Patricia Pearson

One woman who claimed self-defense, for instance, was a twenty-eight-year-old Latina humiliated by the love affair between her younger sister and her husband. When her sister gave birth to his baby, she went to her sister’s apartment intent on killing them both. The sisters fought, the eldest whipped out a handgun and fired three shots, killing her betraying sibling. Then she grabbed her infant niece, stormed over to her husband’s workplace, announced what she’d done, and threatened to kill him too. Her husband was able to wrench free the gun. « With no prior record, she received 10 years’ probation. » And landed in the data as an abused woman who’d killed in self-defense.