A Milwaukee woman has been jailed for 11 years for killing the man that prosecutors said had sex trafficked her as a teenager.
The sentence, issued on Monday, ends a six-year legal battle for Chrystul Kizer, now 24, who had argued she should be immune from prosecution.
Kizer was charged with reckless homicide for shooting Randall Volar, 34, in 2018 when she was 17. She accepted a plea deal earlier this year to avoid a life sentence.
Volar had been filming his sexual abuse of Kizer for more than a year before he was killed.
Kizer said she met Volar when she was 16, and that the man sexually assaulted her while giving her cash and gifts. She said he also made money by selling her to other men for sex.
This is a failure on her attorney to make a good case. There is no way a normal person votes to convict here. There has to be something we’re missing as to why they agreed to a guilty charge.
“Four months before Volar died, police arrested him on charges of sexual assault but released him the same day.”
Yeah maybe we are not told about how corrupt police is.
Sure, the police are corrupt shitbags and the sky is blue, but that doesn’t really answer the question; why take a plea deal? No jury would convict
I wonder if she was coerced to do so under false pretenses. But I also saw others in the comments point out that it looked more like a premediated murder than a self defense one since she apparently went to his house to kill him, so she was not held against her will at the point of the murder.
She was free from him and sought him out. She drove from Milwaukee to Kenosha, shot him twice in the head, set his house on fire, and stole his car. It was premeditated murder.
She probably felt she had to take the deal. Most likely pressured by the cops/her shitty attorney.
This. Court appointed attorney will always push you to take the deal, they’re so overworked, going to court is an absolute last resort. And a private attorney is unaffordable to most people.
She wasn’t in any danger, so it wasn’t self defense. She grabbed a gun, got in a car, drove 40 miles to a completely different city, shot the dude twice, set his house on fire, and stole his car. It’s an open and shut case, so the jury would have to ignore all evidence to say she is not guilty (which some jurors might do because the murder feels justified).
As happy as I am about his death, this is vigilante justice. She committed premeditated murder, acting as the judge, jury, and executioner. I do not want cops to have that freedom and don’t want normal people to have it, either.
This seems like a situation where maybe her mental health should be considered a factor?
It’s not like she killed him for no reason/little reason. Premeditated on her end or not - she was abused and tortured by this man.
And the police let him go.
So yeah I’d argue she was and continues to be done dirty by the system.
Probably, but the system is also slow and we don’t know what would have happened
We know what did happen. The system let a known predator back on the street. If he didn’t abuse her again it would be someone else. That’s good enough justification for her actions for me.
Do we know she wasn’t in danger? Just because she wasn’t in immediate danger doesn’t mean she wasn’t fearing for her life
I don’t know how easily I’d agree that it wasn’t self defense. If it were me, knowing someone is out there that feels vengeful towards me, and that the law has failed to challenge, does not feel like a safe situation, even if I’m not physically locked at their address.
It doesn’t seem like a very reliable plan to wait until he’s broken into your house and disabled your alarm before vigilantly grabbing your gun in time and defending yourself from him. The element of surprise is a far safer approach.
She actively plotted and traveled to get revenge and clearly didn’t act in self defense. While it’s easy to be sympathetic to her story, her guilt seems difficult to deny.
This is a classic case of the differences between lawful good, lawful neutral, and neutral good.
Lawful good would feel conflicted but settle on conviction, because it was premeditated and not self defense.
Lawful neutral would convict and feel no conflict at all. The law was broken, nothing else matters.
Neutral good would not convict, because they don’t think the law adequately handles this kind of situation.
The problem is, within the legal system, neutral good is seldom an option – by definition it’s going to be some kind of lawful. And that sucks here.
This:
Police said that Kizer travelled from Milwaukee to Volar’s home in Kenosha in June 2018 armed with a gun. She shot him twice in the head, set his house on fire and took his car.
Whatever we think about this guy, it still was a murder.
