Archive for the ‘Domestic Violence’ Category
Man Files Lawsuit Over Access to Domestic Violence Shelters
Eldon Ray Blumhorst, 42, has filed a civil rights lawsuit against 10 battered women’s shelters in Los Angeles that denied him a place to stay. Blumhorst called the 10 shelters in December saying that he needed shelter from domestic violence, but none of the shelters would accept him on the grounds that they only serve women.
Blumhorst maintains that is a violation of California laws that prohibit sexual discrimination by programs receiving state funding, as the domestic violence shelters do. Writing on the case for Women’s Enews, however, Elizabeth Zwerling quotes a lawyer representing 9 of the 10 shelters as saying that,
Women’s shelters receive funding from the state pursuant to a gender-specific funding statute. . . . Our argument is that these are lawful programs. The case has no legal merit.
Zwerling interviewed people at Los Angeles shelters who said since they have limited resources, they have no choice but to focus on women and children. Ben Schirmer of Rainbow Services told Zwerling that,
The fact that we limit ourselves to women and children is not to say that it is not a problem with men. It’s that we have limited resources and it’s all we can do to try and keep up with the demand for services for women and children.
It’s not clinically appropriate to house men and women in the same facility.
Another shelter director, Kathie Mathis of the Domestic Violence Center of Santa Clarita, tells Zwerling that she doesn’t simply turn away men, but rather refers them to shelters that do take men. “We’re all in a network,” Mathis said. “No one is turned away; they’re just referred.”
But according to an article about the case by Glenn Sacks, the nearest shelter to Los Angeles that accepts men is 80 miles from downtown Los Angeles. Moreover, that shelter does house bot men and women and, according to Sacks, does so apparently without the sort of clinical problems that Schirmer seems to think are inherent to the practice.
Zwerling cites California State University, Long Beach professor Martin Fiebert’s research that reviewed more than 100 international studies of domestic violence and found that women are “as physically aggressive or more aggressive than men in their relationships with their spouses or male partners.”
She follows this up, though with a quote from Linda Berger, director of the Statewide California Coalition for battered Women, who maintains that most violent acts by women are defensive.
But as Sacks notes, two large studies of domestic violence funded by the National Institute of Mental Health found that women were just as likely to initiate violence in domestic settings as were men.
Blumhorst’s lawsuit is a long shot at best, but it’s interesting that Schirmer attacks the lawsuit with largely the same language that targets of lawsuits by feminists have used,
It’s hard to run a nonprofit in today’s economy. It’s easier to sue than to start a new shelter. But lawsuits like this that take us away from our mission do not help anybody.
If only those pesky men would take their lawsuits over gender equality and go home!
Sources:
Suit presses for ‘gender symmetry’ in shelters. Elizabeth Zwerling, Women’s eNews, July 21, 2003.
Battered husbands’ injuries no jokes. Glenn Sacks, Ifeminists.Net, June 17, 2003.
Domestic Violence Advocate Convicted of Second-Degree Murder
Oregon domestic violence advocate Lorraine Netherton was convicted in July of second degree murder in the death of 22-year-old Desiere Rants. Rants was literally caught in the middle of a custody battle that Netherton was trying to resolve.
Until last year, Netherton was chair of the Federal Way Domestic Violence Task Force. She was forced out in a vote of the members of the task force, however, who were concerned about “her violent temper and her penchant for carrying handguns.”
Netherton, 40, had agreed to help a neighbor with her child custody battle. Netherton was trying to serve the father of the child, William Rants, with court papers. According to the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, Netherton spotted William Rants in a car with his daughter, and engaged in a car chase of William Rants.
At the end of that car chase, William Rants and his daughter exited the driver’s side door of the car and Desiere Rants, his sister, exited from the passenger side. Desiere got between William and Netherton apparently to try to keep them apart. Netherton claimed that Desiere hit her, and so she fired two shots into the woman’s upper body, killing her.
Both witnesses and physical evidence contradicted her claims, however. Although Netherton testified that Desiere Rants had hit her 6-8 times in the head and face, there was no evidence of any injury and even Netherton’s makeup remained undisturbed. Moreover, witnesses testified that Netherton fired without provocation at Desiere and then stood over her and fired at her again as she lay on the ground.
