Closing arguments have been made by lawyers in the sentencing hearing of Molly Martens Corbett and her father Tom Martens, who have pleaded guilty to the manslaughter of Limerick man Jason Corbett.
The prosecution has argued an aggravating factor existed, namely the presence of the two Corbett children in the house at the time.
He said that lawyers can often get caught up in the minute detail of a case, but the big picture was that Molly Martens Corbett"wanted to get custody of the kids – and they were not her kids". He said it was on the basis of this miracle that the defendants were trying to argue an aggravating factor, the presence of persons under the age of 18 at the crime scene, did not exist.
This he said was at variance with the medical evidence presented yesterday by Dr Corvin about the"brain hijack" in an extreme"fight, flight or freeze" situation. He argued that it would be wrong to send Martens back to prison for any more time, as he has already served 44 months. He said his personality type ideally fitted him for his work in the FBI, and later in counterintelligence at a government nuclear laboratory in Tennessee.
He described the process as an"amygdala hijack", when higher brain function is switched off temporarily to speed up reaction time to a life-threatening event. Dr Corvin said Martens tried to use his Type A personality skills to de-escalate the situation but instead Mr Corbett began choking Molly Martens Corbett and a"fight or flight" response kicked in.
More information about Martens was presented in the form of character statements by friends and relatives. Earlier, an expert in domestic violence called by Molly Martens Corbett's defence lawyer Doug Kingsberry, provoked outrage from the Corbett family when he described mortuary photographs of Mr Corbett as being a measure of the fear she was living in.
He told the court that Martens Corbett was"all about the children" and keeping her relationship with Jack and Sarah Corbett was her main focus in her marriage. He said that the death of Mr Corbett on 25 August 2015 went completely against the interests of Martens Corbett and her father, who was acting to protect her.
He reviewed a psychological assessment, which was carried out by Dr David Adams for the prosecution, which found that Martens Corbett was driven, even before she married Mr Corbett, to marry him, adopt his children and then divorce Mr Corbett and take away his children.When the domestic violence expert said he did not like the word"lie" because there were good lies too, for example, when someone is not telling the truth, but they are doing it for what they believe are good reasons.
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