As she awaits yet another ruling in her murder case, the future remains in limbo for Brittany Smith, an Alabama woman who says she killed her rapist in self-defense.

“The longer this goes on, the longer I’m away from my kids,” Brittany said in a phone interview this week. “The longer my life is still on hold.”

It’s been more than two years since Brittany was charged with murder — for which she could face up to life in prison, if convicted — in the killing of Todd Smith (no relation) at her home in Stevenson, Alabama.

Jackson County Circuit Judge Jenifer Holt earlier this year declined to dismiss Brittany’s case or grant immunity under Alabama’s Stand Your Ground self-defense law. Now, the case is in the hands of the Alabama Court of Criminal Appeals.

[Read more: Alabama woman says she killed her rapist in self-defense. She could spend life in prison.]

New evidence that was shared with Brittany’s defense on Monday won’t be considered by the appellate court.

Todd’s DNA has been found on Brittany’s fingernail clippings that were taken as evidence shortly after the deadly shooting, said Brittany’s defense attorney Ron Smith (no relation). Brittany has testified that she scratched and clawed at Todd, an acquaintance, during the violent assault.

At a Stand Your Ground hearing in January, two years after the shooting, the clippings still hadn’t been tested.

Initially, the state forensic lab incorrectly reported that no materials had been found on the clippings. But, after an internal review, an amended report said debris was found on the clippings. Prosecutors and Brittany’s defense in January agreed to have the samples tested. The defense received the results on Monday, too late to include in the appeal which was filed March 16.

AL.com obtained a copy of the appeal — what’s known as a petition for writ of mandamus — after writing to the judges of the Court of Criminal Appeals. AL.com was initially denied access to the filing, when a court representative cited a rule that prohibits the release of some records regarding sex crimes.

The court agreed to release the records after AL.com argued that the rule didn’t apply to Brittany’s case, the details of which had already been made public in open court hearings and records, and through Brittany’s interviews with news media, including AL.com, The Appeal and The New Yorker.

The Jackson County Courthouse in Scottsboro, Ala., where Brittany Smith has argued that she killed her rapist in self-defense. Circuit Judge Jenifer Holt has granted a motion to put the case on hold while Brittany appeals to a higher court.

In the appellate petition, Brittany’s defense attorney has asked the Court of Criminal Appeals to determine whether Judge Holt abused her discretion. In a 22-page appeal, the attorney argued that the Court should order Holt to dismiss Brittany’s murder case and grant immunity under Stand Your Ground. That would end the case and let Brittany walk free.

Jason Pierce, the Jackson County District Attorney, who is prosecuting Brittany’s case, declined to comment.

Alabama’s Stand Your Ground law outlines circumstances in which a person is legally justified in using deadly force against another person. In Brittany’s case, her attorneys have said she was justified in killing Todd because he was committing a burglary and because he was using or about to use unlawful physical force. Both of those are justifications under Stand Your Ground.

“Brittany shot and killed a man who was in the process of attacking her brother,” the petition says. “This was the same man who had strangled, beaten and raped her only hours earlier.”

The deadly shooting happened during the early morning hours of Jan. 16, 2018 in the kitchen of Brittany’s home in Stevenson.

At a Stand Your Ground hearing earlier this year, Brittany testified that she fatally shot Todd while he was holding her brother, Chris McCallie, in a headlock and threatening to kill them all. McCallie was at the house to confront Todd, who was accused of raping, strangling and assaulting Brittany earlier in the night.

The night before the shooting, Brittany agreed to let Todd sleep on her couch because he called her from a park in a nearby Tennessee town and said he was stranded in the snow.

During a conversation in the living room, Brittany later testified, Todd became violent. Brittany testified that Todd chased her into the bedroom where he choked her to the point of unconsciousness and raped her.

A nurse documented more than 30 injuries — including bruises, bite marks and signs of strangulation — on Brittany’s body during a rape kit examination. Brittany had been strangled, hit multiple times and held down, the sexual assault nurse examiner Jeanine Suermann concluded.

Despite that evidence and testimony, Judge Holt ruled that Brittany hadn’t credibly shown that she acted in defense of herself or her brother.

