Local advocates are hoping an upcoming interim studywill have an impact.
The study is focused on relief for survivors of domestic violence who’ve been penalized by the criminal justice system for defending themselves. While there’s no comprehensive data, small studies show 94% of incarcerated womensurvived violence before prison.
“We don’t have clear data,” said Leslie Briggs, Tulsa civil rights attorney and advocate for survivors of abuse. “But the people that it would help, it would absolutely correct a very serious wrong.”
Margaret Black of Domestic Violence Intervention Services in Tulsa said one of the study’s goals of getting lesser sentences for victims could be something that would go a long way in Oklahoma.
“If we know that the state has the second highest incarceration rate of females and something like 90% of those females also have survivorship, then to me, any adjustment to the way we sentence things like failure to protect cases or cases where a domestic violence survivor has defended themselves, I think has the potential to have really fantastic ripples out into our community,” said Black.
Colleen McCarty, founding executive director of Oklahoma Appleseed Center for Law and Justice, said she wants legislation that will prevent abuse victims from receiving harsh sentences up front.
“The goal is to create a process during sentencing where the court can examine evidence of the abuse and substantiate. If it’s substantiated, they would go into a different sentencing category,” said McCarty.
McCarty, who approached Rep. Toni Hasenback (R-Elgin) about the study, said she also hopes for a retroactive piece to any legislation so that those already sentenced could be sentenced again or have their sentences commuted to time served after proving abuse.
A retroactive element would be helpful for a pro bono case that’s important to both McCarty and Briggs. In 1999, a woman named April Wilkens was sentenced to life in prison for killing ex-boyfriend Terry Carlton, a wealthy Tulsa car dealer.
McCarty said there’s overwhelming evidence Wilkens tried to seek help for Carlton’s abusive behavior before acting to save her own life.
“She tried to involve police. We know of at least 14 police reports that were made during the course of their relationship. There were two substantiated rapes, one of them being the night of the shooting,” said McCarty.
“April’s case is one of the most corroborated abusive relationships cases I have ever seen,” said Briggs.
The Tulsa World reported that prosecutors at the time said Wilkens was the more calculatedly abusive partner, but they also emphasized her use of drugs. The case was one of the first in Oklahoma to try a battered woman defense.
Now, more than two decades later, Wilkens is eligible for parole every three years but has been denied. According to Briggs, that’s partly because Carlton’s well-connected father, Don Carlton, protested at the parole board hearings. Don Carlton died in January. In March, Wilkens was denied by the board the more in-depth hearing where Carlton had previously spoken against her release. Briggs said it was the first time Wilkens had ever been denied a second step hearing in the parole process.
According to documents from the parole board, the three members who voted against a hearing - Richard Smothermon, Edward Konieczny, and Scott Williams - did so because “aggravating factors associated with the original crime” outweigh the benefits of parole. Board member Larry Morris voted in favor of a hearing.
Briggs and McCarty, who created a podcast about the Wilkens’ case called Panic Button, said Wilkens’ most immediate route for release may be a legislative push, starting with the interim study.
“Essentially what this would be able to do is help April and women like her to show the evidence that they still have of the abuse they suffered, and have that go to the court, and the court examines that and decides if there was nexus between the abuse and the crime,” McCarty said.
The interim study is scheduled for Tuesday at the Capitol at 1:30 p.m. and will be live-streamed.
