Brittany Smith Killed Her Rapist And May Spend Life In Prison

Back in December 2017, Brittany Smith was separated from her husband. She felt lonely and told her mother she wanted to get a puppy. Joshua Todd Smith—no relation—who goes by Todd, whom Brittany had known casually, bred Pitbulls and was selling two dogs. When they messaged each over Facebook about the dog, Todd began making romantic advances that Brittany did not reciprocate. In January 2018, Brittany went to Todd’s home and bought a dog.

The next day, Todd texted Brittany saying he was stranded in a park and asked her for help. Chris McCallie, Brittany’s brother, drove her to pick Todd up and she let him sleep on her couch that night. Todd asked why she wasn’t interested in him and she said she “never saw him that way.” He called her a bitch and chased her to her bedroom, where he proceeded to choke her until she passed out; she awoke to find him attacking her again.

After Todd raped Brittany, he told her that he would kill her and her family if she told anyone or called 911. He then asked for cigarettes and Brittany had Chris, who lived with their mother down the road, drive them to a nearby convenience store. There, while Todd stayed in the car with Chris, Brittany slipped a note to the cashier, Paige Painter, that said if she was found dead, it was Todd Smith who killed her.

After leaving the store, Chris dropped Brittany and Todd off at her house. Brittany hadn’t told Chris what happened to her but did ask him to return to the store and talk with the cashier. She also texted her mother:

“Mom Todd has tried to kill me literally. Don’t act like anything is wrong…he will kill me if he knows. Call Mapco and ask for Paige.”

Minutes later, after speaking to the store clerk, Chris arrived at his sister Brittany’s home armed with a pistol. Once inside, Chris says he set his gun on the counter and told Todd, who Brittany finally admitted had raped her earlier that night, to leave. Instead, Chris and Brittany say Todd put Chris in a headlock and began punching him. Brittany grabbed the gun and told Todd she was going to shoot; when he did not let Chris go, Brittany fired once, though she wasn’t sure the bullet hit him. Todd continued to beat Chris, and Brittany fired several more times, until Todd fell to the floor. Brittany called 911 and Todd was rushed to the hospital, where he was pronounced dead.

Brittany told the Jackson County Sheriff’s Department that Todd became violent after she agreed to let him sleep on her couch that night. She said Todd raped her twice that night, at one point knocking her unconscious. A rape crisis center report describes 33 wounds on Brittany’s body, including bite marks on her neck and chin. A toxicology report found that Todd had methamphetamine and alcohol in his system.

The trouble for Brittany began when Chris investigators he shot Todd, and then the next day Brittany said she was responsible for his death.

Brittany Smith was arrested for murder.

After her arrest, Brittany had a nervous breakdown at the Jackson County Jail. Her mother said that Brittany’s mental health quickly declined because she did not receive proper treatment for the PTSD [post-traumatic stress disorder] she had been diagnosed with after the rape. 

Brittany spent over two months in jail, and four months in a mental institution. Finally, she was appointed an attorney by the state named James Mick, who represented Brittany during a March 2018 preliminary hearing in which Alabama Circuit Court Judge Don Word heard testimony about Todd’s alleged rapes of Brittany. Judge Word, however, found that there was probable cause to charge Brittany with murder and sent the case to the grand jury where Jason Pierce, the District Attorney, obtained a murder indictment. 

During the hearing, the lead investigator for the sheriff’s department testified that the bruises on Brittany were not consistent with her statement that Todd tried to choke her to death and break her neck on the side of the bed because, he said, “Honestly, I would have thought there would be more [bruises].”

The murder indictment against Brittany Smith came despite the fact that Alabama has a ‘Stand Your Ground’, which, in Alabama, allows for the use of fatal force in several circumstances, including if a person thinks an attacker may kill them or if the attacker has kidnapped or raped someone. 

Victor Revill, an Alabama criminal defense attorney who specializes in Stand Your Ground cases, said  Brittany’s case was …

“‘Stand Your Ground’ all day. That situation is one of the reasons why this law is in place. If her brother was saving her from her kidnapper or her rapist and then kidnapper is trying to fight her brother, in her situation you have the right to defend yourself and you have the right to defend the other person as well.”

Two years after the attack, Brittany Smith finally had her ‘Stand Your Ground’ hearing and this week she lost, and now faces life in prison.

In her ruling, Judge Jenifer Holt wrote that Brittany’s use of deadly force was not demonstrably justified because she doubted that Brittany had reason to believe that Todd was about to use deadly physical force, assault, burglary, rape, or sodomy when she shot him.

Yes, she said that; despite the fact that Todd did assault Brittany—she had thirty-three wounds on her body—and despite the fact that Brittany said Todd was choking her brother when she fired the gun.

The ‘Stand Your Ground’ hearing was held in Scottsboro, Alabama—a county with double the state average of aggravated assaults per capita—and began with testimony from Jeanine Suermann, a sexual-assault nurse examiner who saw Brittany the morning after the rape.

