Lenny La Pinta was away at college when his father was shot three times and killed during a struggle in the family's home.

Lenny, then 20 years old, rushed to West Islip on Long Island, N.Y., to arrange his father's burial.  Less than a year later his mother and uncle were sent to jail for the crime.

That was in 1984.  Nearly 20 years later Lenny and his brother Anthony still do not blame their mother for what happened.  Marie La Pinta was a battered wife who acted in self-defense and has done enough time, they argue.  Now her family is trying to make the case to bring the 66-year-old grandmother of three home with the help of their Web site, mercyformom.org. 

Marie and her brother Leo

The site is part of La Pinta's second bid for clemency.  Her appeals were exhausted years ago, and her first bid for clemency was rejected in 2000.  While the decision rests with New York Governor George Pataki, who grants clemency to a few inmates in December each year, La Pinta's family hopes the Web site can garner enough public support to help her application get approved.

"The only way we thought to communicate with a broad group of people we did not know was to launch a Web site," said Lenny La Pinta, now 41, and a married father of two.

Since it was launched in late September, the site has been viewed some 50,000 times.  More than 11,000 people from almost every state and five foreign countries have signed an online petition in the last few months.  It's a far cry from the 2,000 signatures Lenny was able to collect going door-to-door for almost a year.

The site does not make a legal argument. The family acknowledges Marie's involvement in the crime, but feels she's done enough time. If anything, it's a family album, filled with photos and family history.

"Our clemency campaign is not based on the law," said Lenny.  "It's a human interest story."

Marie La Pinta has been a model prisoner and represents no threat to the community, they contend.  Her health is failing and her sons want her to spend time with her grandchildren while she can.

The La Pinta family, with Lenny and Anthony in back and Marie at right

"For the past 19 years, she has worked as hard in prison as she did raising and providing for us as kids before she was sent to prison," Lenny and his brother Anthony write in an introductory letter on the site.  "There is no benefit to anybody in keeping her locked up now.  We, her family, need and want her at home."

The site tells Marie's life story, painting a portrait of a woman imprisoned long before she became inmate #84-G-0134 at Bedford Hills Correctional Facility in Westchester, N.Y.

She was born Marie Crociata in a small town in Italy.  Growing up, she was the victim of an abusive father, who beat his wife and terrorized his children. Her father arranged for her to marry Michael La Pinta, an American, and at 19 she moved to New York.  There, the life of violence and abuse continued, the family says.

"[My husband's] specialty was throwing things and punching me in my head," Marie La Pinta writes on the site, next to an early photo of the couple at their kitchen table.

Michael La Pinta had a hot temper, says Lenny.  He patiently taught his son, now a public school music teacher, to play the saxophone.  But he would also hurl dishes at his wife if he did not like dinner and berate his kids for damaging the lawn.

At the time of the murder, the couple was going through a divorce.  Police and prosecutors argued that Marie and her brother plotted the murder to settle the simmering tensions.  They were spotted by a guard as they tried to dispose of the body near a garbage dump. 

But the defense argued the shooting was an accident, claiming Michael La Pinta accosted Marie's brother, Leonardo Crociata, with a gun.  Crociata shot him in self-defense.  The pair did not call the police but instead wrapped the body in blankets and tried to dispose of it.  La Pinta claims she was scared and wanted to protect her children. 

But the jury did not accept the defense's theory, and Marie La Pinta and her brother were convicted of second-degree murder and sentenced to the maximum of 25 years-to-life. 

Since then, two jurors have written letters in support of clemency for La Pinta, saying they believed the murder was a tragic accident and regret not having the option to convict La Pinta on a lesser charge.

Stories of Michael La Pinta's temper were told at trial, but La Pinta's family claims the long history of abuse, dating back to Marie's childhood in Italy, could have changed her fate.  The two jurors who support clemency agreed. 

"We did not have a traditional domestic violence case because of our cultural situation," said Lenny.  "There were no 911 tapes and no hospital records.  What happened in the house stayed in the house."

The site also features letters of support from local law enforcement officials, politicians and relatives of Michael La Pinta.

Suffolk County District Attorney Tom Spota has refused to endorse the clemency petition. His office would not return calls for comment on the case, but a spokesman for the DA told New York Newsday, "The facts that were presented at trial that led to the conviction are not the facts that are being presented 19 years later in this effort," but would not elaborate. 

Under New York State law, clemency will be considered if an inmate has served at least half the minimum sentence and is not eligible for parole within one year.  Applicants must wait one year after rejection to reapply. 

La Pinta will be eligible for parole in another seven years, at age 73. 

In 1996 Pataki freed another battered woman, Charline Brundidge, who was convicted of shooting her husband in 1985.  It was the first time in state history that clemency was granted to an abused wife who killed her husband.

Lenny La Pinta is "pretty hopefully optimistic."

"If she receives clemency I will keep the Web site up for a month or two," he said.  "I think people who have supported us would like to see the first new pictures of her with her grandchildren."      

More Caught on the Web