Ehhh it was a nice murder.
*chef’s kiss*
Oddly applicable
She accepted a plea deal. No trial no jury.
Trials are expensive and she clearly didn’t have money to spend in her own defense.
Sounds like it was a reasonably high profile case, and some kind of test case. I suspect she could’ve secured a great pro-bono lawyer.
Its not.a test case though, people have murdered those that wronged them before, it’s still.murder.
This is from the article:
Kizer’s case had tested the leniency granted to victims of sex trafficking. Some states have implemented laws - called “affirmative defence” provisions - that protect victims from some charges including prostitution or theft, if those actions were the result of being trafficked.
Kizer had tested whether an “affirmative defence” for trafficking victims could be used for homicide. In 2022, the Wisconsin Supreme Court ruled she could.
The ruling allowed Kizer to use evidence to demonstrate her abuse at the time of the crime. The case attracted widespread attention and Kizer received support from activists in the #MeToo movement.
Would you bet your entire life on that?
No, I don’t think I would.
I don’t really know that much about the case and the likelihood of a favourable outcome. Chrystul does, and she decided to take the deal, so I probably would too.
I’m simply saying that she could’ve mounted a defence at trial if she chose to do so.
There has to be something we’re missing as to why they agreed to a guilty charge.
You and all the commenters in this thread not doing a single moment of research before commenting is what is missing.
Thank you fuzzy. You comment was as worthless as the moment you spent typing it.
You’re welcome! Sorry I can’t jump on the premeditated vigilante murder normalization train, looks fun!
Nobody said normalize it. This is an extreme case where the punishment doesn’t fit the crime. Yes she’s a murderer. She killed a serial child rapist. She deserves some leniency. I guarantee your world view would be different if you were a victim.
The world isn’t black and white.
The guy was criminal scumbag that deserved justice, for sure.
But after she was free at him, she came back with clear premeditation then burned the house to hide evidence. If not for the circumstances of her abuse, she’d likely get a much worse charge
Alright kids.
There’s this wonderful thing called “Jury Nullification”
That means if 1 juror refuses to convict then there is no conviction.
It is your privilege, right, and I daresay even duty to use this helpful tool when you deem it necessary. If you’re called for Jury Duty on a case. Let’s say non violent drug case. I don’t believe nonviolent drug offenses should be against the law at all except in the case of something really bad like Fentanyl. So if I was called I would refuse to convict if the defendant was there for let’s say Mary Jane.
But don’t ever say those words. Don’t allude to it. Don’t discuss it with your fellow jurors. Don’t Google it after you’ve been called. It’s your secret. But it’s a secret everyone should know if you get my meaning.
Now go forth and make the world a better place.
One juror refusing to convict is a hung jury and a mistrial, which prosecutors will then retry.
Jury nullification would require a unanimous vote to acquit.
She took a plea deal. No jury.
I just posted this somewhere else but it belongs here…
It’s a jury’s job to find a defendant guilty or not guilty of a given charge.
When a jury starts considering whether they feel a charge is fair, they’re pretty much just making up the law. At that point you don’t need a court and a jury you could just have a bunch of people deciding the defendants fate based on the vibe.
When you say they “don’t want jurors to know”, they simply want jurors who understand their role in finding a defendant guilty or not guilty. Thinking that nullification is a possible outcome is tantamount to a refusal to fulfil the role of a juror.
Tell that to those abolitionists who were not convicted of harboring fugitive slaves because of jury nullification.
Sometimes laws aren’t just. And as citizens we have a right to stand up to unjust laws.
as citizens we have a right to stand up to unjust laws.
Correct, but that is not the function of a jury.
That is exactly a function of a jury.
Why do we have a jury to decide if a defendant is guilty or not guilty when a judge is trained to do the same thing? Why do we allow a jury at all? I think there’s more to the function of the jury than just guilty/not guilty or else they would be replaced with a different system.
I’m getting weary of repeating myself.
