A woman who ended 17 years of terror and abuse by hiring a gunman to kill her husband was granted clemency Friday by Gov. Booth Gardner after she served less than two years of her 10-year, 3-month sentence.
Gardner said Delia Alaniz and her four children had suffered enough and that society wouldn't be threatened by her release, which was scheduled later in the day at the Purdy Corrections Center for Women, near Tacoma.He said he hoped the attention Alaniz's case had drawn would force the public to help battered women and would demonstrate the need for more shelters and counselors.
"Violence against women and children is all too common and a disturbing problem in our society," Gardner said.
"Although we have made efforts in our state by passing laws which are intended to provide protection, counseling and shelter to victims of family violence such as Delia Alaniz and her children, no system can guarantee absolute protection," he said.
The conditions of Alaniz's release included a five-year commitment to volunteer at a shelter for battered women.
Her attorneys said Alaniz's husband, Roy Alaniz, had beaten and threatened her and her children, caused a miscarriage, chopped off her hair, raped her, put a gun to her head and threatened to drown her.
He also had sexually, physically and psychologically abused the children, her attorneys said.
Alaniz said her attempts to flee, to get police protection and to get any extensive help from shelters for battered women were fruitless.
She told the Skagit County Superior Court where she was tried and convicted that if she hadn't hired the killer, she feared she would be killed and her children left to spend a life of being battered.
Alaniz initially was charged with aggravated first-degree murder, which carries the possibility of the death penalty.
But after detailing the 17 years of abuse she and her four children allegedly met at the hands of her husband, the charge was reduced to second-degree murder and she pleaded guilty.
Alaniz hired Michael Earls, 22, to shoot her husband in their family home in Sedro Woolley, north of Seattle, on March 31, 1987, while she and the children were upstairs.
She paid Earls $200 and gave him a broken VCR and an old Volkswagen that didn't work. Earls is serving a 30-year prison term in the killing.
Women's rights and Hispanic groups adopted Alaniz's cause with vigils and marches at the capitol. The governor's office was flooded with phone calls, letters and telegrams, nearly all calling for her release.