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.
Alright kids.
There’s this wonderful thing called “Jury Nullification”
That means if 1 juror refuses to convict then there is no conviction.
It is your privilege, right, and I daresay even duty to use this helpful tool when you deem it necessary. If you’re called for Jury Duty on a case. Let’s say non violent drug case. I don’t believe nonviolent drug offenses should be against the law at all except in the case of something really bad like Fentanyl. So if I was called I would refuse to convict if the defendant was there for let’s say Mary Jane.
But don’t ever say those words. Don’t allude to it. Don’t discuss it with your fellow jurors. Don’t Google it after you’ve been called. It’s your secret. But it’s a secret everyone should know if you get my meaning.
Now go forth and make the world a better place.
One juror refusing to convict is a hung jury and a mistrial, which prosecutors will then retry.
Jury nullification would require a unanimous vote to acquit.
I just posted this somewhere else but it belongs here…
It’s a jury’s job to find a defendant guilty or not guilty of a given charge.
When a jury starts considering whether they feel a charge is fair, they’re pretty much just making up the law. At that point you don’t need a court and a jury you could just have a bunch of people deciding the defendants fate based on the vibe.
When you say they “don’t want jurors to know”, they simply want jurors who understand their role in finding a defendant guilty or not guilty. Thinking that nullification is a possible outcome is tantamount to a refusal to fulfil the role of a juror.
Tell that to those abolitionists who were not convicted of harboring fugitive slaves because of jury nullification.
Sometimes laws aren’t just. And as citizens we have a right to stand up to unjust laws.
as citizens we have a right to stand up to unjust laws.
Correct, but that is not the function of a jury.
Why do we have a jury to decide if a defendant is guilty or not guilty when a judge is trained to do the same thing? Why do we allow a jury at all? I think there’s more to the function of the jury than just guilty/not guilty or else they would be replaced with a different system.
I’m getting weary of repeating myself.
It is very clearly not the role of a judge to decide whether a defendant is guilty or not guilty. They are not “trained” to do that. That is the role of the jury. Hence the phrase “you have been found guilty by a jury of your peers”.
You have a jury to balance the power of the judge, such that a judge can not simply dole out “justice”.
Defendants can elect to have a jury trial. If they don’t have a jury trial, who finds them guilty or not guilty? Is it the judge? If it’s the judge, why do we allow jury trials to occur when every trial could be determined by a justice of the peace?
What is “training” if not education in the laws and legal system? Are judges not educated in law school before becoming lawyers and then justices? Is this irl experience not also considered training?
Honestly I’m not really sure what you’re talking about.
The role of a judge and the role of a jury is a fundamental characteristic of a court. You seem to be mixing them up?
That is exactly a function of a jury.
The function of a jury is to find the defendant guilty or not guilty of the charges against them. There is no “we feel sad for the defendant” option.
Whether a jury feels a charge is fair is the whole reason trial by a jury of peers exists.
It’s a feature of the system, not a bug.
This is patently false.
It might feel like a nice idea to have a jury sitting around thinking about what the fairest outcome might be but that is simply not their role.
A jury’s sole job is to determine whether a defendant is guilty of the charges against them.
If it was a jury’s job to decide on fairness she would’ve gone to trial rather than taking the deal.
I don’t think her decision to take the deal took into account whether jury nullification exists or not. The way you explained it sounds like retrocausality, though I don’t know if that’s the way you meant it.
Jury nullification isn’t about fair outcomes, I should clarify, but about whether the law itself is lawful, representative of the people, or applied lawfully. Maybe that fits into the definition of fair I had in mind, but I was thinking on it more objectively, not subjectively.
There are proponents and opponents within the United States, true, but if a legal system does not permit punishment of jurors, then jury nullification is a logical byproduct of the system. And an important one I would argue. It fits into why trials by jury are important in a democratic legal system - the people have the final say, whether they realize it or not.
Jury nullification doesn’t exist as an intended option to be afforded Jurors.
Judges instruct jurors to find defendants guilty or not guilty, there is no third “nullification” option.
Jury Nullification is the name given to this type of frustrated process. A jury unanimously declaring a defendant not-guilty of charges they know them to be guilty of is a perversion of their function.
