A Milwaukee woman has been jailed for 11 years for killing the man that prosecutors said had sex trafficked her as a teenager.
The sentence, issued on Monday, ends a six-year legal battle for Chrystul Kizer, now 24, who had argued she should be immune from prosecution.
Kizer was charged with reckless homicide for shooting Randall Volar, 34, in 2018 when she was 17. She accepted a plea deal earlier this year to avoid a life sentence.
Volar had been filming his sexual abuse of Kizer for more than a year before he was killed.
Kizer said she met Volar when she was 16, and that the man sexually assaulted her while giving her cash and gifts. She said he also made money by selling her to other men for sex.
To preface, I am not defending the police or the piece of shit abuser. This was handled extraordinarily horrendously. Police even knew about the guy’s crimes and let him off without a slap on the wrist.
The basis of my thoughts comes from this paragraph in the article:
I don’t know any info beyond what the article gives, but it sounds like at that point she wasn’t being held captive and murdered to get away from her abuser. She actively plotted and had the freedom to travel and kill him. Unless there’s something I’m missing, I don’t think I could consider this as actively being self defense.
No but it was deserved justice for a crime that was going unpunished
Do we really want vigilantism though? Because that’s where this leads.
Maybe the police should do their job for a change.
Not defending the cops here but the guy was arrested. The justice system set him free again.
Fair enough, the courts didn’t do thier job. The courts and the police work for us. If they fail us, we have to take over. That should be the defense.
You literally just described vigilante justice.
Yes, I did. Sadly, it’s time.
Just a thought: what happens when that “we” is people who - say - think the courts and the police are not doing their job in sending home all “these illegal immigrants” or something like that?
The slope isn’t always slippery.
This is not even a slope, it is the application of the same principle applied by people who have different views and morality.
Edit: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Categorical_imperative
That is supposed to be the motivation for the system to do it’s job… preventing groups with minority opinions from taking matters into thier own hands. But that doesn’t seem to be enough anymore. I don’t suggest this path because it is a good choice. It’s a horrible choice. Innocent people will be hurt or killed for sure. But that is already happening in larger and larger numbers from the systems inaction. And the cost of inaction is past the tipping point with the cost of action. And I see no other choice. But I am open to suggestions.
Then we have a nice little civil war again, kill a few million of them, and this time when they surrender for the second time, we do a hard reset of their entire culture - no monuments, no statues, no memorials, no representation or voting for any of them or any who aided or abetted them, or their children, or their children’s children.
Right, violence works usually works to eradicate ideas and standardize morality!
Which is true, and also doesn’t address the point. (Also, obligatory ACAB.)
The problem with vigilantism is that the vigilante both decides whether an offense has been committed, and what the punishment should be for that offense. If I’ve been hit repeatedly by people speeding in my neighborhood, and cops aren’t giving the speeders tickets, no one in their right mind is going to say that I should start shooting at people driving in my neighborhood. (Or, I would hope no one in their right mind would say that.)
She knew whether an offense had been committed.
That doesn’t prove it to anyone else, of course, but it doesn’t seem like anyone is (now?) contesting the the offense in question was committed. Just that he got off free and she had no recourse. This is not a one time event, either, it’s a pattern where the law fails to protect people in this situation and then throws the book at them if they take matters into their own hands. If she had not, do you think this dude would still be free? Or would the law have eventually caught up to him, after who knows how many more victims?
You don’t get a license to kill just because the justice system failed you. I’m loving how everyone is screaming about how bad the justice system is with this case yet they think a bunch of pissed off ppl thirsty for revenge is a somehow the more measured and practical solution.
What if after she set the house on fire it burned down the whole block? What if the guy had a victim in the house with him when it happened? Another person pointed out she could’ve destroyed evidence from other victims. Two wrongs don’t make a right
I’m not saying it’s more measured or practical, I’m saying it’s inevitable when the system doesn’t serve the people. I’m saying chaos is preferable to tyranny.
Even if she didn’t harm any other people - the criminal justice system in the US doesn’t allow for the death penalty for cases of rape. (And in point of fact, part of the reason that we don’t do that any more is because it tended to be disproportionately applied against black men accused of assaulting white women.)
