“Alive but Still Not Free”: Nikki Addimando and Judicial Failure to Apply the Domestic Violence Survivors Justice Act
Christopher L. Hamilton
100 B.U. L. Rev. Online 174 (2020)
This Essay addresses the failure of the New York state judicial system to properly apply the Domestic Violence Survivors Justice Act (“DVSJA”), with devastating implications for those whom the law was intended to protect. In order to remedy this serious problem, this Essay proposes detailed considerations that state judges should contemplate when deciding whether to apply the DVSJA to a defendant’s sentencing. The DVSJA, signed into law on May 14, 2019 by Governor Andrew M. Cuomo, codifies sentence reductions for domestic abuse survivors in the criminal justice system.[1] This law is aimed at preventing further victimization of individuals who have endured domestic and sexual violence at the hands of their partners, and it allows judges to reduce survivors’ prison sentences and redirect sentencing from incarceration to community-based rehabilitation programs.
No case exemplifies the courts’ failure to properly apply this law more clearly than that of Nikki Addimando. On April 12, 2019, after three days of deliberation, a jury found Addimando—a thirty-one-year-old woman and a loving mother of two children—guilty of second-degree murder and second-degree criminal possession of a handgun for the killing of her partner and abuser, Christopher Grover. Rachel Louise Snyder, a veteran reporter for The New Yorker, said that the abuse Addimando suffered was “among the most extreme I have ever come across in a decade of reporting on domestic violence.”[2]
Despite that fact, and despite the ample evidence that Addimando introduced at trial to show that she was a victim of domestic abuse, the trial judge wrongly refused to apply the recently enacted DVSJA to Addimando’s case, which would have reduced her sentence from twenty-five years to life to between five and fifteen years in prison. He sentenced Addimando to nineteen years to life, noting that she “had the opportunity to safely leave” and that she had not introduced “sufficient proof that the alleged abuse was a significant contributing factor in the defendant’s act of murder.”[3] The judge’s decision reflected a blatant disregard for the factors the court must consider when applying the DVSJA and rendered toothless the legislative purpose for which the DVSJA was enacted. Addimando is just one of several defendants who have been denied the protections of the DVSJA since its enactment.[4]
This Essay elucidates the egregiousness of the judge’s mistake in refusing to apply the DVSJA to Addimando’s sentence. If the DVSJA does not apply to the severe and thoroughly documented facts of Addimando’s case, it cannot apply in any case. This Essay proceeds in three parts: Part I discusses the legislative history of the DVSJA, and it examines the elements of the DVSJA for initial sentencing determinations and the considerations that judges should contemplate when deciding whether a defendant should be sentenced under the DVSJA. Part II describes in detail the horrific circumstances of Addimando’s abuse and her subsequent journey through the criminal justice system. Finally, Part III analyzes the judge’s decision not to apply the DVSJA and illustrates why the judge’s choice was ill-conceived. Nikki Addimando has been failed by the courts and the criminal justice system; this Essay attempts to bring that failure to light and to ensure that it does not happen again. […] Read the full article.
[1] Press Release, Andrew M. Cuomo, Governor, New York, Governor Cuomo Signs Domestic Violence Survivors Justice Act (May 14, 2019), https://www.governor.ny.gov/news/governor-cuomo-signs-domestic-violence-survivors-justice-act [https://perma.cc/3J5M-5NPV].
[2] Rachel Louise Snyder, When Can a Woman Who Kills Her Abuser Claim Self-Defense?, New Yorker (Dec. 20, 2019), https://www.newyorker.com/news/dispatch/when-can-a-woman-who-kills-her-abuser-claim-self-defense [https://perma.cc/32BK-SFCU].
[3] Geoffrey Wilson, Addimando Sentenced to 19 Years to Life in Murder of Boyfriend Grover in Poughkeepsie, Poughkeepsie J. (Feb. 11, 2020, 2:49 PM), https://www.poughkeepsiejournal.com/story/news/crime/2020/02/11/nicole-addimando-sentenced-murder-christopher-grover-poughkeepsie/4694452002/.
[4] See Victoria Law, A New York Law Could Reduce Sentences for Domestic Violence Survivors. Why Are Judges Reluctant to Apply It?, Appeal (Feb. 24, 2020), https://theappeal.org/a-new-york-law-could-reduce-sentences-for-domestic-violence-survivors-why-are-judges-reluctant-to-apply-it/?fbclid=IwAR2y0qodtumIe6bNIa9e3NPzmk hnw0DVQqxa0qBZvbgXDtjzdUrwsNIQdJo [https://perma.cc/4M3Z-QKUZ].