A new Netflix documentary recounts the case of Brittany Smith, an Alabama woman who claimed self-defense in the fatal shooting of a man she said raped her and attacked her brother.
attention and raised questions about how abused women are treated in the Alabama criminal justice system.Brittany testified that Todd Smith had raped and choked her hours before the deadly shooting in Stevenson, Ala. on Jan. 16, 2018. And a nurse testified that a sexual assault exam performed after the shooting found more than 30 injuries on Brittany’s neck, chest, breast, legs, arms and feet.
Smith argued that she killed Todd Smith in defense of herself and her brother, Chris McCallie. She testified that when her brother came over to confront Todd about the rape, the men fought. She told a judge that she fatally shot Todd while he held her brother in a headlock and threatened to kill them all.
“I did what I thought I had to do,” Brittany Smith says in the trailer for the documentary. “Because if I wouldn’t have, my brother and I both would be dead.” Holt denied Brittany’s request for immunity from prosecution under Alabama’s self-defense law, saying she had not proven that the killing was legally justified.
That decision set off a series of appeals. Brittany and her lawyers unsuccessfully urged the Alabama Court of Criminal Appeals and the state’s Supreme Court to overturn Holt’s Stand Your Ground ruling. The defense also lost appeals to have Holt removed from the case, alleging she was biased against Brittany. The judgeUltimately, Brittany Smith accepted a plea deal sentencing her to time served and was released from jail.by participating in her children’s Trunk-or-Treat event in Stevenson.
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