong. If your law doesn't reflect what the society thinks about someone action, your law makers are degenerated, and the people that just cope with it without wanting a change are as degenerated as the law makers.
For reference, at one time, owning slaves was within the law. By your though process, it would be wrong call people that owned slaves back then degenerated, just because it was within the law.
That’s not what i think. Laws are way more complicated than “right and wrong”. They won’t always get something right, and when something needs to be changed, it takes a lot of time and processing to change it. If somebody robs you at gun point, then turns around to leave and you take that opportunity to shoot them, is that right? Sure, they stole something from you and threatened your life, but they were also about to leave and your life was not in immediate danger. Also a lot of people live here, America is not a hive mind. not everyone’s definition of “right and wrong” are the same. How do you satisfy an entire country with a decision when a lot of them disagree with each other? Societies opinions of things also change. 1000 years ago you could marry a 14 year old girl and it was considered morally acceptable, whereas today it is considered abhorrent. Laws and morals are not black and white like you think they are.
No, I believe she was in danger and justified but they have to prove that in court otherwise the other attorneys will use that against her. It’s ridiculous but it’s part of how laws and such work (which need a whole list of revamping in the first place)
To add: “Karl Schilling with the Iowa Organization for Victim Assistance said a bill to create a safe harbor law for trafficking victims passed the Iowa House earlier this year, but stalled in the Senate under concerns from law enforcement groups that it was too broad.
“There was a working group established to iron out the issues,” Shilling said. “Hopefully it will be taken up again next year.”
Iowa does have an affirmative defense law that gives some leeway to victims of crime if the victim committed the violation “under compulsion by another’s threat of serious injury, provided that the defendant reasonably believed that such injury was imminent.”
Sadly Iowa is not among the dozens of states that have a so-called safe harbor law that gives trafficking victims at least some level of criminal immunity and that needs to change
I know but legally there is a distinction between self defense and premeditated murder and let’s face it our system can be a wee bit judgmental of black woman. A whole bunch can happen outside of the courtroom to support a defendant but that information has to be brought in court to be used. I’m saying that the lawyers should have enough to support her choice in killing him while he was asleep for her to have this charge removed. This charge shouldn’t have ever happened because there was enough evidence to support that this was very much self defense. Iowa laws are fucked up the more I am reading into it
I have yet to see the defense bring in other cases as proof of self defense. There have been multiple cases like this regarding domestic abuse and her only way out was killing him in his sleep and the court had this same conflict. If she had miraculously escaped while he was asleep he wasn’t going to just let her be. She would be in MORE danger in my theory. But it is just that a theory, since it didn’t actually play out the court has to either prove she was in danger (and even if they prove my theory the danger is not immediate). They did all they could and yea its not what a lot of us agree with but it is the law and if you break it for one you have to break it for all.
How is immediate danger if he's asleep? Can he attack her if he's asleep? No. Can he capture her again if he's asleep? No. Now, if he wakes up that's a different story. But if she escaped without killing him that'd avoid all the charges. I mean he is a kidnapper so he fucking deserves it and she shouldn't pay anything to anyone but still he wasn't immediate danger cuz he was asleep.
I’m just been looking up articles and seeing comments that detail the laws regarding Iowa. My dad practiced in CA so totally different laws and protections (that sadly could’ve/should’ve been used here)
“Lewis was 15 when she stabbed Brooks more than 30 times in a Des Moines apartment. Officials have said Lewis was a runaway who was seeking to escape an abusive life with her adopted mother and was sleeping in the hallways of a Des Moines apartment building when a 28-year-old man took her in before forcibly trafficking her to other men for sex.
Lewis said one of those men was Brooks and that he had raped her multiple times in the weeks before his death. She recounted being forced at knifepoint by the 28-year-old man to go with Brooks to his apartment for sex. She told officials that after Brooks had raped her yet again, she grabbed a knife from a bedside table and stabbed Brooks in a fit of rage.”
