State Rep. Toni Hasenbeck describes Oklahoma’s relationship with self-defense as a love affair, where gun and property rights blend to form a “romanticized” image of a man protecting his homestead.

In recent years, Republican lawmakers have propelled that notion by adopting “stand your ground” laws, increasing the area a person can legally defend as their property, and even allowing motorists to run over protesters if they feel in danger.

“It’s the big strong man protecting his stuff, it’s an idyllic thing to think about, we make movies about this stuff,” said Hasenbeck, R-Elgin.

“But it’s not the same for women.”

Oklahoma courts have convicted multiple women of murder who said they killed in an act of self-defense.

One woman killed her abuser after he raped and chained her in a basement, another stabbed a man who had just stabbed her own pregnant belly, and one woman shot her rapist after calling 911 three times in a 40-minute span.

Hundreds more claim they committed a crime because they were abused, what some call criminalized survivors, according to a survey and study by the Oklahoma Appleseed Center for Law and Justice.

Domestic violence can be a challenging defense in an Oklahoma court as prosecutors often work hard to dismiss any evidence of abuse against the woman they have charged with murder.

At sentencing, a woman’s history of trauma and abuse is often not taken into consideration.

But Hasenbeck wants the state Legislature to alter the criminal justice system for abused women, allowing a history of domestic violence to be discussed at trial and sentencing, while also giving currently incarcerated women a chance to reduce their lengthy sentences.

House Bill 1639 would allow a defendant to present evidence of their abuse when charged with a crime against their intimate partner where self-defense could be raised.

If evidence of domestic abuse is found within a year of the crime, the bill also would allow the court to impart a lower sentence.

The bill has been passed by the full House and a Senate committee but was stripped of language helping those currently in prison, a result of the fierce opposition from state prosecutors not eager to let out women they have put behind bars.

But advocates believe the state is ignoring social science and exacerbating a system that has long been stacked against women, which Hasenbeck said she’s determined to change.

“I've never worked so hard on a bill in my entire life,” Hasenbeck said.

‘I knew I was going to die’

In 2019, after Oklahoma voters and lawmakers agreed to reduce prison sentences for nonviolent drug offenses, Gov. Kevin Stitt, just one year into his term, oversaw one of the largest mass commutations in the nation’s history.

Hundreds of men and women were released from prison, an example of the state’s effort to reverse a generation of nation-leading incarceration rates.

“We are implementing the will of the people. I truly believe that,” Stitt said at the time.

More: More Oklahomans are being released from prison. Now what?

But several years later, advocates say the criminal justice reform effort may be stalling, especially when the conversation shifts to violent offenders.

“There's not going to be a way that we can tackle our over-incarceration without looking at some of the violent crimes because those people are the ones that are in prison the longest,” said Colleen McCarty, executive director of Oklahoma Appleseed, which is lobbying in favor of HB 1639.

Last year, the Tulsa-based nonprofit produced a podcast series on the story of April Wilkens, who shot and killed her fiancé after he handcuffed and raped her.

Convicted of first-degree murder, Wilkens already has served nearly 25 years of a life sentence.

“I knew that I was going to die. I just knew I was going to die,” Wilkens said last year about being abused and why she shot her fiancé.

The original version of HB 1639 would have allowed women like Wilkens to apply for a sentencing review hearing, where they could present evidence of abuse, potentially leading to an early release.

More: She killed her abuser. An Oklahoma House committee passed a bill that could set her free.

But the retroactive part of the bill was removed before it was advanced by the House after opposition from the Oklahoma District Attorneys Council, according to the bill's House and Senate authors.

“When I talk to people about a woman being in prison for killing a man who tried to kill her and threatened to kill her children, and did all this terrible stuff to her, I have not had a single person who's not a district attorney, or worked for a district attorney, tell me this (bill) is a bad idea,” Hasenbeck said.

The District Attorneys Council declined The Oklahoman’s interview request, but said it “raised concerns about some unintended consequences,” Kathryn Brewer, the agency’s executive coordinator, wrote in an emailed statement.

HB 1639 was advanced by a Senate committee on Tuesday and can now be considered by the full Senate. Sen. Julie Daniels, the bill’s Senate author, said the legislation likely will head back to the House where final language will be determined.

“My view is it is going to take a lot longer to come to some conclusion,” Daniels, R-Bartlesville, said at Tuesday’s committee hearing. “I did suggest that maybe the bill just be laid over and worked on over the interim (session) and that may still happen, but the folks that brought the bill want to continue with it (this year).”

‘We can’t separate’ trauma and crime

In 2013, Erica Harrison said she was raped by a family friend so violently that she had to have a hysterectomy. When her attacker returned later the same day, Harrison called the police multiple times, but when she eventually heard sirens, they drove past her apartment.

“He continued to come towards me, even though I don’t remember, I was told I shot him,” Harrison, who was convicted of first-degree manslaughter, recounted to Oklahoma Appleseed.

Like other murder charges against women for killing an attacker, prosecutors said Harrison’s story did not align with witness statements and the physical evidence.

But sociologists say law enforcement doesn’t focus enough on a woman’s history of trauma when considering similar cases.

More: Oklahoma House Republicans vote to expand a person's right to self-defense with a firearm

“We can’t separate these women from the complex trauma of their lives,” said David McLeod, the associate director of the Anne and Henry Zarrow School of Social Work at the University of Oklahoma.

Oklahoma has the highest rate of domestic violence in the nation and ranks second in the rate of women killed by men, based on statistics analyzed by the Violence Policy Center.

McLeod said it’s no coincidence that Oklahoma leads the nation in violence against women, while also having one of the highest female incarceration rates.

“When women aren’t perfect and they aren’t the perfect victim, they are treated as throw-away people who need to be punished and put back into place as if they were children or property,” McLeod said. “I know that's harsh to say, but when we look at the data, it’s really hard to get away from that idea.”

Not only is a woman’s history of trauma often ignored by the legal system, McLeod said, but studies show women are often perceived differently when they defend themselves.

In a 2014 study on self-defense disparities between men and women, Mary Anne Franks, a law professor at the University of Miami, claimed men are often celebrated for meeting violence with violence, while women are questioned.

“It is difficult to imagine asking a man why he ‘didn’t just leave’ when an intruder broke into his house and threatened him, so difficult in fact that the question is effectively foreclosed by the castle doctrine,” Franks wrote, referring to the legal defense that a person has every right to defend themselves inside their own home.

“And yet the question is routinely asked of women who are attacked in their own homes.”

HB 1693 addresses women who have killed in the act of self-defense, but McCarty, with Oklahoma Appleseed, said she hopes it will spark a wider conversation about domestic violence and criminality.

“These things are linked, and we have to start seeing that,” McCarty said.

Hasenbeck, the Elgin representative, said she didn’t seek to get involved in a wider criminal justice reform movement.

But the stories of women behind bars for protecting themselves and their families inspired her to act, especially when domestic violence is so often misunderstood and so prevalent in Oklahoma.

Hasenbeck believes the bill has momentum but acknowledged pushback.

“I’ve had someone come to my office and say, ‘Are you sure you want to wrap your pretty little head around this?’, which really pissed me off,” Hasenbeck said.

“And so now I feel even more strongly that I have to do this, this is the time to do this.”

This article originally appeared on Oklahoman: Oklahoma bill would protect women charged with murder during attack