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This girl is sentenced to 51 years in jail for killing her rapist

By Newsd
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This girl is sentenced to 51 years in jail for killing her rapist

For many of us Cyntoia Brown isn’t a household name. She is an American girl who was sentenced to jail for life for killing her rapist when she was 16. The reality show star, Kim Kardashian is not known for being an activist, but she used her influence to try and sway Cyntoia’s case by getting her a Presidential pardon from Donald Trump. Today, Cyntoia, who is a black woman (and therefore even more marginalised by virtue of being a woman of colour) was sentenced by the Supreme Court to an additional 39 years in jail, even though she has been serving her sentence since the age of 16.

For a little perspective one should take into account that an adult Brock Turner, who had the benefit of being a white male and extremely wealthy Stanford student, got sentenced to a ludicrous three months in prison for raping an unconscious girl. What’s more is that his friends and family pleaded that since he was a star student and an athlete, he should have been pardoned. We speak of the People V. Turner case, because it is the only other case of sexual violence in America that was as highly-publicised as this. Cyntoia got a life sentence for killing her rapist as a teenage girl, trying to defend herself from a man who was reaching for a gun to shoot her. Do we even need to ask ourselves if society, and the justice system overall, is fair to those socio-economically backward?

This girl is sentenced to 51 years in jail for killing her rapist

During her trial, Brown mentioned that her 24-year-old “boyfriend” was a pimp. She used to live with him as an underage sex worker, and made a living as a prostitute. Her domestic life involved being coerced for sex, threatened, and beaten–all as a teen. One day, she was picked up by a 43-year-old man who wanted to have sex with her–which is rape, considering she was a minor prostituted under great duress by a man who was 8 years her senior. In 2004, she was tried as an adult for killing Allen. She said she shot him because she feared he was going to kill her. During the trial, she said there was always a gun pointed on her during her captivity. She said she was hit, choked and dragged. She feared for her own life, and she acted out of that fear.

It didn’t matter. A jury convicted the then-16-year-old to life in prison. Under the then-Tennessee law, she would only be eligible for release after serving 51 years of her sentence.

While due process is important for everyone, the sheer injustice here is that she was tried as an adult and convicted of first-degree murder AND felony murder–and then was sentenced to a life in prison. She will now be eligible for parole at the age of 69. Turner, in contrast, was given a three-month sentence because it would “ruin his life.”

This girl is sentenced to 51 years in jail for killing her rapist

Clearly showing the system’s perception of how valuable a man’s life and future is vis a vis a woman’s–this vast discrepancy in the enormous benefit of doubt we give to white men is also racist. A black girl, who was already trapped in a cycle of poverty and violence, was seen by the justice system as a woman whose life and youth are of no consequence–as if she doesn’t deserve a fresh start from a life of oppression. Brock Turner, who had every privilege in terms of gender, race, education, and even finances, was seen as someone more deserving of kindness. Why?

Cyntoia Brown, quoting a 2012 Supreme Court ruling about mandatory life sentences for juveniles without the possibility of parole being unconstitutional, said the prison time she was given is “cruel and unusual.”The Tennessee Supreme Court ruled in that case Thursday and in a unanimous decision, the five justices said Brown would indeed have to complete 51 years of her sentence before she is eligible for release, CNN reports.

Despite celebrities like Rihanna and Kim K batting for her, it’s clear the scales are tipped in the favour of men–especially the men at the top of the ladder. Men all across the globe have the laws in their favour and it makes the need for taking into account the importance of intersectionality in our battles. We, as brown women, need to fight for black women and pass them the mic because society clearly doesn’t give them the space. If someone is unfairly targeted because her disadvantages already rendered her vulnerable, how can we just stand by and watch her life rot away?

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