Florida Woman Kills ex-Husband

[mikeb302000]

http://www.bradenton.com/2011/07/16/3350533/neighbors-say-shooting-is-appalling.html">Bradenton.com reports

Detectives searching Pier Point subdivision in Northwest Bradenton on Friday morning found the handgun they say is the weapon used in a bizarre slaying that has stunned one of Bradenton’s most quiet and exclusive neighborhoods.

Also known as 86th Street Court Northwest, Pier Point is where 10 large and luxurious homes rise among old oaks and mango trees.

But it is also the place where a divorced couple, Robin Claire Crane, 49, and her ex-husband, Ernie Crane, 56, apparently shared a rental home and had a domestic dispute that, according to the Manatee County Sheriff’s Office, led to Robin Crane fatally shooting Ernie Crane at 8:30 p.m. Thursday.

They called this shooting "bizarre" because the police "had issued the couple domestic violence packets, which they had both signed and which deputies dispense dozens of times a day in the waning moments of domestic disputes."

The only problem was in this case the dispute was not in its "waning moments."

Now, I'm usually on the side of the woman in domestic violence situations. I realize that http://mikeb302000.blogspot.com/2009/07/guns-and-women.html">men are almost always the abusers in these cases and even in the rare situations in which the woman turns the tables on her abuser and kills him, it could often be considered self-defense.

Nevertheless, when a woman decides to pick up a gun and shoot her abusing ex-husband or boyfriend, I'm afraid I have to blame her for pulling the trigger.

Unless her life was in imminent danger that very moment, I don't accept the cumulative effect of domestic abuse as an excuse. She needs to find another way to resolve the problem other than killing him.

(cross posted at http://mikeb302000.blogspot.com/">Mikeb302000)

What's your opinion? Please leave a comment.

[TheWraith]

1. If she wasn't in physical danger, then that's manslaughter at least. nt

[mikeb302000]

14. yes, but

I'd have a certain sympathy for the woman who finally gets up the courage to kill her abuser.

All other factors being even, I'd not even put her in jail. No further access to guns and probation should do it. What do you think?

[pipoman]

2. Unrec for constantly pimpin' your blog in every post...

[Name removed]

15. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[gejohnston]

3. You seriously expect me to form an informed opinion on this?

It is still under investigation, and you know as little as I do. I learned a long time ago not to take newspaper accounts at face value.

Unless her life was in imminent danger that very moment, I don't accept the cumulative effect of domestic abuse as an excuse. She needs to find another way to resolve the problem other than killing him.

You don't know that is the case, neither do I. Ultimately, it does not matter what you or I think. What matters is what the law says and juries decide.
For all you know, killing him may have been, objectively or just in her mind, the most viable option.

[geckosfeet]

4. Errr. Shooting someone who is not threatening you is,,, unsound.

Arguments and disagreements are part of life. You don't shoot people over them.

I understand that there was previous physical abuse. But revenge is not a legitimate reason to shoot someone. Not in my mind anyway.

[21st Century FDR]

6. Except this is Florida

Jeb passed some ridiculous law there a few years back that said you can shoot anybody you want, as long as you can make a valid case that they were threatening your life.

Hell, in Florida you can even apparently kill your own child and let the body rot for several months and STILL walk away from it, so shooting somebody is nothin'

[gejohnston]

10. First your understanding of Florida's stand your ground law is

straight from Brady talking points, and totally inaccurate to the point of being absurd.
On the dead kid case, what jury saw and what the media said was two different things. The jury saw this: cause of death unknown, last person to see child alive unknown. That was the State's case. Doesn't take Perry Mason to see the reasonable doubt in that.

[eqfan592]

12. Lol, you beat me to the punch, and did a much better job of it than I. :) nt

[eqfan592]

11. First, I would suggest you look at that law again.

Second, she was found not guilty by a jury of her peers, so get over it.

[benEzra]

18. Florida's self-defense law is comparable to that of most blue states.

Florida used to be *stricter* than most blue states, with a very quirky "duty to retreat even if under lethal attack" statute that was unusual by national standards. That was changed a few years ago, but the standard for justifiability in public did not otherwise change. To be ruled justifiable, it either must involve (1) rational, imminent threat of death/serious bodily harm/forcible felony, or (2) forcible unlawful invasion of an occupied home or vehicle.

[SteveM]

20. Note #6 below. And don't use Florida-bashing as a foundation for argument.

[Euromutt]

5. "I don't accept the cumulative effect of domestic abuse as an excuse."

