A series in the Boston Globe brings local attention to the 'Framingham Eight'. The power of their combined stories aids in influencing public opinion on domestic abuse. Their stories reach the Governor's office.
Over the 1980s and early 1990s, eight women find themselves at MCI Framingham, incarcerated for killing their romantic partners. In the support group they find power in their shared stories of abuse and domestic violence. At the start of September in 1991, the Boston Globe publishes a short series of articles highlighting the women's experiences and showing the broader public the complexity of their situations. For example, in 1989 one woman's case was the first in which the "battered woman syndrome" was used as a defense in a murder trial. Her attorney argued that the abuse she suffered altered her perception of her partner and society, so her actions were in self defense. The attorney was able to get her charge reduced to manslaughter, but the case highlighted legal gray areas pertaining to justice.
Nationwide, society was beginning to publicly recognize domestic abuse and grapple with the appropriate role of the justice system to intervene. Also in 1991, State Governor Bill Weld broadens guidelines for clemency to include cases where a history of abuse directly pertains to the offense in question. Governor Weld ultimately grants clemency to two of the Framingham Eight.