In a democratic legal system, the people elect governments to make the laws, police enforce the laws and judges apply those laws. There is no “juries ultimately decide based on the vibe” part of democracy.
I get what you’re saying, and yet it exists and a term exists for it.
I know there’s no “nullification” verdict and the binary guilty/not guilty are the only recognized options, but nullification is used to describe the not guilty verdict despite any charges and evidence in a trial, which I’m sure you understand.
The whole reason? Certainly not. The jury instructions themselves prove otherwise.
Part of the reason? Possible.
She took a plea deal. No jury.
Good kill. Still murder. She is not a threat to society though…so…11years hardly-enforced house arrest might be more fitting.
eh, I’d call it some gene pool chlorination.
Wait like… Him being removed from the pool or her?
Him, obviously.
Ok good
Some people are genetically flawed and should be killed? I think I heard that somewhere before…
Fuck that, give her a medal and a therapist and send her on her way. Killing this guy was not a crime it was community service.
This is fucking infuriating.
This is a failure on her attorney to make a good case. There is no way a normal person votes to convict here. There has to be something we’re missing as to why they agreed to a guilty charge.
There has to be something we’re missing as to why they agreed to a guilty charge.
You and all the commenters in this thread not doing a single moment of research before commenting is what is missing.
Thank you fuzzy. You comment was as worthless as the moment you spent typing it.
You’re welcome! Sorry I can’t jump on the premeditated vigilante murder normalization train, looks fun!
Nobody said normalize it. This is an extreme case where the punishment doesn’t fit the crime. Yes she’s a murderer. She killed a serial child rapist. She deserves some leniency. I guarantee your world view would be different if you were a victim.
The world isn’t black and white.
She actively plotted and traveled to get revenge and clearly didn’t act in self defense. While it’s easy to be sympathetic to her story, her guilt seems difficult to deny.
This is a classic case of the differences between lawful good, lawful neutral, and neutral good.
Lawful good would feel conflicted but settle on conviction, because it was premeditated and not self defense.
Lawful neutral would convict and feel no conflict at all. The law was broken, nothing else matters.
Neutral good would not convict, because they don’t think the law adequately handles this kind of situation.
The problem is, within the legal system, neutral good is seldom an option – by definition it’s going to be some kind of lawful. And that sucks here.
This:
Police said that Kizer travelled from Milwaukee to Volar’s home in Kenosha in June 2018 armed with a gun. She shot him twice in the head, set his house on fire and took his car.
Whatever we think about this guy, it still was a murder.
Ehhh it was a nice murder.
*chef’s kiss*
Oddly applicable
“Four months before Volar died, police arrested him on charges of sexual assault but released him the same day.”
Yeah maybe we are not told about how corrupt police is.
deleted by creator
She wasn’t in any danger, so it wasn’t self defense. She grabbed a gun, got in a car, drove 40 miles to a completely different city, shot the dude twice, set his house on fire, and stole his car. It’s an open and shut case, so the jury would have to ignore all evidence to say she is not guilty (which some jurors might do because the murder feels justified).
As happy as I am about his death, this is vigilante justice. She committed premeditated murder, acting as the judge, jury, and executioner. I do not want cops to have that freedom and don’t want normal people to have it, either.
This seems like a situation where maybe her mental health should be considered a factor?
It’s not like she killed him for no reason/little reason. Premeditated on her end or not - she was abused and tortured by this man.
And the police let him go.
So yeah I’d argue she was and continues to be done dirty by the system.
Probably, but the system is also slow and we don’t know what would have happened
We know what did happen. The system let a known predator back on the street. If he didn’t abuse her again it would be someone else. That’s good enough justification for her actions for me.
I don’t know how easily I’d agree that it wasn’t self defense. If it were me, knowing someone is out there that feels vengeful towards me, and that the law has failed to challenge, does not feel like a safe situation, even if I’m not physically locked at their address.
It doesn’t seem like a very reliable plan to wait until he’s broken into your house and disabled your alarm before vigilantly grabbing your gun in time and defending yourself from him. The element of surprise is a far safer approach.