Well, that's kind of the sticking point, isn't it? Evidently, the late Mr. Crane had what the police call "form": a prior history of violent abuse, and we may assume nobody recognized that form better than his victim.

People tend to get angry after a close brush with danger, for example after narrowly avoiding a motor vehicle collision, and in this instance, the departure of the deputy may have prompted anger on Mr. Crane's part at having narrowly escaped arrest, and Ms Crane recognized the signs of an impending assault.

I say "may have" because we don't know; we don't know whether Ms Crane was in imminent danger of being assaulted by Mr. Crane or not.

[rrneck]

7. My opinion:

Unless she can prove an imminent threat, she's going to jail for a very long time. And she might beat the rap. She was able to post a quarter million dollar bond and go home, so she can afford a good attorney. He'll have his work cut out for him to prove insanity from espousal abuse.

What annoys me is how shocked the neighbors and the reporters are because it happened to rich people. Rich people just never lose their shit and start shooting. Only poor people do that. There's a reason for that.

Poor people have fewer options. Poor people are stuck in bad cities, bad towns, bad neighborhoods, bad homes, and bad relationships. They may have the right to retreat, but they don't have the ability. Forcing an obligation to retreat on people who are already cornered by their economic circumstances is an arrogant injustice. Disarming them for the good of (affluent) society at large is just a 21st century version of let them eat cake.

[discntnt_irny_srcsm]

8. Just my 2 cents:

The consequences of "arrogant injustice" are many times enforced by law and, IMNSHO, the application of laws which support or effect these injustices provide only a good argument for anarchy.

[rrneck]

9. I don't know that there's always a good argument for anarchy m'self,

esince that just tears up a bunch of infrastructure (both physical and cultural) that we just have to fix. But anarchy certainly is a result.

A dynamic, vibrant culture requires a measure of instability to function, which we might call a gentle form of anarchy. Excessive conservatism tries to stifle that dynamism because the rich don't want anybody messing with the deal they've got and when they clamp down long enough and hard enough, they finally get a full dose of anarchy.

Much like a woman trapped in an abusive relationship with nowhere to go, sometimes entire classes of people respond with irrational anger and violence at a thousand mundane outrages that mean little one at a time but when taken together make life ubearable.

[discntnt_irny_srcsm]

13. yes, this is repeated...

...Over & over.

There is a quote from sam adams:
"If ye love wealth greater than liberty, the tranquility of servitude greater than the animating contest for freedom, go home from us in peace. We seek not your counsel, nor your arms. Crouch down and lick the hand that feeds you; May your chains set lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that ye were our countrymen."

It's difficult to say it any better.

[Marnie]

16. Abusers are bullies and frequently become very

passive in the presence of a greater power like cops, where the abused is often venting in the presence of the police as they feel some safety in doing so.

However once the greater power is gone the abuser often ups the anti to punish the victim. This added punishment is also intended to keep them from seeking help again.

Let's wait till we hear more of what went on before and after the police got their signed documents. Which frankly sound like a way for the police to wash heir hands of responsibility to protect the victim from future abuse.

[X_Digger]

17. unrec -- blogspam n/t

[SteveM]

19. "...men are almost always the abusers..."? You might want to check this out:

deanesmay.com/2007/08/29/cdc-71-of-instigators-of-dv-are-women/ - Similar

The survey indicated that women instigated some 71% of the violent acts in marriages which had histories of violence. There is also a study done by Texas A&M which was based on police records of domestic violence. This latter study indicated women instigated violence some 58% of the time (I do not have this study at-hand).

[east texas lib]

21. "Men are almost always the abusers"... Yes, except when they're not...

Here's an extensively cited peer reviewed study...

http://www.batteredmen.com/straus21.htm

THE CONTROVERSY OVER DOMESTIC VIOLENCE BY WOMEN: A METHODOLOGICAL,
THEORETICAL, AND SOCIOLOGY OF SCIENCE ANALYSIS-Murray A. Straus


"In the mid 1970s my colleagues and I made the disturbing discovery that women physically assaulted partners in marital, cohabiting, and dating relationships as often as men assaulted their partners (Steinmetz 1978; Straus 1997; Straus, Gelles and Steinmetz 1980). This finding caused me and my former colleague Suzanne Steinmetz to be excommunicated as feminists. Neither of us has accepted that sentence, but it remains in force. So when Salman Rushdie was condemned to death for his heresy, we may have felt even more empathy than most people because we had also experienced many threats, including a bomb threat."

I found this paragragh to be rather interesting. I guess their data and findings conflicted with heretofore accepted conventional wisdom.