No Good Deed Goes Unpunished

File this under "Mandatory Sentencing Bad".

HARLAN, Iowa (AP) A woman who shot her abusive husband, then left his body in their home for more than a year, was sentenced Monday to 50 years in prison by a judge who said the mandatory sentence was unjust.

Unjust? Man, that's the understatement of the year.

Smith said Shanahan shot her husband, Scott, after suffering 18 years of abuse. "No human should have to put up with that," the judge said.
[snip]
Shanahan claimed she acted in self-defense when she killed her husband at the end of three days of beatings. She said he was angry because she was pregnant with their third child and refused to get an abortion.

But prosecutors said Scott Shanahan had gone back to bed and was not an immediate threat when he was killed.

These prosecutors need to be publicly hung from their nutsacks. After THREE days of beatings, the asshole lies down to go to sleep (hey, wife-beating can take a lot out of a guy). If this was the woman's only window of opportunity for taking him out, than by all means, she should have acted on it. I don't care if the guy's on the can taking a dump, or passed out cold in a Wild Turkey-induced coma - eighteen years of systematic beating qualifies as a 24-hour immediate threat in my book.

I think it's safe to say, that once this scumbag was well-rested, he'd go right back to beating the snot out of her. The prosecutors of this case would rather have her wait patiently for him to wake up and resume pummeling her before defending herself from this animal. Sick fuckers. Pardon my language, but this pisses me off. If someone is shooting at you, would you not be allowed to shoot back between shots? How about while your attacker is reloading? After all, he's busy loading his gun, and not an immediate threat.

Dixie Shanahan initially told police that her husband left her, but his skeletal remains were found in a spare bedroom more than a year later.

Um...OK, maybe that wasn't the smartest move on her part.