News & Events

Attorneys in the Palo Alto office filed a habeas corpus petition on behalf of Barbara Nicole Hammond, a woman from Bakersfield, California, who was convicted in 1990 of killing her abusive partner and sentenced to a prison term of 17 years to life.  The Superior Court of Kern County recently granted the habeas petition and ordered her released on time served, ending nearly twenty years of imprisonment.   Ms. Hammond’s release culminates a pro bono effort on the part of Simpson Thacher & Bartlett which began in 2007.

At the time of Ms. Hammond’s original trial the law did not permit the introduction of evidence concerning intimate partner battering and its effects.  An increased awareness and understanding of domestic violence led to the enactment of California Penal Code Section 1473.5 in 2001.  Section 1473.5 permits individuals who were convicted of violent felonies against their abusive partners before 1996 to challenge their convictions if they can demonstrate that there is a reasonable probability that, had expert evidence on battering been introduced at the original proceeding, the outcome would have been different.  During three days of evidentiary hearings, attorneys detailed the seven years of severe emotional, physical, and sexual abuse suffered by Ms. Hammond at the hands (and fists) of her common law husband.  Ms. Hammond’s attempts to escape from her partner were met by further acts of violence against her and her children, culminating in the incident that resulted in Ms. Hammond’s conviction.  After seeing her partner injure their infant son, Ms. Hammond struck out against him with a kitchen knife. 

In the order reducing Ms. Hammond's second degree murder conviction to one of voluntary manslaughter and releasing her from prison, Judge Michael Dellostritto pointed to the persuasiveness of the expert witness's testimony on the “cycle of violence,” a pattern of abuse, apology, and further abuse inflicted by batterers on their victims.  In particular the court pointed to the expert’s testimony that Ms. Hammond had a unique understanding of her partner's capacity for violence which, in the moments before he was killed, led Ms. Hammond to honestly fear for her and her child's lives.   Because of the weight of this evidence, which by law could not have been introduced at the original trial, the court concluded that Ms. Hammond's case fell within Section 1473.5 and ordered her released on time served. 

The attorneys who represented Ms. Hammond are Partner Jeffrey Ostrow and Associate Amanda Treleaven of the Palo Alto office, as well as former Palo Alto associates Gabriel Rubin and Christina Hioureas.