Jurors Got Even?
Michael Mendelson, a New York criminal defense attorney, said the verdict was won during jury selection.
"If you get the right jury, you win," he said.
Immediately after the homicide, Mrs. Winkler's attorneys had begun molding her as an empathetic figure overwhelmed by years of abuse at the hands of her husband.
Mendelson characterized it as a "get-even" verdict by the southern women on the jury.
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| Mary Winkler |
Winkler, 33, got up early on that day of the slaying, March 22, 2006, went to the closet, got out her husband's shotgun and pointed it at him as he lay in bed.
When the gun "'accidentally' fired, she said, her instinct was to flee. She packed her daughters and the shotgun in the family van and drove 350 south to Orange Beach, Ala., where she was arrested 36 hours after the slaying.
"All I knew was that the stupid gun had went off, and nobody would believe me and they would just take my girls away from me," she testified.
In her statement to police, Winkler said she had been beaten down by her husband over "stupid stuff" until she was bullied to the brink of insanity.
"I love him dearly, but gosh, he just nailed me in the ground," she said, "and I was real good for quite, quite some time."
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