Do we know she wasn’t in danger? Just because she wasn’t in immediate danger doesn’t mean she wasn’t fearing for her life
I wonder if she was coerced to do so under false pretenses. But I also saw others in the comments point out that it looked more like a premediated murder than a self defense one since she apparently went to his house to kill him, so she was not held against her will at the point of the murder.
She was free from him and sought him out. She drove from Milwaukee to Kenosha, shot him twice in the head, set his house on fire, and stole his car. It was premeditated murder.
She probably felt she had to take the deal. Most likely pressured by the cops/her shitty attorney.
This. Court appointed attorney will always push you to take the deal, they’re so overworked, going to court is an absolute last resort. And a private attorney is unaffordable to most people.
The guy was criminal scumbag that deserved justice, for sure.
But after she was free at him, she came back with clear premeditation then burned the house to hide evidence. If not for the circumstances of her abuse, she’d likely get a much worse charge
She accepted a plea deal. No trial no jury.
Trials are expensive and she clearly didn’t have money to spend in her own defense.
Sounds like it was a reasonably high profile case, and some kind of test case. I suspect she could’ve secured a great pro-bono lawyer.
Would you bet your entire life on that?
No, I don’t think I would.
I don’t really know that much about the case and the likelihood of a favourable outcome. Chrystul does, and she decided to take the deal, so I probably would too.
I’m simply saying that she could’ve mounted a defence at trial if she chose to do so.
Its not.a test case though, people have murdered those that wronged them before, it’s still.murder.
This is from the article:
Kizer’s case had tested the leniency granted to victims of sex trafficking. Some states have implemented laws - called “affirmative defence” provisions - that protect victims from some charges including prostitution or theft, if those actions were the result of being trafficked.
Kizer had tested whether an “affirmative defence” for trafficking victims could be used for homicide. In 2022, the Wisconsin Supreme Court ruled she could.
The ruling allowed Kizer to use evidence to demonstrate her abuse at the time of the crime. The case attracted widespread attention and Kizer received support from activists in the #MeToo movement.
i don’t understand how incredulous people are in the comments. is this your first time hearing any news? he was white.
Imagine if the races were reversed how much hysteria there would be nationally. If an older black man seduced and sold a white teenage girl into sex slavery.
I fucking hate our culture
You’re being down voted but you’re so right. Had little jessica murdered a person of color for trafficing her i doubt shed face any jail time. Honestly i wouldnt be suprised if little ole jessica were to shot a completely random person of color and still not face jail time.
The solution is making “black lives matter” more before they are taken, so that people of color would have bigger economic and social power.
That’s how these things work, humans are ultimately apes, this doesn’t happen very consciously.
Time for some Shawshank redemption shit
Lemmy now supports not only the death penalty but death penalty without a trial.
Wanting someone who killed in desparation in well-known and very extenuous circumstances a lighter punishment in no way condones the crime.
Many think the justice system should prioritize rehabilitation, not retribution.
Instead of fixing people, retribution just breaks them even further, making it more likely they’ll commit a crime in the future, oftentimes because they’re forced to by circumstances they find themselves in when (if) they’re finally set free.
If somebody goes to the zoo, jumps in the lion pit, and throws rocks at a lion, I imagine a lot of people wouldn’t “wish the death penalty on him for his sheer offence” when he’s pulled out of the enclosure. However, I also imagine many people would feel unsympathetic if said person happened to die at the lion’s jaws, nor wish for the lion to be punished.
Best outcome she could have is she could get early parole, or serve some years of her sentence while the rest is suspended. There have been cases before of victims killing their captors/traffickers and received long term prison sentence, but were later paroled or their sentence had been reduced or commuted to something more lenient.
No its absolutely not. The best and only just outcome would have been acquittal via nullification by the jury.
She took a plea deal to avoid life sentence. Only hope is parole or a pardon.
I am outraged, a plea deal to avoid life imprisonment? What the fuck did I just read?!
This guy trafficked, raped and tortured her, and other underage women. Police did jack shit. And she was supposed to be watching him just walk away? Grotesque.
Who is the f’ing prosecutor?
