Survivors of Domestic Violence Deserve Clemency, Not Prison Cells

http://www.thenation.com/article/survivors-of-domestic-violence-deserve-clemency-not-prison-cells/

Yet, while advocates praised Cuomo’s plans as a positive development to combatting the collateral consequences of incarceration, we have to wonder—are the only people who deserve a second chance those who have nonviolent convictions? What about those who are behind bars for defending themselves against abuse? What about Barbara Sheehan, whose story I wrote about earlier, who spent 25 years being terrorized by her police-officer husband?

 In 2008, when her husband pointed his gun at her, Sheehan says she knew that he meant to kill her. She ran into their bedroom, grabbed the gun he kept there and shot him first. He fell, dropping his gun, then tried to reach for it. She snatched it and shot him again. Three years later, a jury acquitted her of murder and the use of one gun, but convicted her of using the gun her husband had planned to kill her with. She was sentenced to five years in prison.

“She went through hell with my father. When she was forced to defend herself, she was punished. She’s been through so much,” her daughter Jennifer Joyce recently told The Nation. Joyce and her son had just returned from a three-day visit with Sheehan at Albion Correctional Facility, not far from the Canadian border. “The holidays aren’t the same without her. She deserves, after all this time, to spend the holidays with her grandson.”

But Sheehan, who applied for clemency in 2014, has yet to receive a response. Unless Cuomo intervenes, she will not only spend Christmas behind bars, but will also miss her grandson’s second birthday.