Back Ground
The year is 2004. There is a woman who is 20 years old with three kids, no degree and a more than abusive boyfriend. He frequently chokes her, punches her, throws objects at her and verbally abuses her constantly. He keeps her away from her family and friends, even attempting to stop her from showing affection to her own children. Whenever she attempts to flee, he threatens to take her kids and vows that she will never be allowed to see them again. She has no help and is terrified to get the authorities involved. To simply put it, she is trapped. This is the story of Tondalo Hall.
The most likely photo you'd find of Tondalo Hall online, shows her half smiling and dressed in a grey prison uniform issued by the Oklahoma Department of Corrections. You can tell prison has not been kind to her. We can only imagine how prison must be, especially because her only crime is surviving ongoing and vicious domestic violence. When her boyfriend, Robert Braxton, would direct his anger to the children, Hall worried, but did nothing. She questioned him about bruises and shouting she heard frequently, but he always talked his way out of everything. The last straw was when her toddler son’s leg began to swell suspiciously. She brought her kids to the hospital. She would soon find out there that Her baby boy had a fractured femur and 12 fractured ribs to go along with her newborn daughter also having a fractured femur, seven fractured ribs and a fractured toe. Shortly after that hospital visit in late 2004, Hall and her boyfriend, were arrested and charged in the abuse of their children. Braxton pleaded guilty to hurting the infant girl and was sentenced to 10 years in prison, eight of those being a suspension. Hall took a blind plea deal which she went on to appeal, and lost. When investigators first came to Hall’s apartment, she told them that she didn’t know how her children had been hurt. Then Hall said it was her fault she threw her son on the bed while playing, she said. Though Hall immediately pleaded guilty, Braxton’s case went to trial. There, Hall was a key witness in the case against her boyfriend, but she was unable to provide a firsthand account of his abuse of the children. The case against Braxton began to fall part, and Braxton was offered a plea deal that released him after two years.
Her case has generated national attention. For several years, Hall has sought a modification of her sentence. She asked the Oklahoma County District judge who sentenced her, for post-conviction relief. She appealed her case to the Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals. She also asked the Oklahoma Pardon and Parole Board for clemency. Each time she’s been refused. In Oklahoma, a pardon or commutation cannot be granted without the approval of the state’s parole board. Hall herself almost missed the deadline to apply for a commutation. In Oklahoma, only inmates with 20 or more years left on their sentences can apply. When she mailed her application, Hall had 20 years and five days left behind bars.
Relevance to Today
Here we have a poor, young women with three children who was involved in an abusive relationship. “She had no prior record of any kind. Her abusive partner and father of her children abused and seriously injured his own children. For committing these crimes, one would think Mr. Braxton would still be behind bars. Rather, the young woman with no criminal record who was charged with permitting abuse was sentenced to four 15-year sentences with two of the sentenced to run concurrently with the other two.
Hall is one of 28 mothers in 11 states who were sentenced to 10 years or more for failing to protect their children, according to a BuzzFeed News investigation. In every one of these cases, there was evidence the mother herself had been violently abused by the man. Hall is one of three cases BuzzFeed News found in which the mother got a longer sentence than the man who actually abused the child.
Some prosecutors defend the long sentences given to battered women who don't intervene to stop their children from being harmed as sending a message that mothers have a duty to protect their children, even if they must risk their own safety. But many domestic violence advocates women counter that such punishments blame the victim and demonstrate a profound misunderstanding of what it means for women to be trapped in abusive relationships. Such women often fear alerting authorities because doing so can provoke their partners to extreme violence and because the authorities often fail to protect battered women and their children. Makes sense, doesn’t it?
Was she scared of him? Absolutely. Braxton continued to intimidate Hall even as his case went to trial, even going on to tell her she would spend the rest of her life in prison and he would be out with their children. In a way, he was right. Though her children aren’t living with Braxton, he was released while she remained imprisoned. Rather than being protected by the state of Oklahoma, she was prosecuted by the state and treated most unfairly. Battered women often suffer from depression, low self-esteem and feelings of paralysis. Fear of their significant other and fear of a future without him, can make them reluctant to leave their abuser or testify against him in court.
In the years since her sentencing, Hall says she has done her best to become a better mother. She constantly keeps in contact with her children as best she can, whether it be with letters or by phone. She obtained her GED and held a steady job at Mabel Basset Correctional Facility, where she is currently still serving out her sentence. she’s even gone to the extreme of taking countless classes on pain management and better parenting. The bottom line is Tondalo Hall shouldn’t be in prison while the man who abused her and her children is free. This is a case where the prosecutor let the bad guy go and sent a victim to prison. That’s not justice, it’s just plain wrong and blasphemous. The court failed to even consider the fact that Tondalo Hall was the victim of severe domestic abuse even after it was brought to its attention.
In addition to the physical. mental and emotional pain Hall experienced as a result of her own abuse, she had to face the reality that her children had also been broken, literally, by her abuser, their father. Some might say Tondalo Hall is responsible for her children’s injuries and therefore deserves to be in prison. We have high expectations for mothers, after all. We want to believe that women become super intuitive, fast acting lionesses who pounce and kill anything or anyone who threatens their babies once they give birth, even if we know that belief to be fantasy.
Relevance to the Class
If anything is right with the world, we’d imagine that Robert Braxton Jr. served a significant amount of time for his abuse of Tondalo Hall and her children. Tondalo Hall on the other hand, is serving a sentence 15 times that of her abuser. Tondalo Hall was paralyzed by fear and routine abuse. She could in no way have been thinking or acting coherently when it came to her children’s safety, because she couldn’t even contemplate her own.
One of the biggest barriers to leaving a violent partner is having a child in common with an abuser. Despite abuse, many survivors don’t want to break up the family. Others are afraid they can’t support children on their own and some are just flat out scared of what would happen if they did report it. What if they’re charged with failure to protect and their children get taken away? All of this can be closely compared to Bell Hooks, “Aint I a woman?” in regard to how much oppressive silence women of color faced, thus being the reason why many women’s movements unfortunately don’t have their voices heard. A plethora of early black feminists were stuck in the middle of standing with women or standing with black men and this is a great, yet extremely unfortunate example of that when we examine Tondalo Hall’s case.
Actions for Change
The greatest work that may be done to eradicate domestic violence is in the courtrooms and prisons of our nation, as women in prison represent the most vulnerable, mostly forgotten victims. We can begin by petitioning for justice for Tondalo Hall through organizations such as UltraViolet and The ACLU of Oklahoma, as well as locating other cases like Hall’s in our own cities, states or regions.
Despite everything she still claims that she did not physically abuse her children, “I was an active parent and a proud mother. I loved and cared for my children and I would appreciate the opportunity to watch them grow up.” Hall’s sentence is set to end in 2034, when she will be fifty years old and her children will be full grown adults. Hall isn’t eligible for parole until she serves 85 percent of her sentence, which wouldn’t be till the year 2030; eleven years down the road. Still, Hall remains hopeful that she will be freed.
- Jacques Guillot
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