Someone who understands she was free from the person who was trafficking her and she sought them out and killed them. Yeah it’s glorious justice on the big screen but in the actual legal system this is vigilante justice.
In my state under the Castle Act or whatever it’s called, someone can break into your house, threaten you and your family’s life but until you prove your ability to flee was prevented physically you cannot fire a weapon for protection regardless of intent to scare, injure or kill.
That is the framework used by our legal system to prosecute cases of self defense. You as a citizen cannot take the law into your own hands like the defendant did. No matter how justified it may seem.
I don’t understand why she wasn’t tried as a minor
Most 17 year olds charge with murder, or some variation of killing someone, aren’t charged as minors. That’s not taking a position on this specific case, it’s just a fact.
They need to re-evaluate that especially in cases where somebody has been robbed of years of development like this one
Totally agree. Mitigating circumstances, absolutely. Self defense, nope. There should be some punishment. What that should be, I do not know.
Any jailtime is ridiculous. She’s been in prison for 8 years. The judge had a chance to try and rebuild her life, but they gave her punishment for getting trapped in a bad situation. What’s the issue, does the judge think she’s going to go out and start shooting other rapists and traffickers?
If this was how my cards were dealt, I would likely make it my life’s mission.
This country certainly goes all in for cruel and unusual punishment.
Well the very act of shooting someone in the head twice, burning their home down, and stealing their car is cruel and unusual punishment.
Despite what everyone in the comments seems to think you’re not legally protected from going John Wick on someone regardless of how much they’ve wronged you or if the system failed you.
They were dead when they got shot in the head, everything else is largely unrelated to the punishment in my opinion its just cathartic. She couldve done far far worse to him than a quick execution, id have probably ripped out his nails and teeth and then killed him with a power washer via the worst enema.
Mutilating a corpse is also grounds for worse punishment.
However she chose burning down the house to hide the evidence no matter how much sympathy we have for the victim, it’s hard to get past that she was free, she showed premeditation, she drove a considerable distance to find him, she murdered him, and she attempted to hide evidence.
What part of not cruel and unusual punishment since ya cant punish the dead are ya not getting. Im only addressing that element not the rest of the shit, improper handling of a corpse, grand theft auto, and arson are their own charges.
Id have cut off his dick and made him choke to death on it.
What if the house fire she set caused other houses to catch on fire and kill the families living there?
There’s an argument for her going to jail for arson if anything.
Thats actually valid, I was simply pointing out that its just not adding to the cruel and unusual punishment element.
You don’t believe the state destroying all of someones possessions after conviction then death doesn’t add to cruel and unusual punishment?
The guy raped several children and sex trafficked them.
I’m of the opinion this girl did the world a favor. There is no rehabbing sex pests
This is a good point. Prison is supposed to be rehabilitation. But how can you rehabilitate someone who has run out of targets. Plus if she has been in 8 years as you say. Time served. I am guessing she had a public defender who gave her bad advice.
What’s the issue, does the judge think she’s going to go out and start shooting other rapists and traffickers?
The issue is that the patriarchy must uphold rape culture, and that the absence of justice for rape survivors is a feature of that, not a bug, and the courts can’t have that power taken away from them.
That’s the bottom line, yeah.
Could it be the judge more cares about being the one to impose sentences and doesn’t like others doing it?
Like, it’s easy to see this same decision happening even in a non-patriarchal context - at least for me.
I don’t think the judge did have that chance if I’m honest.
Despite her understandable motive, the fact is that she murdered the guy.
I think it would be easy to prove that she suffered a mental break at most and get mental help instead of jail.
This is a shitty corrupt judge in a shitty corrupt system.
I’m certain that even the worst lawyer in history would have considered this angle if it were viable.
I dont know how it could be argued anyone was in their right mind after going through what she went through.
Obviously she wasn’t in her “right mind” but that doesn’t mean she had no capacity to understand that killing someone is murder.
Or she decided to end the threat to her before he hurt her again. Self defense is generally not considered murder and rapists get, what, 5 years in prison in this country then go on to rape more? If convicted at all?
I can easily see where she felt like she had no other choice.
This is exactly what jury nullification is for
With or without a jury, the inescapable fact is that she murdered him.
