NY Woman Acquitted Of Fatally Shooting Husband 11 Times. Overkill?

[twyacht]

OBTW, this article is from the NY Times,....so "no slanted" writing here.

Some SNIPS, full article at link.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/07/nyregion/barbara-sheehan-who-killed-husband-is-found-not-guilty-of-murder.html?_r=2&partner=MYWAY&ei=5065

Wife Who Fired 11 Shots Is Acquitted of Murder
By DAN BILEFSKY
Published: October 6, 2011

She had always admitted to killing her husband, using two guns to fire 11 bullets inside the couple’s home in Queens. But she insisted she had no choice: if she had not shot him, he would have surely killed her first.

On Thursday, a jury in State Supreme Court in Queens agreed, clearing the woman, Barbara Sheehan, of second-degree murder charges in a case that had been viewed as a strenuous test of a battered-woman defense. Her son and daughter, the children of her slain husband, wept with joy.

During the trial, the jury heard how Ms. Sheehan had been relentlessly abused by her husband, Raymond Sheehan, a former police sergeant, during their 24 years of marriage. But the critical question at trial was whether Ms. Sheehan was in imminent danger when she killed her husband; New York State’s self-defense law justifies the use of lethal force when a threat to a person’s life is deemed immediate.

In one version, Ms. Sheehan and her children testified that Mr. Sheehan smashed her head against a cinder-block wall during a family vacation in Jamaica in 2007, threw boiling pasta sauce at her and punched her in the face the evening before the killing took place in their Howard Beach home in February 2008.

But prosecutors characterized Ms. Sheehan as a pathological liar who executed her husband because she despised him after years of a sexless, dysfunctional marriage, and then cloaked herself in a false story of chronic abuse to escape justice.

The physical evidence appeared unpersuasive: Mr. Sheehan had been shaving before he was killed; his body was found on the bathroom floor, the faucet still running.

Ms. Sheehan testified that the couple had a fierce argument the day before, and she had decided to leave, carrying one of her husband’s guns for protection. When her husband saw her, she said, he reached for a gun on the bathroom vanity and aimed it at her.

The killing had divided the Sheehan family.

The case had also divided the jury: a day before the verdict was reached, the jurors said they were hopelessly deadlocked.

Nonetheless, the jury of nine women and three men unexpectedly reached a consensus on Thursday, in their third day of deliberations. Ms. Sheehan was acquitted of murder and of a gun possession charge, but was found guilty of a second gun possession charge, which carries a sentence of 3 1/2 to 15 years. The judge ordered her to return to court on Wednesday, when she will be remanded into custody. Her sentencing will follow.

the jury had decided, however, to find Ms. Sheehan guilty of possessing the second weapon, since she had shot her husband even after he no longer posed a danger.

Richard A. Brown, the Queens district attorney, said the case was a cautionary tale that those claiming domestic abuse should not take the law into their own hands.

****

Nice call "Dick" Brown....Read NY's self-defense law again...Must have been pretty bad if he was shaving with his pistol on the bathroom vanity...

What do you guys think?

11shots; From two different guns. Fox News Radio, reported her first pistol, a revolver, was fired and emptied, than she grabbed his service pistol and continued firing 5 or 6 rds.

[tombogan03884]

She got away with murder. There is to much awareness of Wife abuse, to many programs to help battered women, and if he was shaving she was in no immediate danger.
This is another example of "All hail the sacred woman".
Typical liberal BS, this evil SOB was a MAN, and a GUN OWNER, he deserved to die.
One fact that seldom gets mentioned is that 50% of domestic abusers are woman.

[Big Frank]

She should hang. Get the rope Tom.

[tombogan03884]

NY is a liberal state, they have abortion instead of the death penalty.
She should get whatever they give other cop killers.

[Ichiban]

She got away with murder. There is to much awareness of Wife abuse, to many programs to help battered women, and if he was shaving she was in no immediate danger.
This is another example of "All hail the sacred woman".
Typical liberal BS, this evil SOB was a MAN, and a GUN OWNER, he deserved to die.
One fact that seldom gets mentioned is that 50% of domestic abusers are woman.

Having know a few battered women (and a couple battered hubbies), I think the fact that help was available has little to no bearing.  Even it they knew of it, it takes more strength than a lot of people have to take that step as it often enrages the batterer and greatly increases the risk of harm to the battered.

The fact that he was shaving means squat.  He could easily have interrupted his shave to "beat some sense into the bitch."

The fact that she used two guns is what makes the self defense angle a little hard to swallow for me.

[Sponsor]

[tt11758]

When all we have to go on is ONE newspaper story, I'll reserve judgement.

I will, however, say this........much like Casey Anthony, what WE think means less than dick.

[tombogan03884]

When all we have to go on is ONE newspaper story, I'll reserve judgement.

I will, however, say this........much like Casey Anthony, what WE think means less than dick.

True.

[Solus]

It isn't really clear how many of the 11 shots scored.  The Subject of this thread states she shot him 11 times, but the article said she fired 11 shots.

The only indicator that she scored more than one hit (unless I missed something in reading the article) was the jury's statement that she used the second gun after he was no longer a threat.

It does not go into detail about what made him  not a threat.  It could have been that he was dead already, in which case the extra shots don't matter much...except for her conviction of possessing the gun illegally since he was dead and she had no legal right to pick it up.

Of course, not a threat may have meant he was shot and dropped his gun and she grabbed it up and finished the job before he could retrieve it.

My guess it the first scenario is more accurate.  

He threatened her with  his gun, maybe just by going for it as it was stashed in the bathroom, she had the revolver and defended her self, killing the him with one of her self defense shots.  She then picked up his weapon and emptied it in his dead body as payment for years of abuse and suffering.

It has been said.....   Don't keep shooting until you think the bad guy is dead, keep shooting until the bad guy thinks he is dead.  It looks like she was making damn sure he KNEW he was dead.

[twyacht]

I thought of that as well,

WSJ, quotes "hit 11 times".
http://online.wsj.com/article/AP6c89994aca89475cb2588603eee6c881.html

All the other google foo said "shot 11 times". Could not find hit vs. miss data. Although the MSM is really lame on 99.9% of gun related stories.

CBS said the husbands pistol was a Glock 9mm, but did not specify what her pistol was. (Fox News said revolver).

The many posts here of police involved shootings where many bullets were fired with one or two hits, or the point Solus mentioned, may have been a factor, I don't know.

It has been said.....   Don't keep shooting until you think the bad guy is dead, keep shooting until the bad guy thinks he is dead.  It looks like she was making damn sure he KNEW he was dead.

It would be interesting to see the transcripts,...could have been 5 hits to non lethal areas, 5 misses and one to the head...

Who knows.

[Solus]

Yeah...

the most reliable fact we have is that the Jury though he was no longer a threat when she picked up the second weapon....so, presumably,  something happened while she was using the first weapon that the jury interrupted as ending the threat.

While that is a fact, we have no idea how accurate the data the Jury used to come to that conclusion was.