Suermann said Brittany’s wounds were consistent with having been bitten … strangled with two hands around her neck … and assaulted with “a lot of force.” She listed bruises to Brittany’s neck, her breasts, her arms, legs, and head, and pointed out in photographs, the petechiae, the discolored patches that indicate the use of extreme pressure, along Brittany’s hairline and neck. Suermann also testified that, during the examination, Brittany described waking up “with no clothes in a puddle of urine” after having tried to fight back.

“[I] scratched him everywhere I could. He was going to kill me.”

When Jason Pierce, the DA, cast doubt on whether Brittany had actually been raped, because there was no definitive sample of Todd’s semen, Jeanine Suermann testified that said was common in sexual-assault cases.

Still, Judge Jenifer Holt cited this detail in her decision, saying that she did not believe the evidence was consistent with sexual assault. She then cited a 911 call in which Brittany said that she had not been raped, though Brittany later said she had been too ashamed to admit it.

When Jason Pierce questioned whether Brittany had truly feared for her life, pointing out that Todd had no weapon on him, she said:

“But he had his hands. His penis. His mouth. You saw the thirty-three wounds on my body.”

But there was the fact that the Chris McCallie originally told police that he’d shot Todd; he says he only did so because he believed a woman would not get a fair trial in Jackson County.

And that appears to be true. Judge Jenifer Holt wrote that her decision was influenced by the fact that Brittany had given “inconsistent accounts of the events surrounding Todd’s death.” 

Even in court, with Jeanine Suermann’s findings, and with photos of Brittany’s injuries splashed across a TV screen, it was clear that mere documentation of the violence wasn’t enough.

When Ron Smith, Brittany’s lawyer, showed a note Brittany had slipped to that store clerk that night, Judge Holt argued that Brittany had multiple opportunities to call police.

Ron Smith attempted to call witnesses to testify about Todd’s violent history, which included over eighty arrests, at least half a dozen of which were for domestic violence, against multiple women. Todd’s ex-wife, Paige Parker, says she was “beaten and raped and sodomized for years” by Todd before she got an order of protection. One witness, a woman who worked as a dispatcher for the Stevenson Police Department, testified that, in 2009, Todd had shoved her against a desk in her office and tried to tear off her shirt. A second witness, a man who grew up with Todd, told the court of the bruises he’d seen on women he believed Todd had hit.

Jason Pierce asked no questions about any of that, but he did ask that man about the necklace he wore. The man said:

“I’m into witchcraft [but] I don’t see how that’s relevant, my religion.”

Both testimonies were ultimately thrown out, after Pierce argued that bad-character evidence was not admissible.

Ron Smith asserted that Brittany’s actions were clear self-defense:

“She believed Todd Smith was going to cause serious injury to herself or her brother. He was told to leave. He did not leave. He unlawfully remained.”

In Alabama unlawfully remaining is the very definition of burglary, so Ron Smith argued that if sexual assault would not convince the judge that Todd had been a threat, perhaps an argument of burglary would.

Now, with Brittany’s ‘Stand Your Ground’ hearing denied, her lawyers will file a writ of mandamus to the Alabama Court of Criminal Appeals, a long-shot request to the court to order the judge to reverse her decision. If they lose that, they can request the same order from the Alabama Supreme Court. If she loses both, Brittany will go to trial, likely back in Jackson County, before the same judge again.

Alabama. And yet it’s not just Alabama; it’s this whole country where women, and people of color, are treated differently, and indifferently, by law enforcement and the judicial system.

A woman, with thirty-three wounds on her body, who told her mother, brother, and a stranger she was raped by a man high on drugs and alcohol, is the criminal in America.

The New Yorker

The Appeal

'Stand Your Ground' Apparently Only Applies To Non-Black People In Florida

I had a rant building in me once I heard the verdict in the Trayvon Martin case. And it grew stronger when I learned that the evidence in the case was being released and that George Zimmerman would get back his gun murder weapon. And it reached a boiling point when Robert Zimmerman, George’s brother who wants to coattail on the case for his fifteen minutes of fame, suggested to CNN that he was sorry that Trayvon Martin had ‘lost’ his life; I wanted to reach into my TV, grab Robert Zimmerman by the throat and remind him that Trayvon didn’t lose his life, his life was TAKEN by George Zimmerman. His life was taken from him.

I had a rant. I had rage. And then I heard this: 

Also down in Florida, Marissa Alexander of Jacksonville, was trying to defend herself from an abusive husband and grabbed a gun and fired warning shots inside her home to scare him away.

She was tried and, on May 19th of this year, was sentenced to twenty years in prison for doing so.

She killed no one. She was in her home. She was trying to get her abusive husband to leave by firing the gun, not at him, but near him. And she’s going to jail.

Oh yeah, Marissa Alexander is a black woman.

Alexander had hoped Florida’s "Stand Your Ground" law--which states that the victim of a crime does not have to attempt to run for safety and can immediately retaliate in self-defense--would apply to her because she was defending herself against her allegedly abusive husband when she fired warning shots inside her home in August 2010. She told police it was to escape a brutal beating by her husband, against whom she had already taken out a protective order.

