| Never miss a show! |  |
Email Signup |  |
Spotify |  |
RSS Feed |  |
Apple Podcasts |
Criminalized Survivor Nikki Addimando during her trial in 2020. (Photo by Daniel A. Nelson)
We catch up with journalist and interpersonal violence (IPV) survivor Natalie Pattillo to talk about the folks fighting for justice for criminalized survivors of intimate partner violence. Listen to find out the story behind Oklahoma activists that led the state to adopt a new law based on New York’s Domestic Violence Survivor’s Justice Act, and how you can get involved. And finally, Stanford Criminal Justice Center’s Regilla Project just published a groundbreaking study revealing the scope of the IPV to prison pipeline.
Featuring: Music: _Podington Bear_ Tracks: _Arboles, Delphi, Poise _ From the album _Encouraging_ Licensed under [CC BY-NC]
Credits Making Contact Team:
TRANSCRIPT
Amy Gastelum: I’m Amy Gastelum. You’re listening to Making Contact. Today we’re revisiting a story we first published in 2023. It’s about criminalized survival, or how survivors of intimate partner violence become entangled in and punished by the criminal justice system.
Natalie Pattillo: And I was like, wait, like we are putting women and survivors in prison for fighting for their own lives?
Amy Gastelum: That’s journalist and survivor Natalie Pattillo. Together, she and cinematographer Daniel Nelson made the award winning documentary film And So I Stayed. We interviewed them last year and today we’re sitting down with Natalie again. There is a lot to catch up on. A lot of it is good. Stay with us.
Amy Gastelum: I’m Amy Gastelum, you’re listening to Making Contact. Today’s show is a powerful story of solidarity and response to the problem of intimate partner violence. Please take care when you’re listening today. Now to our interview with reporter Natalie Pattillo.
Amy Gastelum: Hey girl, hey!
Natalie Pattillo: Hey.
Amy Gastelum: So, Natalie, uh, just to recap for our listeners, your film, And So I Stayed, is a film that follows three women’s stories, Tanisha Davis, Nikki Addimando, and Kim DaDou Brown. All were sentenced to many years in prison after actions they took to protect themselves from their abusers, which resulted in their deaths. The film follows these women, but it also follows the fight to get a law passed in New York that would give hope to people like Kim, Nikki, and Tanisha who have been incarcerated after surviving domestic violence. It’s called the Domestic Violence Survivors Justice Act or DVSJA. Can you summarize what the DVSJA does?
Natalie Patillo: The DVS JA allows judges to look at domestic violence as a significant contributing factor to a crime. So it works in two ways. Uh, folks can, be sentenced under the law, which means less harsh sentencing.
Natalie Patillo: Um, and then it can also be used for the, for folks who are currently incarcerated, um, and, um, the crime predated this law’s existence. So then they’re able to potentially get out earlier than, um, their original sentencing.
Amy Gastelum: So Natalie, in your film, we learned that Tanisha was able to use this law on appeal to get her sentence reduced, that retroactive sentencing we were talking about.
Amy Gastelum: And so the third woman in the film, Nikki Addimando, was tried and sentenced after the [00:03:00] DVSJA passed. But here’s the thing, the judge in her case didn’t really seem to consider the new law. The judge sentenced her to 19 years to life in prison, which is like not a reduction at all. And so the end of your film, is, is really heartbreaking because Nikki is still at Bedford Hills and her sister, Michelle is raising Nikki’s kids and fighting to get her sister’s sentence reduced. But a lot has happened since then, right? For one thing, Nikki is out.
Natalie Patillo: Nikki is out. The case thankfully went to the appellate court. And the appellate court did think she was eligible, so they were able to use the law in Nikki Adamondo’s case and say, actually, she does qualify. She is eligible for the DVSJA, and she did get a sentence reduction.
Amy Gastelum: So now that Nikki’s out, she has been advocating for laws similar to the DVSJA. Here’s some audio from an Instagram [00:04:00] post that she made with her sister, Michelle Horton in March. They are cozied up on the sofa in their living room.