The jury settled on a conviction for second degree murder after spending two days debating and ultimately rejecting a conviction for first degree (premeditated) murder. Netherton plans to appeal, and could face 16-25 years for the murder if her conviction is not overturned.
Sources:
Domestic-violence foe guilty of second-degree murder. Tracy Johnson, Seattle Post-Intelligencer, July 19, 2003.
Woman charged in fatal custody-case shooting. Hector Castro, Seattle Post-Intelligencer, November 28, 2002.
Domestic violence worker guilty of murder. Kathleen R. Merrill, King County Journal, July 19, 2003.
Ex-advocate for violence victims is charged in slaying Maureen O’Hagan, Seattle Times, November 28, 2002.
UK Considers Guaranteeing Alleged Victims in Domestic Violence Cases Anonymity
The British government is considering a change in its laws that would guarantee alleged victims of domestic violence the same privacy granted to individuals in rape, divorce and sexual abuse cases. In the United States legal guarantees of privacy are only afforded to minors in such cases, but in Great Britain apparently the courts extend privacy to adults in such cases as well.
The change in the law has an odd motivation — the Home Office is concerned about the number of women who withdraw their allegations of domestic violence before the case against the alleged perpetrator can go to trial. An unidentified Labor Party source told The Independent (UK),
We need to address the problem of women who have suffered abuse and want the police to act but don’t want all their family and sexual history put on display. People in the family courts or who have been sexually abused don’t have their identity revealed but in many cases the same personal information will be disclosed in domestic violence cases.
But, of course, in the case of a marital domestic violence case it’s going to be difficult to hide the identity of the alleged victim unless the identity of the alleged perpetrator is also going to be made private.
Second, it seems to be a dubious contention at best that women withdraw their allegations of violence because of fear of publicity over the case. This assumes that victims of domestic violence always perceive their interests as best served by a legal prosecution of their victimizer but are being thwarted by an invasive media. The Labor government should be called to provide some evidence for that sort of claim.
That being said, the practice of granting anonymity to individuals involved in legal cases should be done only with great care and when the damage likely to be done to the individuals far outweighs the need for transparency in such processes. It’s hard to imagine, for example, how British citizens are served by having divorced proceedings hide the identity of litigants. Similarly, although the press in the United States generally chooses not to run the identity of alleged rape victims by custom, making it illegal to do so is an unnecessary limitation on the transparency of such legal actions.
Source:
Battered women may get right to anonymity in court. Marie Woolf, The Independent (UK), June 11, 2003.
Kentucky Supreme Court Vacates Domestic Violence Order Between Couple Not Living Together
In April the Kentucky Supreme Court ruled that domestic violence protective orders could not be issued in cases where neither party to the complaint was living with the other.
Laura P. Wiley had obtained a protection order against her boyfriend, Charles Barnett. Wiley claimed that Barnett had threatened to kill her and had tailed her car “in a reckless manner.”
Barnett challenged the protection order on the grounds that domestic violence protection orders could only be issued when a couple was cohabitating. Since he and Wiley did not live together, then, an protection order could not be issued against him.
Two courts upheld the order, but the Kentucky Supreme Court reversed the decision. Writing for the majority, Justice Martin Johnstone wrote that while the law “should be construed liberally in favor of protecting victims,”
But the construction cannot be unreasonable. The phrase ‘living together’ implies some sort of cohabitation.
Source:
Court says domestic violence order not meant for ‘boyfriend/girlfriend’ cases. Charles Wolfe, Associated Press, April 24, 2003.
Great Britain Considering a Domestic Violence Registry
The BBC reports that Great Britain is considering creating a domestic violence registry similar to its national sexual offender registry.
The registry would track anyone who was sentenced to jail six months or more for an act of domestic violence, and require such individuals to report with police when they move. According to the BBC,
The decision on whether to tell a woman of her partner’s violent past would be made after a risk assessment by police and social services.
It’s not clear if this registry will only list men convicted of domestic violence or if the BBC is just being sloppy with its language.
Source:
Domestic violence register ‘planned’. The BBC, May 26, 2003.
Janet Reno Urges Better Domestic Violence Enforcement — Be Afraid, Very Afraid
The Toledo Blade reported in April that former U.S. attorney general Janet Reno called for increased enforcement to combat domestic violence.