Alexander was convicted of attempted murder after she rejected a plea deal for a three-year prison sentence. She said she did not believe she did anything wrong. Under Florida's mandatory minimum sentencing requirements Alexander could have received a lesser sentence, even though she has never been in trouble with the law before, but Judge Daniel said the law did not allow for extenuating or mitigating circumstances to reduce the sentence below the 20-year minimum.

Alexander was denied a new trial after appealing to the judge to reconsider her case based on Florida's controversial "Stand Your Ground" law; her attorney argued that she was clearly defending herself and should not have to spend the next two decades behind bars.

But she's going to jail.

Marissa Alexander was in her own home, trying to protect herself from a man she’d said had beaten her before, from a man whom she had a protective order against, and she fired her gun to scare him away.

And she gets twenty years.

George Zimmerman was outside his home, and saw a young black man walking down the street that he didn’t think should have been in his neighborhood. Against the advice of police—whom Zimmerman called—he followed Trayvon Martin. A scuffle ensued and George Zimmerman shot Trayvon Martin through the heart.

And he gets off.

No justice.

No peace.

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Justice Was Not Served

Michael David Dunn Killed Jordan Davis For Playing His Music Too Loudly

There are all kinds of sayings that make no sense at all, and there’s at least one that can outright drive me up a wall.

A watched pot never boils. Really? Never? Never ever boils?

All in a day's work. Um, okay. Whatever.

But the one that gets my goat--Oh yeah, That really gets my goat is another one I don't understand--is the one that goes Guns don't kill people, people kill people. It should probably be rewritten as Guns don't kill people; people use guns to kill people.

It should have been a lovely day for Michael David Dunn. He was in Jacksonville, Florida last week for his son’s wedding, when afterward he decided to stop at a convenience store with his girlfriend. He parked beside an SUV with four teenagers sitting inside, and, as teenagers are apt to do--I remember because I was a teenager once--they were playing their music very loudly.

And Michael David Dunn didn't like it. After his girlfriend went into the store, Dunn made a comment to the teenagers about their music being too loud because, you know, it's his place to tell other people how to live their lives. Well, an argument between Dunn and the teenagers ensued, and then Michael David Dunn, a gun collector, pulled out his gun and fired into the SUV between eight to nine times. 

Two shots hit and killed 17-year-old Jordan Davis.

Michael David Dunn's girlfriend came back to the car with the wine they needed and Dunn drove off, telling his girlfriend that he had “fired at these kids.” They continued on, and it wasn't until later, as they sat in their hotel room, probably drinking the wine the girlfriend had purchased while Michael David Dunn was shooting at teenagers, did they learn from a news report that someone had died during the shooting.

Naturally, as people do, Michael David Dunn, and his girlfriend, immediately checked out of their hotel room and went home.

Unluckily for this murderer, a witness to the shooting took down Dunn’s license plate number, which, on Saturday, helped police find Dunn’s house, where he was then arrested. Dunn told police officers he shot because “he felt threatened and that is the reason he took action.”

The music was too loud.

Now, how disgusting are these people? Michael David Dunn, for deciding that the best way to end an argument with argument with teenagers over their musical tastes and volume level would be to shoot at them? Or, maybe his girlfriend, who, after learning that Dunn had opened fire on kids in a parking lot, decided the best option would be happy hour back at the hotel?

Yes, those two morons are disgusting, but let’s add to the mix one Robin Lemonidis, Dunn's attorney, who issued this statement about his client:

"It will be very clear that Mr. Dunn acted very responsibly and as any responsible firearms owner would have acted under these circumstances."

He acted responsibly to the playing of loud music by pulling out a gun and shooting at people, killing a seventeen-year-old boy. This is responsible? This is how adults act? Civilized human beings? Or raging lunatics?

There is some thought that Michael David Dunn, murderer, will use that old chestnut, the Stand Your Ground Defense--much like the one used by George Zimmerman in the Trayvon Martin case, also in Florida. But, Jacksonville Attorney Gene Nichols believes that will be a tough defense to make in court:

"Mr. Dunn is going to have to answer the question, 'Why did you not call the sheriff's office? If you are reasonably protecting yourself, why did you leave the scene, get in the car, and the next day, flee the jurisdiction of Duval County?' … There's no indication that Jordan or anyone else in that car had a gun, there's no indication that they were any threat to Mr. Dunn."

This latest shooting death of unarmed teenagers by gun-toting lunatics in Florida comes just a week after a Florida task force found that the “Stand Your Ground” law is mostly fine as is and recommended only small changes.

So, I guess in Florida, if you don't like the volume of someone's music, you may consider that a threat and pull out a firearm and murder a defenseless human being.

Guns don't kill people; Michael David Dunn used a gun to kill a person.

And he needs to go to jail for a long time. And his girlfriend needs a jail cell of her own, as well.

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