Nikki Addimando: As you know, the only reason I’m home right now is because of the DVSJA. So a law passing like this in Oklahoma would have the potential to help hundreds of incarcerated survivors.
Michelle Horton: And the survivors in Oklahoma really need this. We were told that Oklahoma has the highest rate of domestic violence in the country and also the highest number of incarcerated women. Obviously, those two things go hand in hand. So what we need to do right now is to encourage Oklahoma Senators to say yes to Senate Bill 1470.
Amy Gastelum: Okay, so update here too. This Oklahoma law, girl, it passed.
Natalie Patillo: I mean, honestly, of all states, to be frank, it just doesn’t come to mind as like, Oklahoma will be next. Um, but the organizers in Oklahoma have worked very hard.
Amy Gastelum: So yeah, so I talked to Alexandra Bailey to [00:05:00] get some more information about this. She is a senior campaign strategist with the Sentencing Project, they advocate for effective and humane responses to crime, the minimized imprisonment and criminalization of youth and adults by promoting racial, ethnic, economic, and gender justice.
Amy Gastelum: Okay. So Miss Bailey, who is also a survivor of domestic violence, has been working hard on this Oklahoma bill. And she said what really motivated her to pursue this law was a Mother Jones article she read about a case in Oklahoma highlighting failure to protect laws, which is one of the ways that survivors get entangled by the criminal justice system. Can you explain failure to protect laws?
Natalie Patillo: Right. So a survivor could be with a partner who is abusive. Um, that abusive partner could cause harm to a child and just because the survivor might not be able to, leave or was just present whenever the [00:06:00] abuse took place, those failure to protect laws can cause these survivors to be criminalized. It doesn’t make sense and it’ll never make sense to me.
Amy Gastelum: You’re not the only one. Here’s Alexandra Bailey talking about the Mother Jones article that she read.
Alexandra Bailey: It highlights one particular case about a woman who was in a terrible domestic violence situation that could have taken her life. And her children attempted to intervene and, uh, one of them got pushed out of the way and hurt themselves. And she went to prison for that. And the even more ironic part is that, uh, or terrible part, I guess I should say, is that her children were given to her ex-partner who had already spent multiple years in prison for committing domestic violence against her. Um, so just..
Amy Gastelum: It’s baffling. It doesn’t make sense.
Alexandra Bailey: You just, you can’t, it’s like you eat too much ice cream and your brain no [00:07:00] longer functions.
Amy Gastelum: So this was 2022 and in this Mother Jones article, Alexandra saw Colleen McCarty’s name. She’s the Executive Director of the Oklahoma Appleseed Center for Law and Justice. They connected, Alex secured funding, and together they created a coalition to write a law that used New York’s DVSJA as a template. Um, the coalition, included representatives from tribal nations because Oklahoma is Indian Country. That means that there’s various legal conditions to consider. And it is worth noting that Indigenous American women are the group that experiences the most intimate partner homicide in the United States.
Alexandra Bailey: And the great thing is, is that we’ve been in lockstep with incarcerated women from the beginning.
Amy Gastelum: Word.
Amy Gastelum: So they had a few false starts in the legislature, but in the end, Alex told me that this bill…
Alexandra Bailey: …flies through the state legislature. I mean, just flies. Um, it goes through committee unanimous [00:08:00] vote. It goes through the other committee unanimous vote. It gets to the floor of the Senate unanimous vote. It transfers to the floor of the house. Three no votes. Unheard
Amy Gastelum: Were you surprised?
Alexandra Bailey: At those numbers? At unanimous? In Oklahoma?
Amy Gastelum: I’m shocked.
Alexandra Bailey: I don’t think you could get a unanimous vote on saving the dolphins.
Amy Gastelum: My mom’s people are from Oklahoma, so like,
Alexandra Bailey: Yeah.
Amy Gastelum: I noticed that, that part of the, of the new law, just like New York’s DVSJA, says that there has to be a high burden of proof. And this has been an issue for survivors. So the latest national domestic violence hotline survey showed that of survey respondents who called the police for help with the domestic violence incident, almost 40 percent actually felt less safe after calling the police and that 12 percent of [00:09:00] respondents never even called the police in the first place because they’re afraid the police will take their kids or end up arresting them or deport them or make a violent situation worse.
