Yuyun Lusiyani
A pivotal legal experiment in Oklahoma, designed to offer incarcerated survivors of domestic violence a second chance, is navigating a complex and often contentious path through the state’s justice system. The Oklahoma Survivors’ Act, enacted in 2024, allows individuals serving time for crimes where domestic abuse was a "substantial contributing factor" to petition for reduced sentences. While the law heralded a beacon of hope for many, its initial implementation has revealed a stark divergence in outcomes, largely dependent on prosecutorial discretion and judicial interpretation, raising critical questions about the accessibility of justice for criminalized survivors.
A Glimmer of Hope: Lisa Rae Moss’s Release
The promise of the Survivors’ Act first materialized on a frigid January morning in 2025 in a Seminole, Oklahoma, courtroom. Lisa Rae Moss, then 60, who had spent 35 years behind bars for her involvement in the 1990 murder of her husband, Mike Moss, sat in the witness box. Her long silver hair and prison-issued glasses underscored the chasm between her present self and the young woman she was in her 20s, trapped in a marriage defined by terror.
Moss recounted a harrowing history of abuse: her husband’s violent outbursts, including being thrown against a fireplace, having her head slammed against a refrigerator with enough force to dent it, and repeated punches to her stomach during pregnancy. She described how he used a gun to intimidate her into sexual acts and revealed a horrific incident of rape with a curling iron that caused lasting physical injuries, necessitating a hysterectomy after five years of daily bleeding. Further compounding her anguish was the fear that her 4-year-old daughter from a previous marriage was also being sexually abused by Mike Moss. When her lawyer, Colleen McCarty, asked if she feared for her life, Moss unequivocally responded, "Absolutely."
Crucially, Moss was not the direct perpetrator of the violence. Her older brother, Richard Wright, shot her husband. Prosecutors at her 1990 trial successfully argued that Moss had solicited and helped orchestrate the killing, including offering an acquaintance $500 to "get rid of" her husband. She was convicted of first-degree murder and other charges, receiving a life sentence without parole, a sentence her brother also received.
The court’s focus was not on her original guilt or innocence but on whether the decades of documented physical, sexual, and psychological abuse she endured substantially contributed to her crime. Margaret Black, a licensed counselor specializing in domestic violence, testified about a lethality assessment, where a score of 18 or above indicates "extreme danger." Moss’s case scored a 24. "This was a very, very dangerous situation for Lisa and her children," Black affirmed.
District Judge C. Steven Kessinger delivered a momentous ruling that afternoon: "The court finds that the defendant has provided clear and convincing evidence that she was a survivor of domestic violence, having endured physical, sexual and psychological abuse… The court further finds that such violence and abuse was a substantial contributing factor in causing the defendant to commit the offenses for which she is presently incarcerated." With this finding, Moss became eligible for a reduced sentence of 30 years or fewer. Having already served more than that, Judge Kessinger ordered her immediate release.
The news reverberated through Mabel Bassett Correctional Center, a sprawling women’s prison on the outskirts of McLoud, Oklahoma, where Moss had spent most of her adult life. April Wilkens, a long-term inmate and friend of Moss, vividly described the "electric" feeling, the "pure elation" that swept through the day room. "Our survivor exodus had begun," Wilkens recalled, after receiving a text from McCarty: "Lisa’s going home!" followed by "You’re next!"
The Genesis of a Groundbreaking Law: The Oklahoma Survivors’ Act
The Oklahoma Survivors’ Act did not emerge in a vacuum. It was the culmination of years of advocacy by lawyers like Colleen McCarty, who founded the Oklahoma Appleseed Center for Law and Justice. McCarty, deeply affected by personal experiences with domestic violence in her family, saw an opportunity to challenge what she termed "criminalized survivorship"—the phenomenon of domestic violence victims being incarcerated for crimes linked to their abuse.
Her focus sharpened on April Wilkens’ case, which became a powerful emblem for the reform movement. Wilkens was serving a life sentence for shooting and killing her ex-fiancé, Terry Carlton, in 1998, following years of relentless abuse, stalking, and systemic indifference from law enforcement. Wilkens had already endured 24 years behind bars.