There’s still answers out there that are “more right” than others.
Jill, what do you think the price of this bag of rice is? $8.50? Unfortunately, not correct at all. Bob? The 1950s Hall of Rock and Roll on VHS? That’s a thoroughly nonsensical answer that barely even respects the question! The answer was $11.
Sentencing judge, what do you think this man’s punishment for rape should be? Nothing? Oh, wow, that’s a very obviously wrong answer! Vigilante, your go. Well, we were looking for “A life sentence with chance of parole after 30 years”, but I will say, “Shoot him in the head” is closer to correct.
I feel like some people there’s a “magic light” applied to courtrooms with judges, that makes their judgments more fair by implication. But it’s absolutely possible for three people in lawnchairs discussing matters over beer to make a more fair judgment than some judges.
That’s certainly true if “fair” in your view isn’t the same thing as, “consistent with the law and precedent”.
Let me pose this a slightly different way: a person murders a baby. Should the person be arrested? Should they be tried for murder? Should they be executed? What if the ‘baby’ is actually an 8 week old fetus, and the person is a doctor performing a legal elective abortion? Religious zealots and right-wing misogynists are going to argue that killing the doctor is morally justified and “fair”. Should each person get to apply their own moral code?
This isn’t a case of fighting moral codes. This is a case of battles of safety.
There are many issues of safety that affect all people, including food safety, mental safety, economic safety. All of those have resulted in court battles, as well as court failures. Safety from violence is the basic one, and people will often need to make their decisions around it on a faster basis than courts can proceed.
That’s the practical analysis, rather than the idealistic view where every single disagreement of any kind would receive a protracted court debate with all evidence present.
People are all capable of in-the-moment vigilantism (heck, most murderers feel this way). Society can still evaluate their cases afterwards to say whether they were warranted or not. I argue people should feel some safety from repercussions if society can agree their actions demanded some form of immediacy beyond what courts could provide, and did something good for society or were necessary for their own safety.
A zealot would get no such votes unless they were given a jury of their fellow zealots, and if that’s possible then I can think of no fair justice system in such a society.
Anti-choice zealots argue precisely this: they are protecting babies from premeditated violence.
It’s not what I believe. But it’s the justification that they use to bomb reproductive clinics and murder OBGYNs.
That’s the risk we run when we accept vigilante justice; we normalize it so that other people can use it for other reasons that we may or may not find morally acceptable.
Isn’t that what happened here? She was charged with murder, and she took a plea deal since it’s likely she would have lost a court case; she had no reasonable claim of being in fear for her life, and as a matter of law, her attorney wouldn’t be allowed to make the argument that her abuser/victim deserved to be killed.
We need to change the precedent so that rapists get life in prison.
Precedent can be shit too. Remember when “separate but equal” was precedent?
Ah, yes, so that rape is treated the same as murder. Which will result in more murders. Because if you go to prison for the same amount of time either way, why not go all-in an murder your victim?
Downvoted just f the ACAB. Who said it’s obligatory? Why? That one phrase that reeks of generalization, civilized society has adopted it now? If this is not what it’s supposed to mean, I am open to explanations.
The point is that the system of policing that we have now is corrupt, and doesn’t protect or help victims. We see this quite often with sexual assault, where cops flatly refuse to investigate; rape kits remain untested for decades. The “good” police officers that try to affect change from within the system end up empowering the system, or get thrown out.
So if the current system is corrupt, what are the chances for a vigilante system? Somehow less corrupt? And based on what, the goodness of those who are willing to be vigilantes? Sounds like Police v2 minus any shred of accountability or system to handle abuse cases.
I don’t support vigilantism, no, as you should clearly be able to see from the context of my other comments. I do support completely overhauling the entire criminal justice system, and largely eliminating court precedents that make police officers largely immune from prosecution for failing to perform their jobs, or for malicious actions.
When the official justice system fails people, some of them will take matters into their own hands. Frankly it’s surprising there isn’t more political violence targeting police and corrupt judges.
And remember, jury nullification exists.
ahem Yes, surprising. And, yes it does.
In this case? Absolutely yes.
