The fate of an Oklahoma woman imprisoned for failing to protect her children from her abusive boyfriend will rest, in part, in the hands of a retired judge who recently freed a woman jailed in similar circumstances.
In a brief interview Thursday, Kenneth Watson, the state's newest appointee to its famously tough five-member parole board, said he hopes to use the position to “make a difference.”
The parole board is due to consider the high-profile case of Tondalo Hall, who is serving decades in prison for failing to protect her children from her abusive boyfriend. Hall and her case for clemency were highlighted last fall as part of an ongoing BuzzFeed News investigation into laws around the country that criminalize a parent’s failure to protect a child from an abuser. The investigation found 28 mothers in 11 states who were sentenced to 10 years or more under these laws — despite evidence they had also suffered physical violence at the hands of the abusers.
Domestic violence advocates say that such punishments constitute a profound misunderstanding of what it means for women to be trapped in abusive relationships, with one calling it “the ultimate blaming of the victim.” But some prosecutors say the long sentences send an important message that mothers have a duty to protect their children, no matter the cost.
Hall has spent a decade behind bars on a 30-year sentence for "enabling child abuse." Hall was not accused of harming her children herself, but of not intervening against her boyfriend Robert Braxton to stop him from abusing her children. Braxton, who Hall alleges repeatedly violently abused her, admitted to breaking their daughter's rib and legs. Still, he was given only a two-year sentence. He has been free for the last eight years that Hall as been behind bars.
Hall submitted an application for clemency in November, and the national advocacy group UltraViolet has campaigned for the parole board to grant her release; the group’s petition has garnered more than 70,000 signatures.
Watson, 71, has already signaled interest in cases like these. Last year, when he was still a district judge in Oklahoma City, Watson freed a woman from prison decades early who had been convicted of failing to prevent her boyfriend from killing her daughter. The boyfriend had also brutally battered the woman who, like Hall, was not accused of abusing her child herself. Watson was featured in the BuzzFeed News investigation and in a BuzzFeed video where he explained why he set the woman free.
Reached by phone this week, Watson told BuzzFeed News that he hopes to use his position to “make a difference.” He did not specifically address the fate of the at least four women currently serving a decade or more in Oklahoma prisons on enabling child abuse convictions despite evidence they suffered domestic violence. The women are Hall, Alishia Mackey, Wendy Scroggins, and Crystal Berry.
Watson did talk about Oklahoma’s large prison population, which Oklahoma Gov. Mary Fallin has said she wants to reduce. “I know the penitentiaries are full,” Watson said.
Hall was arrested in 2004, after she brought her 20-month-old to the hospital with a swollen leg. Doctors found a fractured femur and other broken bones. Authorities then checked on Hall’s 3-month-old daughter and found similar injuries. Hall and Braxton, her boyfriend, were arrested. Detectives concluded that Braxton was the one who had injured the children.
Hall pled guilty to enabling child abuse and agreed to testify at Braxton’s trial. On the stand, Hall detailed some of Braxton’s abuse of her, including a time when he choked her when she was pregnant. Yet that was deemed irrelevant to Braxton’s child abuse case.
Prosecutors, meanwhile, grew frustrated when Hall could not detail specific times she had seen Braxton hurt her children. Mid-trial, Braxton reached a deal with the prosecution: He would plead guilty to hurting one of the kids, along the lines of what he had admitted to detectives during their investigation. He would be sentenced to two years behind bars; since he had served that time in jail, he would walk free.
Then came Hall’s sentencing hearing. Prosecutors declared that she should serve “a significant portion of the rest of her life” in prison, because, as the mother of her children, she did not protect them from their abuser. Judge Ray Elliott gave her a 30-year sentence.
Elliott and prosecutors told BuzzFeed News in November that they stand by Hall’s sentence. “I feel very comfortable with my decision,” Elliott said.
Hall’s fate lies with Watson, and the board’s four other members: Patricia High, Robert Macy, Thomas Gillert, and board chairwoman Vanessa Price. Including Watson, three of the five members have been appointed within the past three months.
The board has yet to schedule a date for when it will hear Hall’s case, and Watson said he didn’t “know anything at all about” it. “Cases stand and fall on their own fact pattern,” he said.
The fact pattern of another battered woman’s case “haunted” him enough that he said so in open court.
That was the case of Victoria Phanthtaranth, who was sentenced in 2013 to 35 years in prison for failing to protect her daughter, Alexis Hawkins. Alexis died in October 2011 from a massive skull fracture. Police and prosecutors determined that while Alexis’ stepfather, Freddy Mendez, had caused the fatal injuries, her mother had at the very least not done enough to protect Alexis from him.
Phanthtaranth pled guilty to “murder by permitting child abuse,” and was sentenced to 35 years in prison.
Then came Mendez’s murder trial. Phanthtaranth testified — under no promise of a shorter sentence — that Mendez had repeatedly brutalized both her and her daughter. He would grab Phanthtaranth by the throat to get her attention, and refer to her as his maid and his slave.
After the trial, jurors told Watson’s court reporter that they were concerned about Phanthtaranth’s lengthy sentence. Watson called a new hearing, for March of last year. Watson suspended the remainder of her sentence, meaning Phanthtaranth would go free from prison after more than two years behind bars.
“I knew the facts of Victoria, so that’s why I could do what I did,” Watson said.