It is very clearly not the role of a judge to decide whether a defendant is guilty or not guilty. They are not “trained” to do that. That is the role of the jury. Hence the phrase “you have been found guilty by a jury of your peers”.
You have a jury to balance the power of the judge, such that a judge can not simply dole out “justice”.
Defendants can elect to have a jury trial. If they don’t have a jury trial, who finds them guilty or not guilty? Is it the judge? If it’s the judge, why do we allow jury trials to occur when every trial could be determined by a justice of the peace?
What is “training” if not education in the laws and legal system? Are judges not educated in law school before becoming lawyers and then justices? Is this irl experience not also considered training?
Honestly I’m not really sure what you’re talking about.
The role of a judge and the role of a jury is a fundamental characteristic of a court. You seem to be mixing them up?
Whether a jury feels a charge is fair is the whole reason trial by a jury of peers exists.
It’s a feature of the system, not a bug.
This is patently false.
It might feel like a nice idea to have a jury sitting around thinking about what the fairest outcome might be but that is simply not their role.
A jury’s sole job is to determine whether a defendant is guilty of the charges against them.
If it was a jury’s job to decide on fairness she would’ve gone to trial rather than taking the deal.
I don’t think her decision to take the deal took into account whether jury nullification exists or not. The way you explained it sounds like retrocausality, though I don’t know if that’s the way you meant it.
Jury nullification isn’t about fair outcomes, I should clarify, but about whether the law itself is lawful, representative of the people, or applied lawfully. Maybe that fits into the definition of fair I had in mind, but I was thinking on it more objectively, not subjectively.
There are proponents and opponents within the United States, true, but if a legal system does not permit punishment of jurors, then jury nullification is a logical byproduct of the system. And an important one I would argue. It fits into why trials by jury are important in a democratic legal system - the people have the final say, whether they realize it or not.
Jury nullification doesn’t exist as an intended option to be afforded Jurors.
Judges instruct jurors to find defendants guilty or not guilty, there is no third “nullification” option.
Jury Nullification is the name given to this type of frustrated process. A jury unanimously declaring a defendant not-guilty of charges they know them to be guilty of is a perversion of their function.
In a democratic legal system, the people elect governments to make the laws, police enforce the laws and judges apply those laws. There is no “juries ultimately decide based on the vibe” part of democracy.
Biden could pardon her
Only if she was prosecuted for a federal crime. IANAL, and I have no idea if this was federal or state, but the president doesn’t have pardon power over the state, only the federal government.
Can the a state governor pardon her?
Yes, Tony Evers could pardon her if he chooses.
Unfortunately inside Wisconsin it would likely be career suicide with an adverse impact on the general election.
Yeah I can’t speak to that, but I believe it.
False
It was just a shot in the dark, I have no idea about the laws preventing or allowing such a thing. I thought he could tie it in to boost support, but apparently it’s a non-issue
That’s ok. I do wish that for every time someone runs a political ad, someone else would run messaging about how this stuff actually works, because it isn’t really well covered.
Heh, “journalism”
Oooo, good idea.
Why do sex traffickers still receive human rights? Honestly. Once convicted they should be free use tissue. If the victim didn’t wanna get revenge, they turn to medical slaves for testing. Something like that.
If you can’t do the time, don’t do the crime. Traffickers are uniquely evil and should get a unique legal treatment. I feel revulsion at a lot more acts and attitudes than I used to, but I’ve never felt bad at all for a trafficker. Even if there was a movie level backstory explaining them, until down otherwise, I feel is personally completely impossible for me to feel bad about anything that’s happened to them, and I would feel absolute glee if I heard they so much as got a paper cut. No other people group do I so thoroughly enjoy every little thing that they don’t enjoy. The sadder and more upset they get, the happier I am. But it only applies to them.
As a stupid kid I would have applied that to a lot of people. All of whom I feel terrible about it now. Except this one. I still love their suffering, and I don’t see that ever stopping.