Amy Gastelum: Okay. This fear of police is disproportionate for Black and Brown women and immigrant women. So requiring evidence, including police reports to use this law….
Alexandra Bailey: …it doesn’t have to be a police report. It doesn’t have to be a police report.
Amy Gastelum: What else is included in that burden of proof? Yeah.
Alexandra Bailey: Hospital reports, um, first person witnesses of abuse, um, can be used. Um, I mean, so there are like, you know, if you had a therapist or you did an outcry to somebody, you know, that is, you know, all things that can be used.
Alexandra Bailey: We just filed April Wilkens’ case in Oklahoma. Her, I mean, it’s a 425 page document of just witness after [00:10:00] witness and testimony after testimony and doctors and you know, police reports and rape kits and restraining orders. So it seems like everybody knows about it. It was crazy.
Amy Gastelum: And yet, I mean, I just want to point out that even though April Wilkens is a white woman with mountains of evidence, like, I’m still on pins and needles to see, is this law going to do what they say it’s going to do? Because if you look at Nikki Addimando’s case too, in New York, like, it all came down to that judge the first time that she tried to use it there, and she still got sentenced to years in prison. I mean, and that’s in New York, and I’m like, okay, Oklahoma, like, let’s see, like, I don’t know.
Alexandra Bailey: Well, yeah, I mean am I on pins and needles? Of course. But what I will say is that from the very beginning, we’ve been willing to go to the mat on this issue. If I have to come back and change the law again and get another avenue, I will.
Alexandra Bailey: But you know, it’s one of those things where I think what they’re starting to understand is [00:11:00] we’re never going to go away.
Amy Gastelum: Mm.
Alexandra Bailey: And there are a lot of women in your state and they vote
Amy Gastelum: Yeah.
Alexandra Bailey: and they don’t want their daughters to die and they don’t want to die themselves. And they don’t want to spend the rest of their lives in prison.
Amy Gastelum: All right, so Natalie, Alex said that they are starting with 13 cases. April Wilkens is the first. You’ve heard of April Wilkens, right?
Natalie Patillo: Yes. Yes. Um, I have heard about her case, definitely.
Amy Gastelum: She’s gotten a lot of media attention, so I’m not surprised that you’ve heard about it. After April, nine more cases will be released at the end of September. So that’s what’s happening next for Oklahoma.
Amy Gastelum: Meanwhile, Alex is headed to Louisiana to work on a similar bill there. And she said if anybody listening wants to work on a bill in their state, she is here to help.
Alexandra Bailey: We do have a model DVSJA bill with recommendations. And, um, you know, if, uh, you want to go down this rabbit hole, um, I will jump in the hole behind you.
Amy Gastelum: Okay so Natalie, we’ve [00:12:00] been keeping an eye on Oklahoma and this bill, and you even gave a showing of your film, And So I Stayed at Tulsa Community College not long ago. How did that go?
Natalie Patillo: The showing at Tulsa Community College was wonderful.
Amy Gastelum: So one fan of your film wasn’t able to make it to your showing, but she had already seen it because she rented it on Vimeo and that is Amanda Ross, April Wilkens’ niece. Amanda has been advocating for her aunt for about 10 years. She was only seven when her aunt was sentenced to life in prison after she shot her longtime abuser, Terry Carlton, soon after he had handcuffed, beaten, and raped her. And I asked Amanda how she got to know her aunt April, given the fact that she was in prison when Amanda was a child. Here’s Amanda.
Amanda Ross: She would call my mom every Sunday, and I was eavesdropping the whole time but it was every Sunday. That was like the day we knew to expect a call from her after church.
Amy Gastelum: Okay, so Amanda said that [00:13:00] besides these weekly phone calls, she and her aunt sent letters and emails back and forth. She said April was really caring and just a really sweet person and she never mentioned her case and always asked about Amanda’s life. Growing up, Amanda’s family supported April, but the message that Amanda got about what happened was kind of confusing.
