According to The Washington Post, Wisconsin’s appellate court ruled that Chrystul Kizer, a sex trafficking survivor charged with killing her alleged abuser, might be able to use the ‘Affirmative Defense’ law intended to help trafficking victims accused of crimes.
The law will give Kizer a chance to present evidence to a Kenosha judge and possibly a jury that her actions were a “direct result” of the trafficking she experienced.
If the trial is a success, she may be acquitted of some or all of the charges against her.
In Kenosha, prosecutors argue that when Kizer was 17, she plotted the murder of 34-year-old Randall Phillip Volar III in an attempt to steal his BMW.
Kizer claims that she was defending herself after Volar, who had been filming his abuse of her since she was 16, pinned her to the floor when she refused to have sex with him.
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The affirmative defense law, which is somewhat similar to laws around self-defense, states that trafficking victims have a legal defense “for any offense committed as a direct result” of being trafficked.
Prosecutors argued that “any offense” did not include homicide and that Kizer’s charges should only be lowered to less severe ones.
However, the appeals court agreed with Kizer’s lawyers, who argued “any offense” means “any offense.”
If Kizer and her attorneys can prove to a judge that there is “some evidence” her crime was a “direct result” of her trafficking, then she’ll more than likely appear in front of a jury. If that jury agrees that her charges were a “direct result” of her victimization, she would not be guilty.
Almost three years after she was arrested, there is no jury trial scheduled in Kizer’s case.
Kizer also has the opportunity to take a plea deal, which she has previously mentioned she could consider.
“I’m not looking to walk out of your courtroom with nothing. I come to you and Randall’s family with a sincere heart of apologies for what I have done,” Kizer wrote to Judge David Wilk from prison last year.
But the appeals court ruling increases her chances of being acquitted.
Diane Rosenfeld, director of Harvard Law School’s gender violence program, who was also involved in writing a brief in the case, said, “We could not have gotten a better decision.”
“If the state had taken more seriously what Volar was doing, not only to Chrystul but to all these other girls, arguably Chrystul wouldn’t have been in this position,” she added.
