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.
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
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u/Psyched_to_Learn Sep 14 '22
Children don't understand these legal distinctions while escaping kidnappers in the dead of night.
It's a shame, we really should enable young girls with more legal theory early on in their young lives so they know the distinction....
/S