Amanda Ross: The narrative that my parents would tell me, like, even as a little kid was, um, you know, she wasn’t treated fairly by the system, you know, but there was still this undertone that my parents believed she still did something wrong or wasn’t as right about things as she could have been, and I think that that comes from living in the Bible Belt, um, and just judging women, and, and that’s not something that I stand for, and that, that’s also something, like, I’ve, I’ve had a lot to unlearn, um, I’m 34 now, and I’m still [00:14:00] unlearning.
Amy Gastelum: Back in 2014, April asked Amanda if she could make some copies for her. She was planning to try to get her life sentence reduced, but she needed some clerical help. Amanda had access to a copy machine, so she made the copies. And on those papers that Amanda copied, she saw April’s own account of the abuse she had suffered over the course of several years with Terry Carlton. Amanda had never heard the full story up to that point so it was shocking and heartbreaking for her. She said around the same time a producer named Dave Randag made a YouTube video of a recording April had taken of a conversation between herself and Terry and in it Terry admits that he beat her that he raped her.
Amanda Ross: Hearing him admit it on tape that, was a turning point for me and so as I was starting to question you know, how bad was it? Um, that [00:15:00] came up. It’s kind of funny cause when you’re in it, like when it’s your family, you don’t think to even Google things.
Amy Gastelum: Because you think you have the story.
Amanda Ross: Yeah, yeah. And I didn’t hear that until my 20s. And I don’t think my mom and dad had heard it either until, recently. But it wasn’t played at her trial either. Like I don’t think the jury got a full picture. I know the jury didn’t get a full picture.
Amy Gastelum: Amanda said that all of that paperwork, that copying her aunt’s story, it did not do anything. April’s sentence was not reduced. That was 2022.
Amanda Ross: So yeah, that was very disappointing, but right around that same time, um is when Colleen and Leslie entered the picture too. It really took off. It was like a domino effect after that.
Amy Gastelum: Colleen and Leslie are lawyers with the Oklahoma Appleseed Center for Law and Justice, a leading force in the coalition that Alex Bailey mentioned.
Amanda Ross: And they didn’t make any promises. Um, they were [00:16:00] very clear, like, we don’t know if we can help your aunt, and she said, if we can’t get April out, we can maybe help other people, Colleen did.
Amy Gastelum: Given everything you’re saying about all the unfairness that you witnessed firsthand from the state of Oklahoma, were you surprised at how kind of efficiently the Oklahoma Survivors Act like went through the process?
Amanda Ross: I didn’t expect it for sure. It’s, uh, it’s very weird, but looking back, Oklahoma is weird. We,
Amy Gastelum: (laughing) Let’s just stop there. Yeah. But
Amanda Ross: We don’t fit normal stereotypes sometimes, um. how We have tribal, governments that have to interact with Oklahoma and Oklahoma also is very into those stand your ground laws, you know, and self defense, but it didn’t seem to work in April’s [00:17:00] case. Um, so why, why doesn’t it seem to work for women? But, uh, yeah, I, I think that this just speaks also to the fact that there’s a domestic violence problem in Oklahoma that affects everyone across party lines. And at this point, I’m wondering who doesn’t know someone who is incarcerated at this point because of our high incarceration rates.
Amy Gastelum: Um, what’s, what’s April’s response to this act becoming a law been. Like, how is she doing?
Amanda Ross: I think this is the first time she’s seen the finish line, so to speak. Like, um, it’s given her and others a lot of hope. I’m excited to turn it over to her, like, this narrative, like, I’ve been posting online for her on social media, and, um, [00:18:00] I’m excited to let her, like, drive the boat, so to speak.
Amy Gastelum: On her own story. Yeah.
(music)
Lucy Kang: Hey there, I’m Lucy Kang, reminding you that you’re listening to Making Contact. If you or someone you know is experiencing domestic violence, you can call the National Domestic Violence Hotline at 800 799 7233 or text the word BEGIN to 88788. Their website is thehotline. org. Okay, back to the show.
