About | HeinOnline Law Journal Library | HeinOnline Law Journal Library | HeinOnline
LOG IN
LOG IN

28 Hastings Women's L.J. 73 (2017)
The Principal Theory

handle is hein.journals/haswo28 and id is 86 raw text is: TWIST BLAKEMACRO.DOCX (DO NOT DELETE) 11/15/20164:08 PM The Principal Theory Jennifer Twist and Merienne Star Blake* INTRODUCTION Society has always held women to a higher standard, yet when we are victimized we become an issue. We are expected to be smarter, wiser, and more responsible, but what happens when, as victims, society turns their back on us? My friend and I write today to make society aware of women who have lost their lives due to mistakes that were driven by fear, hurt, and painful pasts. There is a judicial system that has no qualms with throwing away lives of mothers, daughters, and sisters, all on the basis of they were there. And most of the time they weren't. We are two of hundreds of women who are currently serving life sentences on a theory. It's called The Principal Theory. This theory contains and entails that being at the scene or near the scene of the crime indicates a guilty demeanor as much as the person who actually committed the crime. In our case, it was First Degree Murder, but it is used in robberies, theft, assaults and all kinds of crimes. To hand out sentences of such magnitude as if we have no chance of rehabilitation, they do not look at mitigating factors of trauma either. Theory in the dictionary is defined as Hypothesis, proposed as an explanation; reasonable guess or conjecture. So what about the mitigating factors of victimization that even leads women like us to be around the men who commit these crimes? Well, let's look at Florida's statistics. The majority of lifers without parole are women under 25.2 Seventy-five percent are the co-defendant, 85 percent * Authors Jennifer Twist and Merienne Star Blake are inmates serving life without parole at the Lowell Correctional Institute Annex in Ocala, Florida. The authors thank Hastings Women's Law Journal for helping them to spread their letters. 1. Whoever commits any criminal offense against the state, whether felony or misdemeanor, or aids, abets, counsels, hires, or otherwise procures such offense to be committed, and such offense is committed or is attempted to be committed, is a principal in the first degree and may be charged, convicted, and punished as such, whether he or she is or is not actually or constructively present at the commission of such offense. Fla. Stat. § 777.011 (emphasis added). 2. E.g., Adriana Rodriguez, eighteen years old, suffered drug abuse and physical abuse. She is serving life without parole on a Principal Theory. She was a first-time offender. Victoria Jackson, twenty-one years old, suffered drug and alcohol abuse, and sexual abuse HASTINGS WOMEN'S LAW JOURNAL I TWIST BLAKEMACROMOCX (Do NoT DELETE) 1l/15/2016 4:08PM 73

What Is HeinOnline?

HeinOnline is a subscription-based resource containing thousands of academic and legal journals from inception; complete coverage of government documents such as U.S. Statutes at Large, U.S. Code, Federal Register, Code of Federal Regulations, U.S. Reports, and much more. Documents are image-based, fully searchable PDFs with the authority of print combined with the accessibility of a user-friendly and powerful database. For more information, request a quote or trial for your organization below.



Short-term subscription options include 24 hours, 48 hours, or 1 week to HeinOnline.

Purchase Access

Contact us for annual subscription options:

Contact Us

Already a HeinOnline Subscriber?

Log In

profiles profiles most