The State - News from July 17, 1988

A Sacramento woman who shot her husband to death after putting up with regular beatings for more than two decades has been placed on probation and ordered to serve 200 hours of community service by a Sacramento judge who cited “unusual circumstances.” In sentencing Alvetta Keene, 42, after she pleaded guilty to a charge of voluntary manslaughter, Superior Court Judge James Morris reduced a five-year prison term to four years’ probation. A psychologist testified that the woman was beaten hundreds of times over the years, had helplessly watched her daughter being beaten and finally acted to protect her own life when she shot her husband four times while he was in bed in June, 1987.