Inspired by New York’s Domestic Violence Survivors Justice Act, passed in 2019, which empowered judges to reduce sentences when abuse was a "significant contributing factor," McCarty and her colleague Leslie Briggs sought to replicate this legislative success in Oklahoma. To gauge the scale of criminalized survivorship, Wilkens devised an ingenious solution: an informal questionnaire circulated among inmates at Mabel Bassett. This survey, asking about sentence length, county of conviction, and an account of their crimes, yielded 156 harrowing narratives. These testimonies painted a grim picture of widespread abuse, ranging from forced participation in crimes to convictions under Oklahoma’s "failure to protect" laws, often while the women themselves were victims. The most severe sentences, however, were typically reserved for women who had retaliated against their abusers.
Oklahoma’s statistics underscored the urgency of this reform. The state consistently ranks among the highest nationally for both domestic violence rates and female incarceration rates, suggesting a profound link between the two. The findings from Wilkens’ questionnaire resonated with lawmakers, leading to the introduction of an early version of the bill in 2023.
Legislative Hurdles and Prosecutorial Pushback
Passing such legislation in a politically conservative state like Oklahoma presented significant challenges. However, a growing concern over overcrowded prisons and escalating costs had already spurred bipartisan efforts toward criminal justice reform. A landmark ballot initiative in 2016 reduced penalties for certain non-violent crimes, and subsequent retroactive changes in 2019 led to one of the largest single-day prisoner releases in U.S. history. McCarty aimed to build on this momentum.
April Wilkens became a vocal advocate for the bill from within prison walls, penning an opinion piece for The Oklahoman and sharing her story on local television, igniting the #FreeAprilWilkens social media campaign.
Yet, the proposed law met staunch opposition from many prosecutors, who raised concerns about public safety and the potential for exaggerated or bad-faith claims that would be difficult to disprove years after the fact. Tulsa County District Attorney Steve Kunzweiler, a career prosecutor known for his hardline stance, was a prominent critic. He warned in a 2024 email to a lawmaker that the legislation "presents a risk to public safety," citing the infamous Bever brothers case as an example of potentially "undeserving and dangerous defendants" exploiting the law. Advocates quickly clarified that the Bever case, involving the slaughter of non-abusive parents and siblings, fell well outside the law’s scope, as it required documentary evidence of abuse.
The pushback from district attorneys led to amendments, including the exclusion of death sentences. After two legislative sessions and sustained bipartisan efforts, the Oklahoma Survivors’ Act was signed into law in May 2024. However, its passage did not quell the prosecutors’ concerns. They retained significant authority to oppose applications, challenging claims of abuse or arguing that the abuse did not substantially contribute to the crime, effectively making them gatekeepers to the law’s promise.
Lessons from New York: A Precedent for Disparity
The experience in New York with its Domestic Violence Survivors Justice Act offered a cautionary tale. A 2025 study by law professor Alexandra Harrington found that resentencing outcomes varied sharply by county, largely depending on the local district attorney’s stance. When prosecutors supported an application, judges often granted relief. Conversely, when opposed, success rates plummeted. Opposition was common in cases deemed "egregious," or involving defendants with prior criminal records, substance abuse issues, or perceived as unsympathetic. Harrington concluded, "In some jurisdictions, the D.A.’s office has served almost entirely to obstruct the path to relief." This precedent foreshadowed the challenges awaiting Oklahoma’s survivors.
April Wilkens’ Enduring Struggle for Justice
Wilkens, who filed her application on August 29, 2024, the day the law took effect, had expected to be among the first to receive a hearing. However, due to delays, Moss’s case proceeded first, and Wilkens found herself waiting as other women from Mabel Bassett received court dates in July 2025.
Wilkens’ journey to Mabel Bassett began in Kellyville, Oklahoma, where a childhood marked by her father’s volatile moods and harsh discipline — including beatings with belts and switches — instilled in her a resilient, high-achieving facade. She excelled academically, graduating high school two years early and pursuing a career in prosthetics after attending Oklahoma State University and Northwestern University.
In 1995, at 25, newly divorced with a young son, Hunter, Wilkens met Terry Carlton. Twelve years her senior, Carlton was charismatic but concealed a dark history of drug abuse and violence against women. Despite a $25,000 engagement ring and lavish dates, their relationship quickly devolved into a cycle of brutal abuse. Within four months of their engagement, Carlton assaulted her, initiating a two-year period during which Wilkens called 911 at least ten times, obtained three emergency protective orders, and sought medical attention for injuries sustained from rapes and beatings.