(music)
Amy Gastelum: I’m Amy Gastelum. You’re listening to Making Contact. We are back in the second half again, talking with reporter Natalie Pattillo. So, Natalie, remind me, what year did you start reporting about criminalized survival?
Natalie Patillo: In 2015, Amy. So, yeah. Oh, my God. Yeah,
Amy Gastelum: It’s been awhile.
Natalie Patillo: It’s been a long while.
Amy Gastelum: [00:19:00] And I remember, I mean, because you and I go way back, like full disclosure, you and I go way back. But I do remember that at the time you were really frustrated because there was pretty much no data, no numbers to stand on in terms of, how many people were incarcerated for actions resulting from IPV situations. And I know that as a journalist, having data is everything. You cannot report on what isn’t proven.
Natalie Patillo: It was really frustrating. It was like, here is this issue, um, that I am hearing through my reporting isn’t anecdotal, isn’t like a one off, isn’t, um, something that happens sometimes in one community. I’m hearing from, you know, accounts from survivors. And I’m like, well, where’s the data? There was nothing for me to look at on a national level, how often this was happening,
Amy Gastelum: Well, guess what, girl? They did it in California.
Natalie Patillo: I know! It was so exciting! I was like,
Amy Gastelum: They did that, they actually went through, as you know, Stanford [00:20:00] University’s Criminal Justice Center launched The Regilla Project a few years ago. And so this group of faculty and students has conducted a research project to better understand exactly this, criminalized survivors of intimate partner violence.
Debbie Mukamal: I’m Debbie Mukamal and I’m the Executive Director of the Stanford Criminal Justice Center.
Amy Gastelum: She told me that back during COVID lockdowns, they had invited the journalist, Rachel Louise Snyder, to talk about her book, No Visible Bruises, What We Don’t Know About Domestic Violence Can Kill Us. Well, Debbie told me that Rachel had the same exact complaint as you, that there was no data on criminalized survivors. And so that really fired up Debbie and David Sklansky, the faculty co chair, to take some action. And they were like, we can do that. Like, we can get this data. So here’s Debbie,
Debbie Mukamal: and very quickly, we brought Andrea in as a gender violence expert.
Andrea Cimino: I am Andrea Cimino. I am the Director of Research for the Regilla Project.
Amy Gastelum: So Natalie, Andrea told me that they invited all of the people in California women’s prisons who were incarcerated for manslaughter or [00:21:00] murder to participate in this study. They ended up surveying 625 people. And because of the way that housing is done in prison facilities in California, they included cisgender women, trans women, and trans men. And so the Regilla Project, they did not rely on court documents or letters in the mail for this survey. These were face to face interviews. Um, so here we go. Here’s the big number. They found that a little over 74 percent of the people surveyed scored positive for intimate partner violence in the year preceding their arrest.
Natalie Patillo: Wow.
Amy Gastelum: 3 out of 4. How’s that hitting you?
Natalie Patillo: Um, I’m not completely surprised based off of the reporting that I’ve done throughout the years, the stories that I’ve heard throughout the years. Um, it is heartbreaking. It actually makes me [00:22:00] really emotional.
Amy Gastelum: We wanted to include, uh, this piece from Debbie that is a bit of a caveat.
Debbie Mukamal: You know, we started the study with the question, how many women are incarcerated for killing their abuser? And we thought that that was the approach that we would take, really trying to hone in on, on where the decedent was the intimate partner. But what we quickly realized in designing the study was that that approach would be too narrow. And we needed to include everybody, no matter who the decedent was.
Amy Gastelum: Here’s Andrea.
Andrea Cimino: So women who killed their child, women who killed strangers, even had histories of intimate partner violence and were in potentially lethal relationships.
Debbie Mukamal: I just also want to emphasize that we should be careful with the language. Women who are responsible for the killing of someone. Sometimes they were not the people who actually committed [00:23:00] the act, but they were legally found responsible for the killing of someone. And it’s an important distinction to make, particularly when you get to, um, coerced killings, when you get to aiding and abetting liability, that includes failure to protect children, and, and, and the like, so.