Reno pointed out that when she was state attorney general for Dade County, Florida, she made domestic violence a priority. Reno did not mention that she also railroaded a number of defendants in the 1980s when she was Dade County chief prosecutor as part of the nationwide hysteria over child sex abuse (see Frontline’s excellent site about the Dade County prosecutions).
Reno asked an audience at the University of Toledo, “If we cannot have peace in our homes, where can we have peace in our world?”
But if we cannot have justice in our courts, how can we have it in our world? Reno allowed herself and her office to be caught up in a hysterical movement and innocent men paid the price. Punish men and women who engage in violence against loved ones by all means, but resist falling prey to demagogues like Reno who pervert justice to further their own careers.
Source:
Janet Reno urges better effort against domestic violence. Toledo Blade, April 8, 2003.
Tags: Janet Reno
Killing Women: Two for the Price of One in Iran
New Zealand News recently ran a chilling story about how the Iranian legal system devalues the lives of women. The story centered around Tehran-based human rights lawyer Hadjimashhady whose daughter was killed in a car accident in 2002 after a 70-year-old opium addicted truck driver fell asleep and ran a stop sign.
Under Iranian law, Hadjimashhady was entitled to blood money from the family of the driver, but because the victim was a woman, he was only entitled to half the blood money that would have been required had the victim been a man.
Hadjimashhady told The New Zealand Times that he wasn’t interested in the blood money, and that the differing rates for men and women make the whole affair even more bizarre,
I don’t want the dieh [blood money]. Janooreh [the truck driver] doesn’t have any money, he wasn’t insured, and he doesn’t have any family. But this law, this is a reactionary law. It is something that belongs in medieval times, I think.
A group of female Members of Parliament in Iran are campaigning to equalize the monetary amounts. They note that while the system may have made sense in a traditional, nonindustrial society — where the death of a man could mean the death of the primary income provider in the family — that it is insulting to women in contemporary Iran.
Fatemeh Rakei of the Iranian Parliament’s Committee for Women’s Issues also cites a similar religious tradition called quessas, in which if a woman murders a man the mans’ family can demand vengeance (i.e., the death of the woman), but if a man kills a woman, the woman’s family must first pay the man’s family half of the man’s blood money before demanding vengeance.
Rakei told The New Zealand News that she believes this has led to an increase in wife killing since many families simply can’t afford to pay the blood money.
Source:
The price of women. Tim Elliott, The New Zealand News, February 15, 2003.
Tags: Iran
Free Clara Harris?
A Texas jury earlier this year convicted Clara Harris of killing her husband after she caught him with another woman. Harris repeatedly drove over her husband with her car.
In a short article about the trial and conviction, Cathy Young noted that during a segment about the case on The O’Reilly Factor some women wrote in via e-mail to express their support for Harris. But, to my knowledge, no prominent feminists took the absurd route of defending Harris.
Not so, however, for those nutty right wingers at WorldNetDaily.Com where Editor and CEO Joseph Farah devoted an entire column to singing Harris’ praise and saying that, if there were any justice in the world, Harris would be set free. Farah wrote,
I say: Free Clara Harris. We need more women like her. Live like her.
. . .
People are no longer accountable to anyone. They don’t believe they are accountable to God. They don’t believe they are accountable to their spouses. And they don’t believe they are accountable to their children. They are not accountable to the state, as no-fault divorce laws have made certain.
. . .
If I were on that jury, I would find Clara Harris not guilty. After she was sprung, I’d give her a medal. She did the world a favor. She may have acted emotionally. She may be sorry for what she has done. But, frankly, she did the right thing. That creep deserved what he got.
In Harris’ case, fortunately, no one on the jury shared Farah’s views, but Young notes a Texas case where the jury did buy into this sort of ridiculous argument. In 1999 a jury convicted Jimmy Dean Watkins of murder after he shot and killed his estranged wife in front of his 10-year old son. But the jury sentenced him to just 10 years of parole after buying into his claim that he was acting on a sudden passion (even though Watkins had fled the scene after his gun jammed, then returned to fire the fatal shot after restoring his weapon to working condition).