Police reports and medical records corroborate the abuse, often witnessed by neighbors. Yet, Carlton, whose family held considerable influence in Tulsa, seemed immune to legal consequences. Despite being arrested once with a loaded pistol and stun gun at Wilkens’ home, he faced only a misdemeanor weapons charge, which was never enforced after he skipped court. The system, as Wilkens’ neighbor Glenda McCarley testified, seemed "put out, impatient" with Wilkens’ pleas for help.
Carlton’s relentless harassment, coupled with his introduction of cocaine and methamphetamine to Wilkens, drove her into a downward spiral of drug dependence and mental health crises, leading to involuntary commitments to psychiatric hospitals. By April 28, 1998, the day she killed him, Wilkens was a shadow of her former self, having lost her business, her social connections, and custody of her son. She testified that she went to Carlton’s house at 3 a.m. in a desperate attempt to regain control and compel him to leave her alone. She claimed he raped her and threatened her life, leading her to grab his .22 handgun and fire eight shots as he advanced toward her.
At her 1999 trial, District Attorney Tim Harris painted Wilkens as a manipulative, drug-addled fabulist, arguing, "When in trouble, cry rape." Despite documented abuse, Harris suggested a mutually destructive relationship, portraying 107-pound Wilkens as equally aggressive. "If April Wilkens had really been serious about her fear of Terry Carlton, she could have allowed the system to come to her aid," he asserted, a statement that profoundly overlooked the systemic failures she had experienced. Wilkens was found guilty and sentenced to life with the possibility of parole, a prospect that Kunzweiler, Harris’s successor, consistently opposed, arguing in 2022 that she "presents a risk to the safety of the public."
The Act’s Implementation: A Tale of Two Jurisdictions
The initial success of Moss’s case, which originated in Seminole County, contrasted sharply with the experiences of other women in Tulsa, where Kunzweiler served as district attorney. Erica Harrison, the first in Wilkens’ "survivor sisterhood" from Mabel Bassett to face a Tulsa judge that summer, testified about being raped by a family friend after leaving a domestic violence shelter. After her 911 calls went unanswered, she shot him in a parking lot. Prosecutors, however, challenged inconsistencies in her testimony and her delayed 911 call, questioning the imminence of the threat. The judge reserved a ruling.
Norma Jane Lumpkin, 75, who had served 44 years for her role in the 1981 bludgeoning death of her husband, faced searing victim impact statements from her own daughter, who portrayed her as a "coldblooded killer" undeserving of leniency.
Tyesha Long, 27, testified in an Oklahoma City courtroom about killing Ray Brown, an abusive older businessman who had stalked, choked, and threatened her, causing a miscarriage. The challenge for Long, who shot Brown in the back, lay in the traditional legal understanding of self-defense, which often requires an immediate, frontal threat. Domestic violence experts, like social worker Angela Beatty, explained that "coercive control" can alter threat perception, leading survivors to act in moments of perceived lull, which may appear to a jury as not directly provoked. Long also faced prosecutorial scrutiny over inconsistencies in her memory, which Beatty explained as a common symptom of trauma. Assistant District Attorney Madeline Coffey aggressively dissected her account, questioning the number of times she was strangled or punched, and whether sex was "sometimes consensual."
These grueling cross-examinations, which retraumatized the applicants, quickly reached Wilkens. Recognizing the hostile environment, Wilkens and her lawyers, Colleen McCarty and Abby Gore, made the difficult strategic decision that Wilkens would not testify at her own resentencing hearing. This decision, aimed at protecting her from further emotional distress and ensuring the well-documented evidence of abuse was not overshadowed by aggressive questioning, ironically silenced the very champion for whom the law was largely conceived.