And I do understand the problems changing their status would bring up legally, but I still wish I could own a torture farm just for them. Make a Saw multiverse.
Same reason why the death penalty is bad - the system isn’t perfect, and people get wrongfully convicted. Hell, a majority that the Innocence Project has gotten exonerated were convicted of sex crimes.
Milwaukee, another flyover state. WOW. Really I see my self having absolutely no reason to ever step foot in that state.
Uh … Milwaukee is not a state.
We can agree on that.
On the one hand the guy was a scumbag. On the other she was away from him and sought him out to end him. One of the hardest things to accept in life is that your abusers often wont ever face any consequences for what they have done to you. Often you are punished for seeking it out and when someone does something like this it just gives the powers that be incentive to make a example out of you. After all many of them are similarly guilty and fear the same fate.
When our justice system doesn’t work vigilantism becomes ethical
I think anybody who is sex trafficked for a year should legally get a freebie. Anybody who is willing to abuse or sex traffic another human being should just be at peace with the possibility of being ended by their victims. Good thing I don’t make the laws, I guess?
What about people with abusive parents? Can they kill them too? Can they go to college and come back after graduation to kill their parents who they haven’t seen for years? You don’t think other people are abused too?
It’s mostly a matter of a right to a fair trial, these people deserve death but our legal systems are fragile and prone to failure. It’s important to prove guilt before condemning the damned. Even if they deserve it. Glad this guy got what was coming to him though.
Legal systems exist to make simpler, faster, cheaper, better what you’d do anyway.
So everything inside them doesn’t matter if they don’t work.
It’s like some kind of gold standard, where paper money is guaranteed with gold, while laws are guaranteed with violence. If you are willing to go to court, but are not willing to use whatever means you have, then eventually the courts will just confirm the abuse.
Anyway, about personally important things, there are many people thinking that any part of historical Armenia can be legally in a Turkic state. Imagine that. Fuck them and their idea of law.
On the other she was away from him and sought him out to end him.
I’d need a lot more info before I judged her for that. Had law enforcement been notified and done anything to stop him from victimizing others? If not then she did the right thing. If the “justice system” doesn’t do it’s job you can’t blame people for circumventing it.
Let killer cops go free, jail the victims of the failed justice system.
The cruelty seems to be the point.
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Lemmy now supports not only the death penalty but death penalty without a trial.
If somebody goes to the zoo, jumps in the lion pit, and throws rocks at a lion, I imagine a lot of people wouldn’t “wish the death penalty on him for his sheer offence” when he’s pulled out of the enclosure. However, I also imagine many people would feel unsympathetic if said person happened to die at the lion’s jaws, nor wish for the lion to be punished.
Wanting someone who killed in desparation in well-known and very extenuous circumstances a lighter punishment in no way condones the crime.
Many think the justice system should prioritize rehabilitation, not retribution.
Instead of fixing people, retribution just breaks them even further, making it more likely they’ll commit a crime in the future, oftentimes because they’re forced to by circumstances they find themselves in when (if) they’re finally set free.
Regardless of your opinion on vigilante justice, can we all agree that this is what gubernatorial pardons should actually exist for?
I don’t see the governor of the red state of Wisconsin pardoning a black girl convicted of murdering a white man. Maybe i’m too cynical but I don’t see that happening.
If I was an AG this shit would’ve never gone to trial. Jesus Christ.
And that’s why you’re not.
Ill reserve the rest of my opinion but two in the head is cleaner than an abuser of that magnitude earned for themselves, feels like at that point you’re basically just preventing any more victims they would have made. Cops have walked away free men after worse executions for worse reasons.
The only punishment she should have ever received is mandatory therapy. This is a fucking traumatized woman, and you are adding to the trauma.
This lady needs to be pardoned or it’s the origin story for a villain who has an understandable grudge against the justice system.
Sorry, America governors only pardon you when its the pedophile doing the murdering.
