Keabreauna Boyd is the latest woman to file for resentencing under the Oklahoma Survivors' Act, a law designed to account for the role domestic abuse may play in criminal cases.
Attorneys for the Oklahoma Appleseed Center for Law and Justice filed Boyd's petition at the Cleveland County Courthouse last Friday.
The Survivors' Act allows people convicted of crimes related to domestic or sexual violence to petition for resentencing if abuse was a significant mitigating factor in their case. Once a hearing is scheduled, Boyd will join a cohort of six other women whose cases have been reconsidered by a judge since the law took effect in 2024.
Colleen McCarty, the executive director of Oklahoma Appleseed, said the act was created for cases like Boyd's.
"The evidence of abuse is overwhelming, and the connection between that abuse and the crime is undeniable," McCarty said. "Ms. Boyd acted in a moment of terror after years of violence. She deserves the chance at a fair, trauma-informed resentencing."
Boyd, 36, has been incarcerated for the last five years, during which she gave birth to her youngest child. She was convicted of second-degree murder in 2022 for killing her partner, Luis Raynard Williams, in Norman. She was given life in prison, with all but 20 years of her sentence suspended.
Williams was 29 years older than Boyd, and her filing documents years of abuse at his hands.
On the night of the final altercation between Williams and Boyd, she was eight months pregnant.
Boyd had relocated to escape Williams, but he followed her to Norman, where she woke up to him choking and dragging her outside, the application says. She screamed for help and tried to fight back with a knife she had grabbed moments earlier in an attempt to protect herself.
The application goes on to say that during the struggle, Williams stabbed Boyd in the abdomen with her knife. She feared for her life and her unborn child. Boyd wrestled the knife away and, in what the application calls a "defensive swing," struck Williams' neck, killing him.
Along with abusing Boyd, McCarty said Williams has a well-documented history of intimate partner violence, including multiple protective orders and threats to kill a former partner.
So far, only one woman has been released from prison under the Survivors' Act. Lisa Moss rejoined her family after 34 years behind bars in January after a ruling from a Seminole County judge. Five others have been unsuccessful.
The application requests that Boyd's sentence be reduced to 25 years or less, as required under the act, and McCarty said that the time served is the desired outcome.
The Cleveland County District Attorney's Office said it will oppose Boyd's case.
"While there is no documented domestic violence history between Boyd and Williams, reports from family members and friends described Boyd, not Williams, as the aggressor," the office said in a statement. "The only documented domestic violence history involving Boyd concerns a different man – an[d] even there, she was at times the aggressor."
The district attorney's office said the facts of the case contradict the narrative being brought forward by Oklahoma Appleseed. It also said the court already accounted for Boyd's background and issued a lighter sentence during her initial trial.
"The sentencing judge considered Boyd's prior [domestic violence] history and still imposed a Life Sentence with only 20 years to serve, a significant departure from standard homicide sentences," the statement said.
McCarty still thinks Boyd has a strong case.
"If we're acknowledging that she was abused, and that was the reason for getting a lower sentence, then we need to take into account the fact that the Survivors' Act passed in 2024 and has now changed the range of sentencing for survivors of domestic violence," she said.
This report was produced by the Oklahoma Public Media Exchange, a collaboration of public media organizations. Help support collaborative journalism by donating at the link at the top of this webpage.
