Do any of these scenarios sound familiar?
- You answer a domestic violence call and find a couple physically attacking one another. When you attempt to remove one, the other jumps you.
- After separating a battling couple, you arrest the aggressor, but the other partner refuses to testify, leaving you with a case that’s based solely on what you, the officer, witnessed at the scene.
- You go to court on a domestic violence case and discover the case has been pleaded down into something so minor it’s toothless. Your input on this plea bargain was not solicited.
- A domestic violence case goes to court, but the witnesses do not. The judge dismisses the charges.
Most of us have encountered all of these situations during the course of their careers, often many times over. And, following a domestic violence arrest, it’s not unusual to never hear anything more about the case. In some instances, the case never appears on the court docket, nor does anyone talk to the officer concerning the facts and/or outcome. I certainly didn’t have the time to chase down every arrest I made. The district attorney’s office would contact officers if they needed more information. We have an excellent District Attorney in our area and you won’t find him with his feet up on the desk watching CNN. He’s worked to death. Not enough staff, a huge geographical district and limited resources combine to make his job a tough one.
There’s a reason I’ve brought this up. There’s a case emanating out of Maine involving a woman who spent years trying to keep a former domestic partner out of her life. After a long chain of violent offenses, time in prison, restraining orders and plea bargains galore, the man went on a shooting spree. That spree ended in a shootout that left one man critically injured, another dead and the gunman lying in a pool of blood. LEOs and the court system have been widely criticized by their handling of this case.
There were mistakes made, of that there’s no doubt. One issue in the case is that a woman he sexually assaulted (the mother of a former domestic partner) would not testify against him because she didn’t want her grandchildren growing up without a father. In addition, officers also failed to check his out-of-state criminal history where they would have found his bloody and violent past. But the biggest issue seems to be that the man was able to game the system. His approach? Commit the crime, make a deal to plead to a lesser offense, do his time (or probation in some cases) and move on.
Domestic violence cases often prove dangerous to officers and difficult to prosecute. It’s time for laws to reflect this. In many places an officer can testify as to what they witnessed at the scene and that’s enough to support a conviction. Victims should not have a choice on whether to prosecute or not. If an officer breaks up a fight, someone should go to jail, and I don’t believe they should be allowed bond. There should be mandatory penalties, depending on the nature of the violence. And anyone violating a restraining order should also be jailed without bond pending a hearing.
Placing blame on the police or the courts alone doesn’t solve the problem. Victims also have to cooperate. Make combating this crime a partnership and then we’ll see real progress.
