Beginning in 2002, Wendy Howard and her daughters were physically, sexually, and verbally abused by Wendy’s abusive partner. In 2019, their abuser attacked Wendy at her home, forcing her to defend herself and her family. She is now facing an unjust sentence of 36 years to life. The charges must be dropped! #JusticeForWendy #JusticeForSurvivors
Wendy is currently out on a $500,000 bail and is facing tens of thousands of dollars in legal fees. She will return to court on Tuesday, February 21, 2023 for a once-in-jeopardy plea hearing. This hearing will determine if Wendy will be fully acquitted of all charges and the Kern County DA will be unable to retry Wendy due to double jeopardy, or if Wendy will have to return to court on April 17, 2023. Wendy needs your support to fight these unjust charges!
Wendy has 7 children and 9 grandchildren who love her and whose lives will be devastated if she goes to prison. Wendy should not be punished for suffering years of abuse, and she does not deserve to be prosecuted for protecting her children. Survivors of domestic violence deserve more than being forced between their lives and their freedom!
Wendy Howard case concludes with Alford Plea, no prison time
Dear Community,
Yesterday, April 7th, Wendy Howard’s case concluded with her entering an Alford plea for voluntary manslaughter in order to avoid a second retraumatizing trial for her and her family. She received a sentence of time served, no restitution, and one-year probation. Simply put, Wendy will not go to prison for defending herself. While any innocent person would feel defeated entering a plea for a crime they did not commit, we consider Wendy’s freedom a victory due to the fact that Kern County DA Cynthia Zimmer sought to incarcerate Wendy, a 53-year-old mother and grandmother, for 50 years to life by shockingly charging her with first-degree murder for defending herself when she was in danger. We are happy to report they lost that battle due to a fabricated narrative and lack of evidence. We would never have secured this hard-fought victory without the dedicated work of Wendy’s defense attorney, Tony Lidgett, and the unwavering support from Wendy’s family, friends, and advocates, to whom we are incredibly grateful.
By entering an Alford plea, Wendy is able to maintain her innocence while simultaneously accepting a conviction. According to an ABC23 interview with Bakersfield defense attorney Kyle Humphrey, “The concept is that sometimes the person who maintains their innocence is offered such a good plea bargain under the circumstances they want to take it, but they don't want to say 'I'm guilty’”. Humphrey says one benefit of the Alford plea to defendants is that it presents less of a long-term risk to employment prospects and other future opportunities for the defendant.”
The opportunity to enter an Alford plea and maintain innocence provides relief to what otherwise feels like a coerced plea deal. When DAs threaten defendants with the financial, emotional, and spiritual burden of facing a second trial, they effectively force them into taking a plea deal, rather than face the nightmare of a retrial. Such was the case of criminalized survivor, Michaele Bowers, who Kern County DA Cynthia Zimmer retried twice, and even threatened with a third trial before Ms. Bowers pled guilty to voluntary manslaughter and was unjustly sentenced to six years in prison.
In Wendy’s particular case, she had not only herself but her daughters, Bayley and Miranda, who were forced to testify to their own sexual abuse, in addition to her entire family to consider. This was a courageous decision made by a loving matriarch who has faced indescribable injustice from a system that failed to protect her from a man who had a long history and documented record of severe domestic violence and child sexual abuse.
The Kern County DA failed to keep Tehachapi residents safe from his violence and instead of accounting for their own failure to keep the public safe, they chose to prosecute a woman who was trying to stay alive in an attack that they could have prevented. Wendy's family and Kern County residents should never have had to pay for the DA's failure to protect public safety, and DA Cynthia Zimmer’s legacy will be defined by her office’s terrifying pattern of punishing victims of rape, domestic violence, and child sexual abuse who defend their lives.
Wendy’s gag order, which the DA requested to silence her nearly four years ago, will be lifted after her sentencing on May 4th. We are hopeful that AB1497 will pass, which would allow survivors to have their violent felonies vacated in cases of domestic violence and human trafficking. This would allow Wendy to petition to clear her record and put this horrendous injustice behind her.