“The defendant had many opportunities to seek protection from Todd if she was afraid he was going to kill or harm her,” the judge wrote. " She could have alerted the deputy that was in MAPCO. She could have called the police. She could have called 911.”

Brittany went to a nearby gas station during the time between when she says Todd assaulted her and the deadly shooting, according to court testimony. The judge saw a note that Brittany slipped to the clerk that night. Brittany wrote down Todd’s name and said he had raped her, the clerk testified. Brittany’s neck was red, there appeared to be blood on her chin, and her finger was bloody from a broken nail, said the clerk, Paige Painter, under oath.

Brittany testified that she asked the clerk not to call for help because Todd had threatened to kill her if she told anyone about the rape.

The Mapco store in Stevenson, Ala., where Brittany Smith passed a note to the clerk on the night of the deadly shooting.

The judge also took issue with “inconsistent accounts” of the situation, such as a 911 call in which Brittany said she had not been raped and the initial report that her brother, McCallie, was the shooter. In her testimony, Brittany said she didn’t remember the call, likely because she was suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder. Suermann, the sexual assault nurse examiner testified that confusion is a common reaction to trauma. In the months after the shooting, Brittany suffered a mental breakdown in jail and was sent to the Alabama Department of Mental Health to regain competency.

In the appellate petition, Brittany’s lawyer cited case law which says a judge can’t disregard testimony just because it comes from the accused. The defense attorney also wrote in the appeal that the judge can’t wholly ignore undisputed testimony.

“...the state offered no evidence to rebut Brittany’s testimony that Todd was attacking her brother and choking him at the time of the shooting and that she only acted in defense of her self and her brother,” the appeal states.

The appeal also says Judge Holt “made findings of fact that are not supported by the record.”

Holt wrote in her order that McCallie fired his revolver once and placed it on the kitchen counter before Brittany took the gun and fatally shot Todd. The judge concluded that McCallie didn’t believe deadly force was necessary.

“This finding is based purely on speculation,” Brittany’s lawyer wrote in the petition. “There was no testimony indicating how the revolver ended up on the kitchen counter,” and McCallie didn’t testify in court.

In her ruling, Holt also discounted the defense’s argument that Brittany was justified in killing Todd because he was committing a burglary, which according to Alabama law, includes remaining on a person’s property with the intent to commit a crime.

The judge wrote in her ruling that Todd had Brittany’s permission to be in the home. But, Brittany testified that she and her brother told Todd to leave.

“Further, any permission to stay in the home would certainly have been revoked after the initial attack on Brittany, and even more so after the subsequent suffocation of Chris,” the appeal says.

Brittany’s attorney wrote that Judge Holt’s ruling should be overturned because the majority of the evidence proves that Brittany was justified in killing Todd. To be granted immunity, Brittany needed to show that a preponderance of the evidence — more than half — proved she acted in defense of herself or her brother.

“The evidence in this case is undisputed that Brittany was physically assaulted by Todd,” the appeal says. “The evidence is also undisputed that Todd and Chris were fighting in Brittany’s home immediately prior to the shooting. The great weigh of the evidence also clearly showed that Todd Smith had committed the act of strangulation/suffocation upon Brittany and was also choking Chris when he was shot.”

It’s unclear how long it could take for the court of criminal appeals to rule. On average, mandamus petitions are decided by the Court of Criminal Appeals within about three-six months.

Brittany said she’s hopeful now that her case is in the hands of a court outside Jackson County.

But Brittany worries if the appellate court doesn’t rule in her favor, it could be months longer before she gets a trial. With courthouses around Alabama closed because of the ongoing novel coronavirus pandemic, trial dockets are on hold and falling farther and farther behind schedule.

Brittany Smith's Stand Your Ground explainer Brittany Smith is charged with murder for killing Todd Smith in 2018 after she says he raped her and was threatening to kill her family. Now, she’s up facing life in prison. Posted by al.com on Thursday, February 6, 2020

While indicted for murder, Brittany can’t spend time with her four children, get a job, move into a new home or travel out of state. She’s out on bail and living in northeast Alabama, just south of the Tennessee state line. Family members, including her ailing father, live on the other side.

“I just want this to be over,” Brittany told AL.com by phone this week. “Even though things take a long time, we can’t give up hope.”