Take the case
of Susan J. Scott, for example: On 20 September 1986 she fatally shot
her live-in boyfriend who had been violently assaulting her for the five
years they had been together. She was arrested, charged in Delaware
Superior Court with first-degree murder and possession of a deadly
weapon during the commission of a felony.
1: Paragraph 15 She was represented by one PD for about a year, and
then he left the PD's office, so her case was assigned to another deputy
PD named Duane D. Werb. Although he knew there was evidence supporting
Scott's self-defense claim, Werb advised her that the "battered woman
defense" wouldn't fly in Delaware, that there wasn't enough evidence to
prove self defense at trial, that proving self defense couldn't clear
her of the lesser included offense of manslaughter, and that if she pled
guilty to manslaughter she would receive a sentence of three and a half
to seven years in prison. So on 26 May 1988, a week before her trial
was supposed to start, Scott took Werb's advice and pled guilty to
manslaughter; she was sentenced to twenty-five years in prison.
1: Paragraph 16 Then Scott's family managed to scrape up the money
to hire New Orleans lawyer Richard Ducote, with a national reputation
for representing battered women, to try to get her sentence reduced. On
19 July 1989 Judge John E.
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