While being beaten and choked, Kawanda Hampton stabbed her boyfriend, Jemond Carson, in her eastern New Orleans home on Feb. 13. Police called the killing a justifiable homicide, but Hampton's problems aren't over. She is facing criminal charges of obstructing justice. She didn't know she was within her rights to kill him, she says, so she lied to police at first because she didn't want to go to jail. These are messy, complex cases that take an emotional toll, for both the dead person’s family and the survivor who took the life. They are also challenging for law enforcement to investigate. Thorny legal issues cloud the thin line between whether police consider the survivor a perpetrator or a victim, a murderer or a hero.
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