Here’s a related headline. Haven’t read it yet:
‘I just wanted peace’: my 35-year fight to bring my abusive father to justice
Carol Higgins was 15 when she first reported her father’s abuse to the police. They told her he wouldn’t be charged. But she refused to let it rest until he finally stood trialIf I was on the jury, I’d nullify.
And they have processes in place to make sure you wouldnt be on that jury.
Vocal knowledge of jury nullification is grounds for dismissal.
Prior intent to nullify is basically perjury. Now you are both in jail
See, the system works! /s
I assume you mean it’s “basically perjury” given the questions they’ll ask. Because they keep asking us questions like that when I have jury duty, and I keep getting dismissed.
Nonetheless, it’s still helpful to spread awareness of jury nullification. It forces the prosecution to pick the next most lenient person, and eventually so many people might know about nullification that it has to remain on the table.
I assume I can’t be on any jury, as I have moral opinions that are contrary to the status quo.
FOR FUCKS SAKE CHILDREN. 100% OF THE TIME YOU TRAVEL TO ANOTHER TOWN WITH A GUN, SHOOT SOMEONE TWICE IN THE HEAD KILLING THEM, THEN BURN THEIR HOUSE DOWN AND FLEE YOU WILL 100% FACE JAILTIME. 11 YEARS TO COMMIT PREMEDITATED MURDER IS A VERY FUCKIN FAVORABLE DEAL AND SHE WOULD BE RETARDED NOT TO ACCEPT. Fuck me the amount of people in here saying lies that she killed him to escape or that she deserves a fuckin pardon is absolutely retarded. Yeah dude she killed 100% deserved it but so does her receiving 11 years as the consequence.
Well, not 100%, Rittenhouse didn’t face a day of jail time. Though I guess he killed two people instead of burning a house down.
Well, not 100%, Rittenhouse didn’t face a day of jail time. Though I guess he killed two people instead of burning a house down.
He was able to show an imminent need of self defense. I don’t agree with the outcome of his case, but they aren’t the same thing.
You don’t think she faced an imminent need of self defense in the house of the man who abused and trafficked her? We don’t know the details, but that seems like a pretty threatening situation to me. We can say that she put herself in that situation, but so did Rittenhouse.
Do some research on the case. She was free and then traveled back to kill him and burn his house down.
Very cool, very righteous. Unfortunately premeditated revenge killing is illegal, though.
What if you shoot someone seven times in a courtroom?
I mean I guess lol usually people use examples from the country in question or atleast examples from more recent cases than 50 years ago. I also did not expect that the example would also show that the act of vigilante justice from Germany 50 yeas ago still was convicted and sentenced to 6 years and patrolled in 3. It’s a little shorter than the 10 or 11 years from the posted article but unless she kills again in prison, she’ll be out before serving 10. I personally know a shitbag who was convicted of dwi manslaughter for killing another driver between 5-12 years ago about and he was sentenced to 6 and released without fuckin parole after only 3 years for good behavior.
Everything that happened to this woman is fuckin horrible and as long as the person she killed was undoubtedly the person responsible, then noone is arguing he didn’t deserve to die. However the other people here saying this is bullshit and that if she was white she’d be Scott free is absolutely marginalizing the hell this woman went thru and the sacrifice she KNEW she would face as the cost of taking justice in her own hands. It is so fucking commendable and respectable to do what she did but the 10 years was inevitable and is par for the course for this type of conviction in the US justice dept.
Good kill. Still murder. She is not a threat to society though…so…11years hardly-enforced house arrest might be more fitting.
eh, I’d call it some gene pool chlorination.
Wait like… Him being removed from the pool or her?
Him, obviously.
Ok good
Some people are genetically flawed and should be killed? I think I heard that somewhere before…
Fuck that, give her a medal and a therapist and send her on her way. Killing this guy was not a crime it was community service.
Absolutely outrageous.
I bet if this poor girl were white she would have walked