Are you willing to universalize that though? Are you willing to allow all people that believe that they have been treated unjustly to take justice into their own hands?
Absolutely not.
That’s your risk though. You let this person administer their own justice, why shouldn’t someone else?
Where, exactly, is the line? How do you keep that slope from getting covered with oil and grease?
I mean you talk like it isn’t already a vigilante based system.
Everything you are arguing is already happening. Except the vigilantes are state sanctioned.
Cops pick and choose what laws to both follow AND enforce all the time. And the judges protect them.
By definition they aren’t vigilantes if they’re state-sanctioned. You can’t be both a vigilante and state sanctioned.
Yes, cops pick and choose which laws to enforce (and I’m not addressing which laws cops follow, since it’s not directly relevant here). But cops are also supposed to be disinterested parties; the idea with having cops enforcing the law rather than a person that feels wronged is that cops ar supposed to be more even-handed, even if that’s not the way that it always–or even often–works out. Accepting vigilantism means that we throw out any semblance of impartiality, and make everything subjective.
That’s not how it works.
I’d rather have vigilante justice than no justice at all.
Vigilante justice has as notoriously bad false positive rate.
So does ‘real’ justice.
Vigilante justice is orders of magnitude worse.
The theoretical extreme alternative is a society with two classes, criminals doing whatever they want and victims with no recourse.
Kinda feels like where we are now…
The proper name for them is police, not criminals, silly!
Coulda fooled me with how they behave.
The dowvotes on this one worry me.
Yeah the police don’t work so your solution is to go be even worse police? At this point, no justice at all might be better rofl.
Once he was dead, setting the house on fire had nothing to do with justice.
And easily could have put innocent people at risk if it had spread to neighboring houses.
Won’t somebody please think of the property?!
Fires can spread. Neighbors could have lost their lives.
Eh, fair point.
Man, it’s almost like house fires can both spread to other houses and also set off gas explosions that then endanger the lives of innocent neighbors.
And first responders could have died trying to search for occupants or while trying to put out the fire.
So charge her with arson, not murder.
[citation needed]
You want a citation for the house being burned not being justice? Do you think the house deserved it?
That’s essentially what happened here. She wasn’t at risk any longer and the murder was premeditated. The prosecutor did their job here as they are supposed to, and it was sentenced as it should have been according to the law.
That being said, this is really why we have pardons, and I hope one is granted in this case.
Do we know she wasn’t at risk any longer? I don’t see that in the article. Or what about this guys other victims. Are they also no longer at risk? Again, don’t see mention of that in this article
If it was a movie she would be the protagonist at least
There’s a whole season of Dexter with basically this premise
Trauma is a hell of a thing to deal with. Feeling unsafe as long as a person’s abuser walks freely, even if they are far away, is VERY common. I’d imagine if it was someone who was repeatedly abused that’d magnify the trauma response.
Not saying she didn’t murder that guy, but knowledge about the psychological effects of sexual abuse does give context to her actions. If she was feeling tortured by this unsafe feeling, like he could come back at anytime to hurt her again, and almost obesessing over it(trauma can do this to anyone) I can see why she did what she did.
It’s not like mental health care and support is widely available to people here in the US. Shit is expensive, and that’s if your insurance covers it…if you even have insurance. Add in trying to find someone who specializes in trauma care and it can get really overwhelming and discouraging. People give up on seeking help and spiral.
A lot of things could’ve prevented this. Things like easy access to mental health support, or I dunno…actually putting rapists in jail where they can’t hurt more people.
What could have prevented this is not shooting someone. Can we go around shooting all the people who wronged us in life?
Man, if I went around shooting all the people that raped and imprisoned me for years, the streets would be awash with a whole 0 gallons of blood.
Rapists could just not rape people. Seems simple right? It’s not like that rapist raped someone in self defense. It not like he raped her because he felt unsafe. He did it because he was a terrible human being.
On another note, looking at your comment history you’ve said the same thing multiple times on this article.
Why? Why are you pushing so hard on this topic? Why go so hard defending a rapist? Are you his public defender or something?
Let me save you some trouble. We don’t agree. End of story.
Have a good day sir or madam.