Freedom Campaigns

Valere Boyd is FREE!

More about Valere: Testimony

Free Battered Women is thrilled to report that Valere Boyd is free on parole after having been imprisoned since 1986 for killing her abusive husband.

On March 16th, 2005, Governor Schwarzenegger approved the Board of Prison Terms' decision to grant Valere parole. This was the third time that Valere had been found suitable. Governor Schwarzenegger reversed the Board's decision in December 2003, and former Governor Davis had reversed the Board's decision in 2002.

Valere was convicted at a time when community and law enforcement responses to domestic violence were quite different than they are now. Although she tried to leave her husband many times, she didn't know of any shelters for survivors of domestic violence (Read Valere's testimony in the "Survivors Speak" section).

Valere was among the 34 survivors whom Free Battered Women assisted with filing a clemency petition back in 1992, but then-Governor Wilson never bothered to respond to it. While incacerated, Valere had spoken at legislative hearings about the plight of battered women in prison.

Free Battered Women extends our congratulations to Valere and to her legal team at the USC Post-Conviction Justice Project, including law student Brad Armstrong, who represented Valere at her last two hearings.