We thank all the community members and advocates who have been tremendously supportive of Wendy throughout this four-year nightmare. Thank you for your prayers, your generous donations to Wendy’s legal defense fund, and your constant messages of support and solidarity. To the criminalized survivors and defense campaigns across the nation that have supported Wendy, thank you in particular for your support; it has meant everything and we send love and solidarity right back at you. To Wendy, Bayley, Miranda, and the entire family: we honor you as beacons of strength, survival, and resilience. To Wendy: you are kind, thoughtful, and risked your life to defend your family. You are not your plea deal, and your plea deal does not define you.
To contribute to the ongoing healing journey of this family, please consider contributing today: Click Here
To view press coverage from this week, please see the comprehensive and heartfelt coverage from The Californian’s Ishani Desai, KGET17’s Mikhala Armstrong, and ABC23’s Brianna Willis.
If you feel moved to get more involved in supporting people like Wendy, please get in touch with Survived & Punished and California Coalition for Women Prisoners, who have collectively provided expansive and compassionate support to Wendy.
In Loving Solidarity,
The Wendy Howard Defense Committee
Defendwendy.com
#JusticeforWendy
#JusticeforSurvivors
Friday, the jury in the Wendy Howard trial found Wendy NOT GUILTY of first-degree murder, second-degree murder, voluntary manslaughter (on an imperfect self-defense theory), and involuntary manslaughter. The jury hung - reached a deadlock - on the charge of voluntary manslaughter (on a heat of passion theory), with 7 voting to convict and 5 voting to acquit. Perhaps not coincidentally, the jury consisted of 7 men and 5 women. We are thankful to the jury members who voted for a full acquittal and affirmed the truth that Wendy acted in defense of her life and family.
Wendy Howard Jury Reaches Verdict
This ordeal is not over. The DA’s choice to pursue this trial against Wendy has had devastating consequences for Wendy and her family for over 3 years after Wendy defended herself from a man who attacked and terrorized her and her family for years. There have been severe costs created by this nightmare of a trial:
First, the outrage of not being believed in the first place and having to go through this whole miserable process, including Wendy, her daughters, and other survivors being forced to relive their experiences of abuse in public. They all paid this high emotional cost only for the DA to finally assert that he believes that they were abused in order to distort their experience of violence as a “motive” for murder.
Second, the cost of bail, defense attorney fees, and other legal fees needed to wage a strong defense have created great economic stress for Wendy and her family.
Finally, there are significant consequences to the taxpayers of Kern County, whose district attorney has made it a priority to prosecute survivors of domestic violence rather than focusing on the community’s actual needs for public safety, such as extending existing victim resources to all victims, including Wendy and her daughters.
The fact that the DA can try this case again for one charge is absurd. Now that they have been defeated on almost every charge that they pursued, we say again to the Kern County DA:
DROP THE CHARGES! End this war against survivors in your community and let Wendy and her family finally live in peace.
We thank the growing numbers of you who have followed and supported Wendy’s case, and donated money, which is still urgently needed. We are raising funds to compensate Wendy’s attorney whose important work has gotten Wendy this far. We are still $8k short and Nov. 18th fees are now looming. All funds go directly to pay legal costs.
(Wendy and her family pictured above)
The good news is that Wendy got to go home with her family yesterday, without being immediately arrested and sent directly to prison for decades. For this, we are truly relieved. The bad news is that Wendy's gag order remains, and she has to return to court on Friday, November 18 for a status hearing where the DA will announce if they will retry Wendy on the one remaining charge of voluntary manslaughter, try to negotiate a lesser plea deal, or drop the charges. The Wendy Howard Defense Committee continues to demand that the DA DROP ALL CHARGES.
Wendy Howard (blue suit, bottom row) poses with family members and advocates
Sign the Petition
Join the 12,000 people who have demanded that the Kern County DA drop all charges against Wendy and sign the petition today!