750
submitted 3 months ago by Stopthatgirl7@lemmy.world to c/news@lemmy.world

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.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[-] HelixDab2@lemm.ee 3 points 3 months ago

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.)

[-] winterayars@sh.itjust.works 7 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago)

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?

[-] Cosmonauticus@lemmy.world 5 points 3 months ago

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

[-] Soggy@lemmy.world 4 points 3 months ago

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.

[-] HelixDab2@lemm.ee 3 points 3 months ago

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.)

[-] Katana314@lemmy.world 2 points 3 months ago

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.

[-] HelixDab2@lemm.ee 0 points 3 months ago

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?

[-] Kalysta@lemm.ee 1 points 3 months ago

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?

[-] HelixDab2@lemm.ee 0 points 3 months ago

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?

[-] Katana314@lemmy.world 1 points 3 months ago

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.

[-] HelixDab2@lemm.ee 1 points 3 months ago

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.

this post was submitted on 19 Aug 2024
750 points (98.3% liked)

News

23367 readers
2643 users here now

Welcome to the News community!

Rules:

1. Be civil


Attack the argument, not the person. No racism/sexism/bigotry. Good faith argumentation only. This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban. Do not respond to rule-breaking content; report it and move on.


2. All posts should contain a source (url) that is as reliable and unbiased as possible and must only contain one link.


Obvious right or left wing sources will be removed at the mods discretion. We have an actively updated blocklist, which you can see here: https://lemmy.world/post/2246130 if you feel like any website is missing, contact the mods. Supporting links can be added in comments or posted seperately but not to the post body.


3. No bots, spam or self-promotion.


Only approved bots, which follow the guidelines for bots set by the instance, are allowed.


4. Post titles should be the same as the article used as source.


Posts which titles don’t match the source won’t be removed, but the autoMod will notify you, and if your title misrepresents the original article, the post will be deleted. If the site changed their headline, the bot might still contact you, just ignore it, we won’t delete your post.


5. Only recent news is allowed.


Posts must be news from the most recent 30 days.


6. All posts must be news articles.


No opinion pieces, Listicles, editorials or celebrity gossip is allowed. All posts will be judged on a case-by-case basis.


7. No duplicate posts.


If a source you used was already posted by someone else, the autoMod will leave a message. Please remove your post if the autoMod is correct. If the post that matches your post is very old, we refer you to rule 5.


8. Misinformation is prohibited.


Misinformation / propaganda is strictly prohibited. Any comment or post containing or linking to misinformation will be removed. If you feel that your post has been removed in error, credible sources must be provided.


9. No link shorteners.


The auto mod will contact you if a link shortener is detected, please delete your post if they are right.


10. Don't copy entire article in your post body


For copyright reasons, you are not allowed to copy an entire article into your post body. This is an instance wide rule, that is strictly enforced in this community.

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS