Canada
In 1911 in Sault Ste. Marie, Angelina Napolitano, a 28-year-old, pregnant immigrant, killed her abusive husband Pietro with an axe after he tried to force her into prostitution. She confessed and was sentenced to hang after a brief trial, but during the delay before the sentence was carried out (a delay necessary to allow her to give birth to her child), a public campaign for her release began. Napolitano’s supporters argued that the judge in the case had been wrong to throw out evidence of her long-standing abuse at Pietro’s hands (including an incident five months before when he stabbed her nine times with a pocket knife). The federal cabinet eventually commuted her sentence to life imprisonment. She was the first woman in Canada to use the battered woman defense on a murder charge.
The Supreme Court of Canada set a precedent for the use of the battered women defence in the 1990 case of R. v. Lavallee.
Read more about this topic: Battered Woman Defense
Famous quotes containing the word canada:
“I do not consider divorce an evil by any means. It is just as much a refuge for women married to brutal men as Canada was to the slaves of brutal masters.”
—Susan B. Anthony (1820–1906)
“Though the words Canada East on the map stretch over many rivers and lakes and unexplored wildernesses, the actual Canada, which might be the colored portion of the map, is but a little clearing on the banks of the river, which one of those syllables would more than cover.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“I fear that I have not got much to say about Canada, not having seen much; what I got by going to Canada was a cold.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)