ACLU fights for woman’s release in abuse case
SHAWNEE — The American Civil Liberties Union is fighting for the release of an Oklahoma woman sentenced to 30 years in prison for failing to protect her children from their abusive father.
Tondalao Hall, 33, has spent the past 13 years in custody after being accused of permitting her boyfriend, Robert Braxton Jr., to harm their infant daughter and toddler son in 2004. She pleaded guilty in 2006.
The baby girl suffered broken ribs, a broken femur and a broken toe, and the boy had similar injuries.
Braxton reached a plea deal with prosecutors in the middle of his trial. He was sentenced to two years time served and eight years probation after admitting only to injuring his daughter.
Hall received no plea deal, and Oklahoma County District Judge Ray C. Elliott sentenced her to 30 years in prison under the state’s Failure to Protect law. Under the law, enabling child abuse is a felony that can carry the same penalties as child abuse. Critics of the law say it punishes victims of domestic violence, who are sometimes afraid or unable to seek help.
“Worse yet, the children had their mother taken away from them,” Brady Henderson, legal director for ACLU of Oklahoma, argued on Hall’s behalf in a packed Pottawatomie County courtroom on Tuesday.
Henderson argued that Hall was herself a victim of years of domestic abuse. Braxton allegedly beat and strangled her.
The ACLU of Oklahoma filed a writ of habeas corpus in Pottawatomie County District Court earlier this year asking for Hall’s release.
Hall is serving her sentence at Mabel Bassett Correctional Center in Pottawatomie County. The type of action the ACLU filed on Hall’s behalf is also sometimes called an extraordinary writ, meant to correct an injustice when other means have failed. Hall’s previous attempts at appeal haven’t gone anywhere. She must serve 85 percent of her sentence before she becomes eligible for parole.
On Tuesday, a Pottawatomie County district judge ruled he did not have jurisdiction to hear Hall’s case.
The ACLU of Oklahoma now plans to file an application for postconviction relief in Oklahoma County, where Hall was originally sentenced.
A group of about 20 women from across the state attended the court hearing on Tuesday, some carrying homemade signs in support of Hall.
“We will take this case all the way to the Supreme Court if we have to,” Ryan Kiesel, executive director of ACLU of Oklahoma, told Hall’s supporters after the hearing.
Molly Bryant, an advocate from the Domestic Violence Intervention Services in Tulsa, was with the group.
Bryant came in support of Hall because many of the victims of domestic violence that DVIS serves also have been prosecuted under the Failure to Protect law. Child abuse and domestic violence are frequently linked, she said.
“Some of our clients have also been charged with felonies under this law,” Bryant said. “The system really isn’t understanding what domestic violence survivors go through.”
Henderson estimates as many as 130 people are serving prison time in Oklahoma under the Failure to Protect law. A large percentage are women of color, he said.
Hall testified against her boyfriend at trial before he reached his deal. At her 2006 sentencing, a prosecutor said the case against Braxton “fell apart in part because of her minimizing and denying what happened in that household.”
In imposing the sentence, Judge Elliott agreed she was “less than candid” with the jury and “lied on some issues under oath.”