Wilkens’ Hearing: The Battle for Interpretation
Wilkens’ resentencing hearing in Tulsa in September drew a crowded courtroom, including her niece, Amanda Ross, whose decade-long effort to compile her aunt’s records had been instrumental. Kunzweiler, representing the state, opened by asserting the finality of the original jury’s verdict, reminding the court that "Twelve men and women sat in a courtroom very much like this… They saw all the evidence." He underscored Wilkens’ "extreme methamphetamine use" and her unannounced arrival at Carlton’s house on the night of the shooting, portraying her as a "convicted murderer" in her striped orange jail jumpsuit, shackled at the wrists and ankles.
However, a critical piece of evidence previously withheld from the 1999 jury—a tape recording of Carlton angrily admitting to raping, beating, and choking Wilkens—was now admitted. Federal Judge Claire Eagan, who as a private lawyer in 1996 had helped Wilkens secure an emergency protective order, testified to Wilkens’ visible injuries and the tape’s contents. Eagan also recounted Carlton’s smug smile when Wilkens, too frightened to appear in court, failed to extend the protective order.
Angela Beatty, the defense’s expert social worker, again testified about "coercive control" and its impact on survivors’ decision-making, emphasizing Wilkens’ belief that Carlton would kill her that night. But Assistant District Attorney Hilborn vigorously challenged Beatty’s objectivity, suggesting bias and implying that Wilkens’ claims were strategic for sentence modification. Hilborn repeatedly pivoted to Wilkens’ substance abuse, questioning whether her "paranoia" stemmed from meth use rather than domestic violence.
The state’s forensic psychologist, Jarrod Steffan, further amplified this argument, testifying that Wilkens’ actions were due to "mental illness and heavy meth use," not domestic violence, citing "severe mental-health issues, such as hallucinations and delusions" in her decades-old medical records. Dr. Reagan Gill, a forensic psychiatrist for the defense, countered Steffan’s methodology and choice of pejorative language, but the damage to Wilkens’ credibility was already inflicted.
Judge David Guten, without delay, delivered his ruling that afternoon. While acknowledging "more than sufficient evidence that there was violence in this relationship," he concluded that the defense had failed to meet the Act’s second requirement: to show "by clear and convincing evidence" that the abuse substantially contributed to the crime. Guten dismissed Beatty’s testimony as advocacy, not expert opinion, stating, "I could not give her testimony any weight." He then denied the request for sentence modification.
Aftermath and the Path Forward
The string of denials—for Harrison, Lumpkin, Long, and Kimberley Perigo (who shot her ex-husband in 2001 after years of abuse)—following Moss’s release, cast a long shadow over the promise of the Survivors’ Act. Questions arose within Mabel Bassett: Was Moss’s freedom an anomaly due to her non-presence at the crime scene, or the luck of being in a more amenable county? Advocates pointed fingers at the Tulsa County District Attorney’s office, which spent over $16,000 on expert witnesses in Wilkens’ case alone.
Kunzweiler defended his actions, stating his "obligation: to find the truth and then seek justice." He emphasized the finality of jury verdicts and the appeals process, asserting that the system had worked as intended. However, McCarty uncovered text messages revealing Kunzweiler’s active opposition, including one to state employees after Wilkens’ hearing: "I was busy keeping April Wilkens in prison." Another showed Judge Guten texting Kunzweiler about a local newspaper letter from a juror at Wilkens’ original trial, who dismissed her self-defense claims as "a fabrication."
These exchanges, McCarty argued, exposed institutional resistance to the new law. In response, she announced her candidacy for district attorney, challenging Kunzweiler in the Republican primary in January 2026.
Wilkens is now appealing Guten’s decision to the Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals, with Garrard Beeney of Sullivan & Cromwell, who won the first appellate ruling under New York’s similar law, leading the charge. This appeal will be crucial in defining how the Survivors’ Act will be interpreted and applied in Oklahoma.
As other states, most recently Georgia, enact survivor-justice laws, the Oklahoma experience serves as a critical test case. It highlights the persistent tension between judicial precedent, prosecutorial discretion, and legislative intent in confronting the complex issue of criminalized survivorship. The outcome of Wilkens’ appeal will not only determine her fate but also shape the future for countless other women in Oklahoma and beyond, challenging the criminal justice system to perceive survivors not merely as perpetrators but as victims deserving of mercy and a genuine path to freedom. Until then, April Wilkens, like the tree she planted decades ago, continues to wait and grow, reaching for a justice that remains just out of reach.
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