Amy Gastelum: Are your findings from California generalizable across the country?
Debbie Mukamal: We have no reason to believe that they are not generalizable. In fact, we believe that things could be more stark in other states, given that California does have included in our legal paradigm, different accommodations for people who have histories of intimate partner violence in our evidence law, in our parole law, and so we believe that the, the findings would be the same if not higher, in other jurisdictions.
Amy Gastelum: [00:24:00] Like any study, some of what they learned surprised them, and to be honest, it surprised me too.
Debbie Mukamal: At least 16 people talked about the abuse was so bad, I started to self medicate with drugs and alcohol. I then got into a driving related, um, accident and I killed a stranger. So we need to go back. Where does that come from? And how does the intimate partner violence relate to that? To the stranger being killed in a DUI.
Amy Gastelum: You keep pulling that thread and, and I, it comes back to the home, and it’s, it’s in so many homes. Did I read this right? That’s some statistic that showed like half of women in the United States will come up against IPV at some point in their life. Is that ringing a bell, Andrea? I know you’re gonna know.
Andrea Cimino: Yeah, a little, little less than half, but around half in their lifetime. Yes. And, um, yet, we found 10 times as much in this group of women compared to national.
Amy Gastelum: Okay, Natalie so what else is new? What else is there to report? [00:25:00] I know that you have some presentation coming up. Can you tell me about that?
Natalie Patillo: Yeah, the New York State Unified Court System, they’re asking me to talk to them about my experiences making And So I Stayed, um, and they knew I was a survivor, but they didn’t know that I had, um, fought to protect my own daughter in that very same system, the New York, uh, Family Court System.
Natalie Patillo: And, um, yeah, I can’t quite put into words what that feels like other than this is kind of what I wanted the entire time was like, can I just get everyone’s attention, please? Can I just get the judges’ attention? Like, I just want to explain what it’s like to be put into our shoes where we have to put a child to sleep who is scared that they might have to visit an abusive parent. So when that came across my inbox um, I couldn’t believe, I still can’t believe it. I, it’s like full circle. And that will happen [00:26:00] in in November.
Amy Gastelum: Thank you for sharing that and just being vulnerable with us. Um. And I have to say, like, as I’m listening to you that, like, so many people I’ve talked to for this episode, particularly, have shared that they have some relationship to domestic violence themselves.
Amy Gastelum: And, um, I am really, personally, I feel very, like, heartened about the kind of coalition building that has happened among survivors to make something happen. Um, there’s a thread there. There’s definitely a thread there. Um, the passion of, uh, what it means to reclaim power from systems that would have us not have it.
Natalie Patillo: Absolutely.
Amy Gastelum: Yeah. So, um, if you want Natalie to come and present her incredible, moving, award-winning film in your community, um, or your school or your prison, [00:27:00] um, how can people find you, Natalie?
Natalie Patillo: Um, they can find us through our website, which is andsoistayedfilm.com.
Amy Gastelum: Amazing. Well, I condone rest and, uh, you know, doing softer things like gardening.
Natalie Patillo: Yes. Yes. I just picked off a, an heirloom eggplant that’s orange. Yeah. I mean…
Amy Gastelum: Orange eggplant! I’m into it.
Natalie Patillo: I know, so that’s kind of my life right now is, I mean, it’s like the end of season. So I need to, I need to figure out what my winter joy is as we all do, I’m pretty sure.
Amy Gastelum: Yeah, yeah.
Amy Gastelum: I’m Amy Gastelum. You’ve been listening to Making Contact. If you or someone you know is experiencing domestic violence, you can call the National Domestic Violence Hotline at 800 799 7233 or text the word BEGIN to 88788. Their website is thehotline.org. If you want to learn more about any of the groups or advocates you heard about in this [00:28:00] episode, you do not need to frantically write down everything you’re hearing. Just go to our beautifully updated website, focmedia.org, where you will find links in the show notes.
Amy Gastelum: Until next week.
