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Latoya Dickens says she’s been robbed of her life twice.
The first time, it was taken by a man who she said violently abused and controlled her for over a decade, starting when she was a teenager.
The second time, she says, the state of Georgia took it — when they put her in prison for killing him in self-defense.
Now, at age 53, she says her life is her own.
She is out on parole after about 25 years behind bars, and treasures the steps she’s taken in her first few months of freedom: A driver’s license, legal paperwork to start a cleaning business, a trip to see her children.
A Georgia bill, which passed the state legislature in early April, might have given her back that life sooner. If it is signed by the governor, as is anticipated, it will become one of the most comprehensive laws in the country offering protection to abuse survivors convicted or accused of a crime connected to their abuse.
Advocates say the success of the legislation, which passed with near-unanimous bipartisan support, suggests a path for states across the political spectrum to put laws on the books that better account for the trauma of abuse.
The Georgia legislation tries to protect survivors from long prison sentences by making changes to three key moments in a criminal case: the trial, sentencing and post-conviction. It will make it easier for survivors to include evidence of abuse — both as a defense against conviction, and as a consideration in the length of the sentence if they are found guilty. For those already behind bars, it offers more opportunities for resentencing.
Dickens hopes it will free the many women she met in prison who are “still paying for surviving.”
More than 70% of women in prison report experiences of intimate partner violence. And there are many ways that abuse can be connected to their incarceration. The most widely reported is women who kill their abusers in self-defense. In an investigation last year, The Marshall Project also identified the related phenomenon of people who were forced to help their abusers commit crimes, and despite minimal participation, ended up with lengthy sentences.
The Georgia legislation aims to help both kinds of defendants.
Ellen Williams, a legal director with the Georgia Coalition Against Domestic Violence, said her organization became part of the larger movement pushing for the new law after years of what felt like an uphill battle in advocating for survivors caught up in the justice system.
“This is a major substantial issue across the United States,” Williams said. “[The legal system is] designed to ask the question of: ‘Did she pull the trigger?’ Yes or No. It is not built to ask why.”
Rebecca Epstein, executive director of the Center on Gender Justice and Opportunity at Georgetown Law, said that while the Georgia measure is especially comprehensive, it is not the first law attempting to solve this problem.
She recently published a survey of four categories of laws in 50 states involving protection of sex trafficking victims from prostitution charges, self-defense against an abuser, shorter sentences for abuse survivors and expungement of criminal records for victims of sexualized violence.
Every state had at least one law in one of these categories, but Virginia was the only state with laws in every single category.
One of the biggest gaps, Epstein noted in the survey, was related to self-defense laws.
In order to demonstrate that a person was coerced into committing a crime, or acting in self-defense, states require proof of an explicit, imminent threat. But people who have been abused may not need to have a literal gun held to their head to know that if they don’t follow orders, they will be met with violence, Epstein said.
The survey also shows that while many states have created laws to help prevent sex trafficking survivors from being severely punished for crimes connected to their exploitation, most states have yet to fully extend that same logic to domestic violence survivors.
Progress on laws to protect survivors from long prison sentences have been made in both red and blue states. New York and Oklahoma have some of the most robust laws in the country. There is also proposed legislation in Missouri, New Jersey and Connecticut.
Advocates said there are a few reasons that conservatives, who have been increasingly resistant to criminal justice reform in recent years, might be more open to these kinds of laws. One reason is that while the laws assist people accused or convicted of crimes, they are, at their root, also about protecting victims.
The lead bill sponsor, Republican state Rep. Stan Gunter, is a former prosecutor and judge. “The passage of the Survivor Justice Act brings us one step closer to protecting survivors of abuse, ensuring judicial discretion in sentencing, and protecting families,” Gunter said.
While the legal landscape is rapidly changing, there are still cracks that victims can slip through.
Illinois has some of the most progressive laws to protect survivors from punishment, for example, but that hasn’t meant much for Pat Johnson.
Johnson has been in an Illinois prison since 1993 for a triple murder that even prosecutors don’t think Johnson committed. Johnson is a transgender man, but uses she/her pronouns when discussing her life before transition, including the relationship and events that led to incarceration.
Johnson said that in 1992 she watched her abusive boyfriend, Rey Travieso, beat and kill three people, including a baby. When Travieso told her to help collect jewelry and money, and keep her mouth shut, she agreed. She’d spent seven years in the abusive relationship and knew what he was capable of.
Under an “accomplice liability” law, Johnson was convicted for the same crime as Travieso and given the same sentence, because she assisted. Advocates have proposed legislation to change the accomplice liability statute, and hope to have a legislative hearing later this spring.
A different Illinois law allows survivors of domestic violence to seek resentencing. But that law doesn’t allow sentencing to be less than the mandatory minimum, which Johnson was already serving: life in prison. If Johnson has any hope of ever leaving prison, one of the few paths left is clemency. Earlier this week, nearly two dozen family members drove from St. Louis to Chicago for an 18-minute hearing in front of a clemency board.
After the hearing, they huddled together with other supporters, including women who served time with Johnson in prison and local anti-domestic violence advocates. They analyzed every clue from the hearing — even the way clemency board members smiled at the family and how often they made eye contact.
There wasn’t a lot to go on, but it didn’t stop them from trying to predict what will happen next.
It may take a year, or even longer, for a final decision. Until then, they wait.