Right, that’s my point – jury nullification is the mechanism by which juries find that a crime was committed by the letter of the law but the defendent is not guilty.
Interesting. I’d never heard of this.
A quick read of this wikipedia article makes it sound very sovereign citizen.
This part is particularly salient:
…by clearly stating to the jury that they may disregard the law, telling them that they may decide according to their prejudices or consciences (for there is no check to ensure that the judgment is based upon conscience rather than prejudice), we would indeed be negating the rule of law in favor of the rule of lawlessness. This should not be allowed.
Basically, a jury’s one job is to determine whether, based on the facts, a person committed a crime. “Jury Nullification” is a perversion of that role. It may be “just” but it’s not justice.
If Jury Nullification is a thing, then essentially juries can decide the law in any given case. What’s the point of laws? You could just have public kangaroo courts where citizens decide the fate of the accused based on the vibe.
Your summary seems to imply that whatever happens to currently be written into law is considered “justice”. But we’ve always known that the law is not perfect and needs constant corrections for true fairness.
Jurors, laws, judges, witnesses, none of them are perfect. Each has stoked fears that they will overpower the rights of the others. Courts do their best to have each balancing the power of the other.
If Jury Nullification is a thing, then essentially juries can decide the law in any given case. What’s the point of laws? You could just have public kangaroo courts where citizens decide the fate of the accused based on the vibe.
That’s basically what white juries have been doing for the KKK since Reconstruction. One reasonable argument for nullification is that dishonest jurors will just vote “not guilty” anyways and aren’t required to justify their reasoning. So nullification tips the scales to give honest jurors the same power to acquit a woman who didn’t do anything morally wrong.
If the races involved were reversed, she’d be walking free.
Sov Cits try to use it all the time but it usually doesn’t work for them.
However it has been used to prevent convictions for unfair laws in the past. Juries used to use it to prevent people who harbored escaping slaves from being convicted for example.
I don’t have experience with it personally, only heard about it from a possibility perspective – apparently prosecutors do a very thorough job screening jurors to make sure that never happens. Just knowing about jury nullification can get you dismissed. I don’t think you’re off the mark with that read, but where I think it comes back from kangaroo court and sov cit land is all jurors have to agree, even one objection to a nullification would stop it; if twelve strangers all agree, there’s probably some merit to it. But, certainly can be abused in the wrong hands.
Wouldn’t the judge then be in the line of fire, technically, as well as those that own him?
I feel like, if this was Texas… there would be no punishment for her. She was severely wronged and he was clearly a danger to society. He had multiple victims. The police had evidence and released him. If he had been in jail, if he had been in custody and not roaming around free, he’d still be alive if that was oh, so fucking important.
I’m going to say it louder for the people in the back. They found proof of multiple victims. They knew he did it, he was let go. The “legal” system failed not only Chrystul, but the surrounding community.
Texas!? She is a poc… She would probably be on death row!
The “legal” system failed not only Chrystul, but the surrounding community.
Excellent grounds to start a lawsuit. Not a murder, though.
Fucking disgraceful.
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Ide like to see Kamala start by pardoning this. Never going to happen but what a message it would send
State crime not federal. The Governor of Wisconsin, Tony Evers, would be the one to pardon her.
Ahh boo. But thanks for the correction
Biden could pardon her
Oooo, good idea.
False
It was just a shot in the dark, I have no idea about the laws preventing or allowing such a thing. I thought he could tie it in to boost support, but apparently it’s a non-issue
That’s ok. I do wish that for every time someone runs a political ad, someone else would run messaging about how this stuff actually works, because it isn’t really well covered.
Heh, “journalism”
Only if she was prosecuted for a federal crime. IANAL, and I have no idea if this was federal or state, but the president doesn’t have pardon power over the state, only the federal government.
Can the a state governor pardon her?
Yes, Tony Evers could pardon her if he chooses.
Unfortunately inside Wisconsin it would likely be career suicide with an adverse impact on the general election.
Yeah I can’t speak to that, but I believe it.
its always like “man gets upset, kills somebody, 2 years”
“woman abused for years, kills him, 10 years”