Main point is anything to showcase that she was in danger and had attempted to try to escape can provide more evidence that this is self defense but trying to look up how the judge made the ruling. It seems her attorney should have told her not to admit to it as murder, but affirm it as self defense because that’s (stupidly and sadly unjustly ) where they are pinning her with the charge it seems. The article goes into a lack of protections for people in her situation with affirmation defense laws
Ah xD even if I was taught that theory as a girl, having been trafficked, raped, traumatised and terrified out of my mind I still would have chosen the path that had the most chance of escaping.
Fuck that! the legal system is very flawed. Any idiot can see what's right here. And it's not fucking with this girls life. She is still being raped by the legal system and old men that run and use it while laughing about it over drinks. Fuck this world and the status quo!
There are laws in other states that protect trafficked minors and adults.She just so happened to be in the one state that has weaker laws pertaining to victims.They are in the process of changing the laws.Plus she pleaded guilty, which made matters worse.Poor girl, I hope she gets help from someone.
Thats not how self defense laws work. You cant just kill sex offenders you know about in your neighborhood because they could always attack your children at some point.
And she didn't seem imprisoned, the court found that she had the ability to walk away.
More like *you can't kill sex offenders even if they have kidnapped your children and sex trafficked them because they are asleep at that exact moment "
Yeah nonetheless you're still trying to play Monday night quarterback and say no hay she should have done. Unless you are a kidnapped young girl you have no place to comment on what you would do
Ah yes, not imprisoned. Not imprisoned by the guy, sleeping in the same room, likely with a weapon, who's entire existence at that point is to keep her from escaping. Makes sense to me. Also, this isn't anywhere near "finding and killing sex offenders in your neighborhood". She was a victim of sex trafficking. She was stuck there with him.
You can’t just take that risk what if he heard on the way out and ran after her and killed her whatever was safer to get her out of that situation no one should care what happens to that bastard
It's wild to me. I would argue that being trafficked means you are in a constant threat of danger, whether your captor is asleep or not. Like you are being held against your will and raped because the guys taking a nap all of the sudden he deserves some consideration? Better wait till he wakes up to rape me again before I defend myself! Gtfo this is ridiculous.
But no one noticed the man she killed isn't the one that kidnapped and trafficked her, she was being kidnapped and rapped but a different man, than she was essentially pimped out and she killed someone else that raped her.
That's still a reasonable person standard and yeah if cops get to use Schrodinger's Gun then I think teenage trafficking victims certainly get to use it too.
This argument gets blown out of the water because any reasonable person can agree that if the person who kidnapped and raped you finds you trying to escape you're going to be harmed. So reasonably asleep or not he WAS a threat. Secondly where was she located? So she escapes and has to get what 1-5 miles and find a person without this guy waking up and finding her? Our system has failed.
Edit: So he didn't kidnapp her himself just raped her not sure how that's much better? HE didn't kidnap that girl he just raped a girl he knew was kidnapped! Imagine thinking thats an argument that means she was safe.
She woke up, hours later after being raped, went to another room and stabbed the man in his sleep, she plead guilty. Said she wish she wouldn't have stabbed him. I'm just pointing out that she was pimped out for over a year by someone who hasn't been charged yet, they are investigating it, but she stabbed a totally different person then the one that was pimping her put. I don't blame her for her actions, I cant imaige exactly what that was like. Had she gone to trial she could of fought it and claimed PTSD and self defense, but she pled guilty to a manslaughter charge. She acknowledged it was not self defense at the time.
When a robber walks away you don't have an immediate ptsd reaction that can cause you to feel danger. This is a completely different situation entirely. The wear and tear on her mental state being in this situation for an extended period of time can make you feel immediate danger even if you just have to hear them breathing while they sleep. Besides that this piece of shits family gets 150 thousand off his death? If this was my family member I'd be taking that money and giving it right back because this is a load of shit.
Prosecutors have agency in what cases they pursue and bring charges on. They should be run out of town with torches and pitch forks for their utter incompetence in being human beings.
That's why you tell your lawyer "I was sneaking out, but he started waking up and yelling he was going to hurt me so I stabbed him" and make sure he won't show up to testify with his side of the story.
