http://ipraudio.interlochen.org/Holbrook_defense.mp3
Last August, a Michigan State Police sergeant was shot and killed in his Benzie County home. The trooper's wife was charged with his murder, and her case is scheduled to go to trial next month.
Melvin Paul Holbrook was asleep in bed when he was shot. But his wife's attorneys want to make an unusual self-defense argument.
Immediate Confession
Joni Holbrook's attorneys do not dispute she is responsible for her husband's death. They might be hard pressed if they did. Holbrook called 911 within minutes of her husband's death.
Dispatcher: "Benzie County 911."
Holbrook: "Hi. My name is Joni Holbrook, Sergeant Holbrook's wife."
Dispatcher: "Ok."
Holbrook: "I just killed him."
Dispatcher: "WHAT?"
Holbrook: "I just killed him."
Dispatcher: "How did you do that?"
Holbrook: "I shot him."
Dispatcher: "Tell me what was going on there tonight."
Holbrook: "Well it's been going on for 10 years."
Battered Woman Defense
Holbrook's attorneys claim her actions were justified because they prevented her death. This is not a typical self-defense argument in a homicide case. It's more analogous to preemptive war doctrine, where an attack may be justified because you are threatened.
If allowed, Joni Holbrook is expected to take the stand and testify that her husband assaulted her and raped her for years.
She also claims he'd strangle her.
The legal term for this kind of defense is battered wife syndrome. Holly Rosen directs Michigan State University's Safe Place, a domestic violence and stalking program on campus.
"Battered Woman Syndrome was coined in 1984 by Dr. Lenore Walker and has several components to it," Rosen says. "Learned helplessness is one concept, and the cycle of violence is another. Learned Helplessness is when somebody feels that all avenues of escape are closed off, that there's nowhere for them to go and they feel terror, isolation and powerlessness from the ongoing abuse."
As a legal defense battered wife syndrome is rarely used and seldom successful. Rosen says a jury needs to fully understand what led up to the violence to be convinced.
"People who are making decisions about domestic violence homicides need all the information," she says. "They need to understand what went on, not just at that incident. We shouldn't be focusing on just that one incident, because that's not what it's about.
"With domestic violence, what we have is intra-traumatic stress which is ongoing every day. There's coercion every day. It's ongoing. There is no clean event that begins, and ends and that's why battered woman syndrome alone, without explaining other factors, is not a sufficient thing to present to a jury. They really need more information."
Will Testimony Be Allowed?
It will be up to the court to decide how much information to allow into the trial. Holbrook's attorney claims lots of pornographic material depicting rape and torture was discovered on her husband's personal computer.
Attorney Jesse Williams read this prayer/poem at a recent court hearing. It was apparently written by Melvin Holbrook:
"All the evil of my demented sexual thoughts and act I cast out... A twisted act of the Devil... I've hurt my wife so badly... Cleanse me of my wickedness."
Circuit court Judge James Batzer so far has agreed to allow an expert witness to explain battered wife syndrome to the jury at trial. But Batzer says the court cannot allow anyone to evaluate Holbrook and tell the jury that she actually suffers from the condition.
Does Battered Wife Syndrome Exist?
The syndrome does not even appear in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. That's the standard psychiatric health reference book in the U.S. The term is the subject of some debate in legal and psychiatric circles.
Benzie County's prosecutor, John Daugherty, has asked the judge to throw out the entire defense. He calls such expert testimony unreliable.
Daugherty has refused repeated requests for an interview about the Holbrook case.
He's expected to call witnesses' and relatives of Melvin Holbrook who describe him as a gentleman who wouldn't hurt anyone.
Joni Holbrook's murder trial is scheduled to commence July 7th.