Blackthorne case expands
State files conspiracy allegation
San Antonio Express-News (TX)
January 6, 2000
https://infoweb.newsbank.com/
Allen Blackthorne, a San Antonio businessman who has denied for two years that he sent a killer after his ex-wife, could face the death penalty if convicted of a federal conspiracy charge unsealed Wednesday.
Appearing in a federal courtroom wearing blue-gray prison fatigues, a composed Blackthorne, 44, was told he was charged with conspiracy to use interstate commerce facilities in the commission of murder for hire, and interstate domestic violence.
The maximum sentence allowed under the conspiracy charge is death.
Meanwhile, a Bexar County grand jury returned a murder indictment against Blackthorne in connection with Bellush's Nov. 7, 1997, death, a charge partly based on the federal 1994 Violence Against Women Act.
The indictments were the latest twist in the Bellush murder case, in which investigators have found new evidence connecting Blackthorne to the slaying, authorities said Wednesday.
"This case is about domestic violence," said U.S. Attorney Bill Blagg, whose office is assisting Bexar County District Attorney Susan Reed. "We don't live in caves anymore. Women aren't possessions. They have rights. They are human beings. In this case, we are talking about brutality, violence and death.
"Anger is the parent of murder. Mr. Blackthorne was a very angry man."
Bellush, 35, was shot and stabbed in her Sarasota, Fla., home just six weeks after she and her family moved to the resort town from San Antonio in September 1997.
Though Blackthorne was the first to be suspected, he is the latest Texan to be charged in connection with Bellush's death.
Blackthorne's former golfing partner, Daniel Rocha, 30, is serving a life sentence for a Florida conviction of first-degree murder.
Reed said Wednesday that information unearthed by investigators allows Rocha to testify against Blackthorne. In Texas, accomplices can't testify against defendants without corroborating evidence.
Reed declined to elaborate on the new leads turned up by an investigation being handled by her office and Texas Ranger Sgt. Gary De Los Santos. An affidavit filed Tuesday by De Los Santos failed to mention new information in the case.
Rocha, a noted San Antonio golfer, has given conflicting accounts describing Blackthorne's role in the crime and has flunked numerous lie detector tests.
"Daniel Rocha is pathetic," said Richard Lubin, one of Blackthorne's attorneys. "I don't think that you'd let him walk your dog, let alone testify in a court of law to put somebody in prison."
Rocha's friend Samuel Gonzales, 29, admitted to his role in the plot and agreed to help authorities in exchange for a lighter sentence. However, he has admitted he never spoke with Blackthorne about the crime.
Gonzales' cousin, Jose Luis Del Toro, 23, is the accused triggerman. His trial is scheduled in Sarasota in July. Reed said she does not need Del Toro as a witness.
Wednesday morning, Blackthorne was led into a federal courtroom by U.S. marshals for an initial appearance before U.S. Magistrate Judge Pamela Mathy.
Turning to his wife, Maureen, Blackthorne quietly said, "Hi, baby." He asked how she was doing, and calmly turned to await the judge.
Throughout the proceeding, Blackthorne was soft-spoken as he answered Mathy's questions. A detention hearing and arraignment were scheduled for next week.
On the Bexar County murder charge, a $3 million bond was set for the entrepreneur, who made a fortune selling medical equipment.
Blackthorne was escorted away from the courtroom after telling his wife he loved her.
"It was difficult for me not to give him a hug or kiss or to hold his hand," said Maureen Blackthorne, who maintains her husband's innocence. "What I can hope for is that this is the beginning of the end."
Weeks, perhaps months, will pass before Blackthorne learns if federal prosecutors will seek a death penalty.
Any time federal prosecutors level charges that are punishable by execution, it triggers a review process inside the U.S. Justice Department that ends with Attorney General Janet Reno.
Defense attorneys get a chance to persuade a panel of Justice Department officials that the charges do not warrant execution. Blagg also will weigh in. But, for the moment, Blagg said he is uncertain if his office will push for a death penalty.
Since 1988, when capital punishment was extended to crimes other than espionage, 18 federal defendants have been sentenced to die. No federal trials led to death sentences in 1999, according to the U.S. Bureau of Prisons.
Federal officials generally use death penalties to punish "particularly horrendous or egregious killing," involving torture, contract assassination or mass murder, said Jerry Capeci, communications director at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York.
"But it's used sparingly - reluctantly, I guess - by federal prosecutors," Capeci said.
