Opinion ID: 1910611
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The Events on the Morning of the Shooting

Text: Appellant testified that on February 23, 1976, she was aware of her husband's past violence toward herself and others, as well as the fact that her husband kept loaded revolvers and shotguns in the house and the adjoining office. [8] That morning, a dispute erupted at the breakfast table. Despite his wife's protests that she was pregnant and that he had promised not to hit her again, Dr. Ibn-Tamas hit appellant over the head, first with a magazine and then with his fists. He then dragged her upstairs, pulled out a suitcase, and told her to pack and get out of the house by 10 a. m. Appellant further testified that when she objected, he hit her with his fists and then with a wooden hairbrush. Trying to protect her abdomen from the attack, appellant turned her body and absorbed the blows on her buttocks and thighs. [9] Dr. Ibn-Tamas then grabbed a .38 caliber revolver, pointed it at his wife's face, and said, You are going out of here this morning one way or the other. Thereafter, the doctor went downstairs to his office adjoining the house, and Mrs. Ibn-Tamas remained with her daughter in the bedroom. She called her husband in his office to plead with him to be reasonable, but he told her he did not want to argue anymore and that she should just pack. Shortly thereafter, the doctor came back into the main part of the house. The events which took place during the next few moments were a matter of sharp controversy at trial. There was conflicting testimony based on the recollections of appellant and of Lynette McCollom, the doctor's secretary, who had just arrived at work and overheard the shooting from the adjoining office area. Appellant testified that the doctor returned to the bedroom and resumed the attack. She was pushed toward the bureau on top of which her husband had left the gun that he had threatened her with moments earlier. Thinking that he was going to grab the gun, she picked it up, begged him to leave her alone, and fired the gun toward the bottom of the door to scare him. The doctor then left the room; and, according to appellant, she took her daughter in hand and started toward the stairway leading down to the first floor and the door. As she reached the top of the front stairway, however, her husband allegedly jumped out from behind the wall at the landing. Appellant fired twice more. Although it was not immediately apparent to appellant, one of these two shots struck the doctor in the abdomen. There was no immediate external bleeding; and the doctor remained standing as he backed down the stairs and into an examination room connected to the house by a swinging door at the bottom of the stairs. Appellant proceeded down the steps. As she reached the bottom landing, however, her daughter jumped out in front of her, looked into the examination room, and called out Daddy. When appellant glanced through the open door, she saw her husband crouching with what she thought was a gun in his hand. [10] She fired again, striking the doctor in the head with what proved to be the fatal blow. Ms. McCollom testified that she arrived for work at approximately 9:00 a. m. The doctor let her in as he was passing through the office to return upstairs. Although Ms. McCollom did not see what occurred between appellant and her husband, she testified that she heard a shot approximately three seconds after she had seen Dr. Ibn-Tamas pass through the door from the examination room into the house. The shot sounded as if it had come from the landing. Ms. McCollom then heard a thumping noise, as if someone were falling down the stairs, followed by the words, Yasmine,[ [11] ] don't shoot me anymore, and the second shot. As Ms. McCollom backed out of the office toward the door, she heard the doctor call her name. As she reached the office door leading to the street, she heard appellant say, I am not going to leave you, I mean it  and then she heard a third and final shot. [12] Principally on the basis of Ms. McCollom's testimony, the prosecution suggested in its closing argument that Mrs. Ibn-Tamas, threatened with the prospect of being thrown out of her home in what she still considered a strange city, had simply decided that she had endured enough of her husband's abuse; lured him back into the house with a telephone call; ambushed him on the stairs; and followed him downstairs, shooting him in the forehead at point blank range as he lay on the examination room floor from the previous shot. Through questioning, the prosecution further suggested that appellant stood to gain financially from her husband's death, and accused her of being jealous of the other women he told her he had dated during the last few weeks before the shooting.