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#Post#: 6904--------------------------------------------------
New York Justice II : The Pasqualina Robertiello & Maria
Barbella Cases
DIR By: HowBrown1953
Date: May 18, 2026, 6:15 pm
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The first New York Justice thread can be found here:
HTML https://carriebrown.createaforum.com/general-discussion/new-york-justice-the-ella-nelson-acquittal-the-ali-trial/msg3442/#msg3442
"Has it become an impossibility to convict a woman of murder in
New York?"
....so said Asst. D.A. Francis Wellman after Ella Nelson was
found not guilty
of murder on June 20, 1891...just three weeks after Pasqualina
Robertiello shot
her lover on the street, but was acquitted of the crime.
Five years later, Maria Barbella, in a more well-known case, was
found guilty of murder
and sentenced to the electric chair. She slit her wayward
lover's throat.
After a flurry of petitions, a plea to Governor Morton, and
other machinations designed to
obtain a new trial for Barbella, she was found not guilty in
that second trial in December 1896.
Similarities between the Amer Ben Ali and Maria Barbella cases:
* Both have been in the country for two years or less.
* Limited knowledge of the English language.
* A very large number of petitions in their favor. Barbella,
allegedly, had 50,000 female supporters
* An appeal to the Governor. In Barbella's case, it was Levi
Morton
* Found guilty and eventually released. Barbella was pardoned,
Ali was not.
* Same lawyers at Ali's trial and Barbella's second) trial: Fred
House & Emmanuel Friend
A few articles about the three cases to follow.
The foreword to an interesting dissertation on gender & justice,
which runs contrary to feminist thinking
on crime in the U.S. during the latter part of the 19th
century....written by a woman, too.
The received wisdom, among feminists and others, is that
historically
the criminal justice system tolerated male violence against
women.
This article dramatically revises feminist understanding of the
legal
history of public responses to intimate homicide by showing
that, in
both the eastern and the western United States, men accused of
killing
their intimates often received stern punishment, including the
death penalty, whereas women charged with similar crimes were
treated leniently. Although no formal "battered woman's defense"
existed in the late 1800s and early 1900s, courts and juries
implicitly
recognized one-and even extended it to abandoned women who
killed their unfaithful partners. In contrast, when men were
accused
of intimate murder, the provocation doctrine and other defenses
were
applied narrowly, and men were held to higher standards of
self-control.
Paternalistic efforts to curb male abuse of women did not go
uncontested; indeed, competing norms contributed to a deplorable
failure to prevent the occurrence and escalation of intimate
violence.
Nevertheless, the research presented here undercuts the common
view that, in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries,
a
hegemonic gender ideology tolerant of extreme violence against
Women controlled public responses to intimate homicide.
Carolyn B. Richards
University of Colorado Law School
PDF below
#Post#: 6905--------------------------------------------------
Re: New York Justice II : The Pasqualina Robertiello & Maria
Barbella Cases
DIR By: HowBrown1953
Date: May 18, 2026, 6:36 pm
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One about Ella Nelson
New York Sun
February 23, 1891
***************
[URL=
HTML https://imgbox.com/p42Sv74J][IMG]https://thumbs2.imgbox.com/4e/cf/p42Sv74J_t.jpg[/img][/URL]
Pasqualina Robertiello:
New York Evening World
May 27, 1891
**************
[URL=
HTML https://imgbox.com/rQMTdvKb][IMG]https://images2.imgbox.com/6b/1f/rQMTdvKb_o.jpg[/img][/URL]
#Post#: 6906--------------------------------------------------
Re: New York Justice II : The Pasqualina Robertiello & Maria
Barbella Cases
DIR By: HowBrown1953
Date: May 18, 2026, 6:43 pm
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Brooklyn Daily Eagle
May 28, 1891
************
[URL=
HTML https://imgbox.com/svMhvgbu][IMG]https://images2.imgbox.com/9a/fc/svMhvgbu_o.jpg[/img][/URL]
New York Tribune
July 14, 1891
***********
[URL=
HTML https://imgbox.com/iPPmjc0F][IMG]https://thumbs2.imgbox.com/ab/ab/iPPmjc0F_t.jpg[/img][/URL]
Maria Barbella:
New York Sun
December 11, 1896
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[URL=
HTML https://imgbox.com/of1wTq56][IMG]https://images2.imgbox.com/a8/28/of1wTq56_o.jpg[/img][/URL]
#Post#: 6907--------------------------------------------------
Re: New York Justice II : The Pasqualina Robertiello & Maria
Barbella Cases
DIR By: HowBrown1953
Date: May 18, 2026, 6:52 pm
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There's a film based on the events in 1895...
HTML https://blenheimfilms.com/the-lady-of-sing/
Her Wikipedia page:
HTML https://blenheimfilms.com/the-lady-of-sing/
A PDF of an interview with her in Sing Sing in 1896 below.
She escaped the electric chair as did Lizzie Halliday.
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