When 52-year-old Marilyn Hudnall Johnson told Alameda County jurors last Thursday that she didn’t mean to kill her husband, they believed her. Her compelling testimony describing her tortured marriage to a drug addict who she claimed repeatedly assaulted her and stole from her — and her love for him despite it all — convinced the jury she wasn’t a murderer.
But they also didn’t excuse her.
Johnson was convicted today of voluntary manslaughter. After a day and a half of deliberation, the jury didn’t buy the prosecution’s argument for murder. Johnson faces three, six or 11 years. Judge Julie Conger will sentence her on August 29.
According to Johnson’s testimony last week, she stabbed Herdis Leroy Hudnall, 49, during a late night brawl in January 2006 that started in the kitchen and ended in the hallway. Johnson had locked him out of the house that night and awoke to the sound of Hudnall banging on the window. Once she let him, she claimed, he charged at her, and started hitting and pushing her. As he pulled off her night shirt, she recalled, she saw a knife on the kitchen table, grabbed it and stabbed him once in the torso.
Johnson was the only witness to Hudnall’s death, but according to her testimony in court, she ran to her room, closed the door and called her son for help. It wasn’t until later, when she peeked from her door and noticed Hudnall lying in the hall, urinating on himself, that she realized something was wrong. On Thursday, Johnson wept as she described the moment a police officer confirmed her husband was dead.
Johnson’s attorney, Deputy Public Defender George Arroyo said he was pleased with the jury’s “conscientious” decision.
“They didn’t believe that she wanted him dead,” said Arroyo, who spoke with jurors after they read the verdict. “They do believe that she was in a fight, in a struggle, in a moment of not thinking straight. She made a poor decision in using the knife.”
Deputy DA Latricia “L.D.” Louis, disappointed, attributed the verdict to gender bias.
In her closing arguments, according to Bay City News, Louis argued that Johnson viciously murdered her husband, who simply wanted to get to his bedroom, out of the cold. Johnson had admitted to stabbing Hudnall once before in 2001. Nine days before the killing, she had thrown a vase that struck him in the eye.
“I think that it’s very difficult for people to overcome the idea of men as aggressors,” Louis said. “I don’t think these folks could get there even though there was no evidence of him being aggressive.”
Louis had reminded jurors earlier this week that Johnson once told police her husband had never been violent with her.
From Louis’ perspective, jurors accepted “a certain level of violence” against men.
As for Johnson, according to Arroyo, the verdict still hadn’t sunk in yet.
“She was pretty much hyperventilating and teared up as soon as she heard there was a verdict,” he said. “I don’t think she knows what it means yet. I think she’s just happy that the jury is not calling her a murderer because she really did love her husband . . . . She is the last person that wanted him gone.”
— Millie Lapidario
Comments