Apparently a world in which men and women run around killing their philandering spouses without any sort of consequence may appeal to Farah, but Young is correct in noting that as much as we might sympathize with someone who commits a crime of passion, we should never allow that sympathy to be used as a justification for murder,
A certain measure of sympathy for people who commit crimes of passion is understandable. Many feminists have attributed this sympathy to the underlying belief that men “own” women; but they are wrong. Most of us can relate to feelings of anger, loss and betrayal caused by infidelity or rejection?in a way we cannot relate to the cold-blooded motives of someone who kills for greed. But we should never allow this emotional understanding to overshadow the horror of what happened to the victims.
Sources:
Free Clara Harris! Joseph Farah, WorldNetDaily.Com, January 30, 2003.
She Done Him Wrong: Cowboy law, sexism mix in wronged wife’s trial. Cathy Young, Reason, February 4, 2003.
Tags: Cathy Young
Is El Paso, Colorado’s Fast Track Domestic Violence Program Constitutional?
The Colorado Springs Independent has a detailed look at El Paso County, Colorado’s fast track domestic violence program.
After someone accused of domestic violence is arrested, he or she is held at least one night without bond. The accused is then offered a choice by a district attorney — accept a plea bargain or face spending a lot of time in jail if the case goes to trial. The idea is to pressure the defendant into accepting a plea bargain within 24 to 48 hours of arrest.
The problem is that at no point are defense attorneys or public defenders involved in the process. Since the accused has been locked up overnight, he or she has not had an opportunity to call a lawyer, and no public defenders or defense attorneys are parent when the plea bargain offer is made.
The Colorado Springs Independent article quotes from a number of critics of the program who believe the inability to post bond and the lack of any sort of advocate for the accused renders the entire program an unconstitutional violation of the defendant’s right to counsel.
The article notes that several people who accepted plea bargains under this procedure later had judges withdraw their please — including one man who successfully challenged his plea bargain on the grounds that it had been coerced.
An interesting side bar is that while the domestic violence advocates in the article don’t seem to object to the questionable constitutional nature of the proceedings, they are concerned about another fact — 24 percent of the defendants who go through this system are women.
The Colorado Springs Independent quotes local domestic violence activist Cari Davis as saying that something must be wrong since nationwide only 5 percent of the perpetrators of domestic violence are women. In fact, numerous studies show that men and women are roughly equally likely to engage in domestic violence. The difference in Colorado is likely laws requiring arrest of those accused of domestic violence. Rather than women being disproportionately overrepresented in domestic violence arrests in Colorado, it is more likely that women are disproportionately underrepresented in domestic violence arrests in states that give police officers discretion on whether or not to arrest in domestic violence cases.
Source:
Railroaded for domestic-violence defendants, El Paso County?s ?fast track? may not always lead to justice. Terje Langeland, Colorado Springs Independent, August 15-21, 2002.
Feminists In Scotland Forced to Withdraw Domestic Violence Ad
Many European countries have boards that monitor advertising and occasionally force advertisers to rewrite or withdraw advertisements that these boards consider to be deceptive. In Scotland, Scottish Women’s Aid was forced to withdraw and rewrite an ad publicizing the threat of domestic violence.
The group had published a poster claiming that “one in five women in Scotland live with the constant threat of abuse.” The Scottish Advertising Standards Authority ruled that this claim was not supported by the study cited by Scottish Women’s Aid and forced the ad to be removed from newspapers and billboards until it could be corrected.
The new text of the ad, which the Advertising Standards Authority signed off on, now states that “A recent survey suggests that one in five women in Scotland have experienced domestic abuse.”
The feminists were outraged at the change, with Scottish Women’s Aid training support worker Liz Kelly telling Scotland on Sunday, “The time spent discussing [the ad] . . . would have been better spent on providing better services to abused women and their children.”
On the one hand, the existence of such boards is ridiculous. The solution to feminist misuse and misrepresentation of statistics is to point out there abuse, not censor them wholesale. On the other hand, while feminists in Europe tend to complain when ad boards rule against them, they usually have no problem running to advertising authorities to try to have ads they think are sexist or demeaning to women withdrawn at a moment’s notice, so it’s hard to generate any deep sympathy for them.
Source:
Ruling on domestic abuse adverts branded ‘childish’. Karen Rice, Scotland on Sunday, March 31, 2002.
Tags: Scotland