A Wisconsin woman who was allowed to argue that she had been justified in fatally shooting a man she said had sexually trafficked her was sentenced on Monday to 11 years in prison under a deal with prosecutors in which she pleaded guilty to a reduced charge, according to court documents.
The sentencing of the woman, Chrystul Kizer, 24, in a Kenosha County, Wis., courtroom brought to an end a six-year case that drew the attention of the Wisconsin Supreme Court, which ruled in 2022 that Ms. Kizer could argue at trial that she had been justified in shooting the man, Randall Volar, 34, because he had sexually trafficked her.
Ms. Kizer was 17 in June 2018, when she fatally shot Mr. Volar, started a fire at his home in Kenosha, Wis., and fled in his car. Ms. Kizer had initially been charged with intentional homicide, which could have carried a sentence of life in prison, as well as other counts, including arson and possession of a firearm.
In an arrangement with prosecutors, Ms. Kizer was allowed to plead guilty to reckless homicide in May, and other charges against her were dismissed.
Ms. Kizer will be on extended supervision for five years. She was given 570 days of credit for time she had already served.
Delivering the sentence on Monday, Judge David Wilk of Kenosha County Court told Ms. Kizer that he was “well aware of your circumstances surrounding your relationship with Mr. Volar,” The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported.
“You are not permitted to be the instrument of his reckoning,” Judge Wilk said. “To hold otherwise is to endorse a descent into lawlessness and chaos.”
The Wisconsin Supreme Court ruled in 2022 that a 2008 state law that absolves trafficking victims of liability for crimes committed as a direct result of being trafficked extended to first-degree homicide, which Ms. Kizer had originally faced, and that Ms. Kizer could use that argument, known as “affirmative defense,” in court.
But, the court ruled, Ms. Kizer had to produce “some evidence on which a reasonable jury could find that the defense applies.”
On Monday, Judge Wilk recognized the state law, but said that Ms. Kizer “abandoned that claim” when she pleaded guilty to the lesser charge of reckless homicide, The Journal Sentinel reported.
“You entered a guilty plea,” Judge Wilk said. “That allows you to argue your circumstances warrant mercy, but not that they warrant absolution.”
Lawyers for Ms. Kizer and prosecutors did not immediately respond to requests for comment on Monday.
Ms. Kizer first met Ms. Volar when she was 16. She told The Washington Post in an interview in 2019 that she had met him through backpage.com, a website that has been repeatedly accused of enabling sex trafficking. She told the newspaper that Mr. Volar gave her money and gifts, sexually abused her and also arranged for other men to meet her.
“He was a grown-up, and I wasn’t,” she told the newspaper. “So I listened.”
After Ms. Kizer fatally shot Mr. Volar in 2018, she told detectives that she had grown tired of him touching her, according to court documents.
Prosecutors later argued that the shooting had been premeditated based on text messages and social media posts, including a Facebook post in which Ms. Kizer appeared to display a pistol, court documents show.
Claudine O’Leary, an independent consultant for victims of human trafficking who worked with Ms. Kizer, said in an email on Monday that she was saddened by the sentencing.
“There are men in Southeastern Wisconsin walking around free today who paid for the ability to sexually abuse Chrystul when she was a minor and they never faced accountability,” she wrote. “This is the kind of case that young people will remember. They’ll say, ‘They didn’t believe Chrystul, why should they believe me?’”