The legal pitfalls domestic violence victims face when they defend themselves

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• Geoff Bennett:

  More than two dozen states around the country have a version of self-defense laws, sometimes known as stand-your-ground laws. They allow for the use of force, even deadly force, when someone feels threatened in their home or other locations.

  But a new podcast and investigation details how women, especially women of color, who try to use self-defense laws don't always get the same protections, especially in cases of domestic violence.

  William Brangham has that conversation.

• William Brangham:

  Geoff, this podcast tells how, in 2017, a 25-year-old Black woman named Deven Grey shot and killed her white boyfriend, John Vance, during what she said was a violent night at their home in rural Shelby County, Alabama.

  Over the course of their relationship, Grey had been repeatedly and violently abused by Vance.

• Deven Grey, Alabama:

  I saw the guy, and I saw him. I saw the guy, and I saw him. And I was just like — I was just like, it's — I have had enough of this.

• William Brangham:

  Grey's stand-your-ground defense was rejected.

  And so, in 2020, she took what is known as a blind plea, where you plead guilty, in her case to manslaughter, but you don't know what your punishment is. She was sentenced to 15 years. Her story is the focus of a new podcast called "Blind Plea." It's produced by Lemonada Media.

  Journalist and author Liz Flock is the host and I'm happy to say a former "NewsHour" colleague.

  Liz Flock, great to see you again.

  Before we get to Deven's legal situation, which is so well-documented in your podcast, can you tell us a little bit about her and her relationship with her boyfriend?

  Liz Flock, Journalist and Author: Yes.

  So, Deven Grey was a young woman from Upstate New York. She met her boyfriend, John Vance, there. Their mothers live diagonally from each other. She found him charismatic and handy and handsome. They fell in love. And she followed him — or, rather, John took her down to rural Alabama to his family land.

  And although he had gotten violent with her before, as often is the case in domestic abusive situations, once she was more isolated, things really escalated from there. And all of our reporting, which comes from thousands of text messages and interviews with John's own family, show that he was severely physically and emotionally abusive to Devin over six years' time.

  They were living in this rural, rundown trailer, incredibly isolated. He monitored her phone, and they had a child together. So she felt like she couldn't leave.

• William Brangham:

  As you document in your podcast, the violence escalates. And then, this one night, it sort of erupts in a terrible circumstance where she shoots him and kills him.

  And, on its surface, it seems like a textbook case of self-defense. But as you report, it does not turn out that way.

• Liz Flock:

  Yes, so I have been covering cases of women who kill their abusers for years now.

  And one thing that I see again and again is that women often do not fight back in the precise moment of violence. So, often, in a domestic abuse situation, things will escalate for years. And by the time that woman decides to defend themselves, it often will be in a break in the violence.

  So, in Deven's case, that night, in particular, crime scene photos and her testimony suggests that she was pistol-whipped, he shot at her, broke bones in her face.But, by the time she shot him, it was after several minutes had passed that she got the gun. And he was on their pullout couch.

  So you can see why, in our criminal legal system, we would say, hey, that's not self-defense. But, as advocates have told me, a woman who's in a domestic abusive situation is always in fear for her life. And so I think a lot of those folks are looking for a change in the criminal legal system where we expand our notion of self-defense to better understand the dynamics of domestic abuse.

• William Brangham:

  And in these cases of stand-your-ground laws, you report how, in particular, they tend to go against women and women of color in particular.

• Liz Flock:

  Yes.

  And there's actually a lot of research to document this, that women are twice as likely to be convicted as men when claiming self-defense in their home, and that Black people who use the stand-the-ground law are almost 15 percent more likely to lose their hearings.

  So, it's basically that the stand-your-ground law is being applied unequally. And, you know, one thing in general that experts have told me is that self-defense laws come with a lot of masculine assumptions, like that it's two people of equal size, let's say, who get into a fight in a bar.

  But that's not the case in domestic abuse situations. It's often someone of a larger size. A woman might not be able to defend herself with her fists, let's say, and so she might use a weapon. And, as we discussed before, it's often not in the exact, precise moment of incoming violence.

  So, I think that all shows that there's something that needs to change in our understanding or application of self-defense laws, and stand-your-ground laws, in particular.

• William Brangham:

  And as you — as you report, she tries this self-defense case that is rejected.She's charged with murder. She then takes this blind plea.

  Can you help us understand why she did that,why she accepted a plea not really knowing what the punishment would be?

• Liz Flock:

  Yes.

  So, when our team started looking into this, we were really amazed at the lack of research around this thing called a blind plea. We know that, in America, 90 percent of cases are actually adjudicated through plea bargains. That's how they finish. Most people do not go to trial.

  But a lot of people have not heard of this thing called blind plea, which is a type of plea bargain where you basically say, I'm pleading guilty to this lesser charge. In Deven's case, it was manslaughter, instead of murder, but I'm kind of leaving it up to the judge to determine my fate and my sentence, and I'm rolling the dice with my life here.

  So, Deven didn't know if she was going to get between 10 years or 20 years. Ultimately, she got 15. But I think the thing that we found disturbing about blind pleas is, it's often dependent on your lawyer sort of knowing the judge. It feels like almost like a good old boys' club, where they say, hey, I think this judge will do me a solid and give you a lesser sentence.

  And so I think a lot more research is needed in that realm to better understand blind pleas.

• William Brangham:

  So, Deven gets sentenced to 15 years, and she has just recently gotten out because of good behavior and she was a model citizen.

  She, in your final episode, the epilogue episode, of your podcast talks a lot about how she wants other victims of domestic violence to think of themselves and to be seen in society. Let's play a little clip of that.

• Deven Grey:

  And I also want the people who are in those relationships or who have been then those relationships to understand that someone is — they're not alone, that — or — and then they shouldn't feel like they're less than or that they're stupid, because that's what I — I mean, I still kind of kick myself and feel that kind of way.

  But I just want to make the world more aware of the problem.

• William Brangham:

  I mean, Liz, it sounds like, on some level — she's got a job. She sounds like she's doing pretty well. Is that the case?

• Liz Flock:

  Yes, so Deven is out now, and speaking a lot about domestic abuse and how complicated it is.

  But every day is a struggle. Just because she's free from prison doesn't mean things went magically back to normal. She spent five-and-a-half years away from her daughter. And prison is really not a place for rehabilitation in many states, and especially not for people who have dealt with domestic abuse.

  So I think she really feels like she's beginning her journey towards healing now. When you get out of prison, you don't have even an I.D., maybe not your Social Security card. She has to get an apartment. She just got a job. But every day is sort of step by step.

• William Brangham:

  All right, the podcast is "Blind Plea." I really can't recommend it highly enough.

  Liz Flock, thank you so much for being here.

• Liz Flock:

  Thank you.