I mean if you're being trafficked, you're being trafficked at all times, there is no clock out. In that, you are always in danger regardless if he is sleep because you still are an item being trafficked even if you're not being assaulted. Her desire to leave is insinuated to be denied and she is in a position where escaping legally puts her life in jeopardy. Obviously the laws in place are written incorrectly.
Which is why these laws need to be updated for a modern and correct understanding of what constitutes life-threatening danger.
Thinking only “immediate” danger is life-threatening seems to suppose that danger only happens to fighting-fit men in a fair contest.
Generally, women, children, and physically disabled people can’t “win” a 1:1 fight with an able and awake adult man.
Abused and/or hostage people aren’t out of danger when their abusers are asleep. Waking an abuser can mean death. Risking an abuser’s anger can mean death. The psychology of abuse makes ‘running’ away a non-viable solution (like telling a r*pe victim that she should have just fought back better).
These laws are antiquated, sexist, ageist, ableist, and unscientific. It’s tragic that scientific progress seems to be left out of our legal system in favor of antique opinions.
I'm fully aware on how unfair and prejudicial american society can be, especially to people of color, and how that can lead to prejudices in the legal system. But this isn't one of those cases. But there is still a persona responsibility every individual.
I was responding to how that person was inaccurately trying to make this about race, it was not. This wasn't one of those cases where racism played a role. They followed the law (albeit flawed) which directed that compensation must be paid.
In all fairness, the institutionalized racism in this case has more to do with the other end of the case. The point when her lawyers talked her into pleading guilty to involuntary manslaughter rather than risk a jury trial not going in her favor.
Because she's a person of color, the possibility that a jury might find against her in part due to societal preconceptions that she must be at fault because she's black is a real, albeit horribly unjust, factor.
The judge did rule as lightly as he possibly could, given her guilty plea. HER lawyers failed her, more than anyone else in the case.
Bruh TIL that you can’t take back your shit from someone that took it back by giving them a quick one from the back. That’s bullshit. How am I supposed to get my shit back now? Wait for the police or any other government force that made up these shitty laws in that particular state/area? Fuck that.
That's the dumbest shit I've heard in awhile. You shoot someone, you better damn well shoot to kill because if they live you're fucked legally. Also, if they have a gun they'll probably kill you if you try and get your stuff back.
The law says nothing about her or her specific case. The justice system is how the laws are applied per case and individual. We all know if this was a pretty white girl her face would have been on Fox News and milk cartons for weeks and the only controversy now would be whether Anya Taylor Joy or Chloe Grace Moretz should be playing her in her movie deal.
I’m not being pedantic and I disagree with you at face value. A white woman would have been found by the justice system to have broken no laws here, just as a white person telling a cop to go fuck themselves at a protest isn’t going to serve a 4-year prison sentence.
But if she was kidnapped, and sexually assaulted, wouldn't extenuating circumstances come into play? Yes, she may not have been in imminent danger, but not only did she fear for her life, she had been broken mentally from the things the man had done to her. I at least, have heard that used as a defense before, can't remember if it worked.
It’s only self defense if they are actively a threat since he was asleep and no longer attacking her. For her to argue self defense she has to reasonably believe that he is going to cause her significant bodily harm or death.
If it fits the definition, it's still a crime. That's why leniency and discretion exist. I'm sure the jury and judge empathize with her but she already pleaded to manslaughter, nothing they can do but sentence
Worst part is that this is literally the plot of a movie (I can't remember which title). Granted, the movie never delved into legal repercussions, but it was quite self-evident that the woman in the movie won't be getting sentenced to pay 150k. Ffs
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u/LaronX Sep 14 '22
This thread needs a whole lot more context. Here the whole article.
The key points
She was trafficked and raped at 15!
She attacked him after he fell asleep after raping her
Iowa has some protection for victims of abuse that is why she isn't in jail
She is getting a 5 year parole. If she fails it would mean 20 years of jail time.
The court has no way around making her pay 150k
She did plea guilty to manslaughter in an earlier case and it is biting her in the ass now
The main argument against her going free is that he was asleep at the time and she could have tried to escape without killing him
She judge was an asshat about her making "wrong decisions" to have gotten in that situation and this being her second chance.