law final Essay

Submitted By michelle51410
Words: 1460
Pages: 6

The case we decided to base our law analysis on is about a family in which the dad abuses the children, which causes the son to kill the father as self-defense. This family of four living in Tallahassee, Florida consists of 29 year old mom Lisa Cohen , 31 year old dad David O’Brien, 12 year old son Josh Cohen, and little 4 year old daughter Elizabeth “Lizzy” O’Brien. Lisa and David have been dating and living together in a mobile home for 5 years now. When Lisa had Josh she was 17 therefore she had to drop out of high school and raise her son. Josh’s father is not David and his real father left the picture as soon as Lisa became pregnant. Lisa was on her own because even her family disowned her because they were ashamed that she threw her life away due to making mistakes and getting pregnant at such a young age. When Lisa met David at the bar where she works they began dating and soon their relationship advanced and they had Lizzy. David works the day shift as a mechanic while Lisa stays at home with the kids and when David comes home; Lisa works the night shift as a bartender. Since Lisa works at night, she gets home late and usually finds bruises on Josh the next morning. David would make this an almost daily routine to abuse Josh and soon enough it reached Josh’s boiling point. One day he stabbed David to death as self-defense. Josh and David had never really had a good relationship because Josh wasn’t David’s son and he didn’t feel the love for him as he did for his real daughter, Lizzy. Josh always felt that neglect from David and it soon portrayed in actions when the beatings began. From the perspective of the defendant Josh should be innocent because he was only protecting and defending himself from David’s harsh treatment towards him. Lisa stated that David has always been manipulative and that he would steal the money she would make in tips from work to buy alcohol. The only reason Lisa never complained to anyone about David’s actions was because he provided another source of income for the two kids. In other words, Lisa was scared to confront both the police and David himself about the situation because she was afraid he would stop supporting her financially. Although Lisa was aware of the abusing going on in the house she kept quiet especially because there was no immediate contact available for her to talk to since they all left her. Josh’s teacher at school, Ms. Lynn reported seeing several bruises on parts of Josh’s body. Whenever Ms. Lynn would question Josh about the marks he would always say that he got them from playing outside or he would just make up lies constantly because Lisa would always tell him to not say anything. David would wait until Lisa left to work and he would start drinking and beating Josh up. Josh was not only abused physically by David but also mentally because he became traumatized and he feared the night time because he knew what awaited him. Lizzy would always be in her room while the beating occurred because David never abused her. David always favored Lizzy since she was his actual daughter. In a sense it did affect Lizzy because although she wasn’t physically being abused, she would see how her brother got treated and it would scare her. Coming from a low class family, they didn’t have the best clothes or anything so she would go to school with dirty clothes and not the best hygiene. All in all, neither of the kids were living in a safe environment. There was always hatred between Josh and David and as time evolved it came to a point where Josh was fed up with everything. One night when Lisa came home from work David was really drunk and they started having an altercation so when Josh heard the bickering from his room he looked out his door and saw David shoving Lisa against the wall. In the heat of the moment Josh ran to the kitchen and grabbed a knife from the counter and lunged at David in defense to protect his mom. At that age and in that moment in time Josh was scared and