David Botsford, an Austin lawyer whom Blackthorne recently retained, said his client poses neither risks of violence nor flight and deserves to be freed at his bond hearing next week.
Moreover, the lawyer characterized his client's public arrest Tuesday at the exclusive Oak Hills Country Club as a pointless display.
"Yesterday, when we learned from the press that he was going to be indicted, we faxed a request to the U.S. attorney's office to voluntarily surrender so they wouldn't have to spend our tax dollars arresting him," Botsford said Wednesday.
Botsford, who represented Karla Faye Tucker in her unsuccessful death sentence appeals, predicted Blackthorne's eventual exoneration.
"Mr. Blackthorne is doing well. He welcomes the opportunity to clear his name. He's innocent of the charges," said Botsford, a former president of the Texas Criminal Defense Lawyers Association.
One legal expert described the array of charges against Blackthorne as unusual.
The Violence Against Women Act invoked by authorities serves as the cornerstone of two of the three charges against Blackthorne. But its constitutionality is being challenged in the U.S. Supreme Court.
The Bexar County murder indictment relies in part on the federal statute. The indictment accuses Blackthorne of plotting to commit interstate domestic violence, a felony under the act.
Texas law allows prosecutors to file heftier charges if defendants plan a felony but a more serious crime is committed.
St. Mary's University law Professor Geary Reamey used the example of two gunmen plotting to rob a store. If one kills the clerk, both robbers can be charged with murder.
Reamey said the federal statute might foil the Bexar County charge and the separate domestic violence indictment if the Supreme Court overturns the law.
Reed described the federal domestic violence act, which produced 17 indictments across the country last year, as an important tool in prosecuting crimes against women.
Court to rule on Congress' power over the states
Sun, The (Baltimore, MD)
January 8, 2000
https://infoweb.newsbank.com/
WASHINGTON -- Christy Brzonkala is nervous and seems a bit disoriented by her new -- and obviously unwanted -- role as a public champion of women's rights.
After months of trying to avoid personal publicity about her case, to be heard next week in the Supreme Court, Brzonkala uncomfortably met a roomful of cameras and reporters yesterday.
The encounter started early, her media adviser said, so she did not have to sit and wait at a head table, and be stared at and noisily filmed.
Brzonkala, of Fairfax, Va., was 18 when she enrolled at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University five years ago. Weeks after the start of her freshman year, she told university officials she had been raped by two football players in a dormitory. It's alleged that one bragged about it in a cafeteria. Depressed, she left the university and has not returned.
The two players were investigated by criminal prosecutors but were not charged.
"Rape," she said yesterday, reading rapidly from a sheet of paper, "is like having your soul torn out."
Standing beside her was Kathryn J. Rodgers, executive director of the National Organization for Women Legal Defense Fund, an advocacy group handling Brzonkala's lawsuit. Rodgers praised her as "a champion for all women. And she has been joined in her fight by women's groups across the country."
Brzonkala is asking the Supreme Court to allow her to sue the two former football players for damages.
What she wants, she said yesterday, are "more laws" to protect women from being assaulted because they are women. "We have laws now, but they don't work. It's just that simple."
She added, "Rape is a brutal form of discrimination -- women are raped because they are women."
Her case carries enormous potential to affect civil rights issues and has become a major test of Congress' power to pass laws that add rights, especially in areas that are traditionally supposed to be left to the states.
Violence based on the victim's sex is usually something state and local police handle, but women's rights groups persuaded Congress in 1994, a year before Brzonkala's ordeal, that states and cities were doing too little. The result: the Violence Against Women Act.
In March, the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond, Va., struck down the part of the act that allows victims of sex-based violence to sue their attackers. In a sweeping ruling, the appeals court said Congress had no power under the anti-discrimination 14th Amendment to regulate what one private individual does to another.
With the Justice Department's strong support, Brzonkala is attempting to get the court to revive the private lawsuit option.
"It's been tough," going through the years of legal combat, she told reporters. But, "I felt I should go as far as I can go so I don't look 10 years down the line and say, `I should have done something else.' " She gets that chance Tuesday, when her lawyer, Julie Goldscheid, takes the lectern in front of the justices.
Now 23, living in Washington and working as a waitress, Brzonkala said she still hopes someday to go to college. Asked when, she said, "I have no idea; I don't try to plan anymore."
Pressed to say what is at stake, she said, if she wins, "it will eliminate some of the discrimination that goes on in the court system in dealing with women's issues that come up."
Lined up on her side, with women's rights and civil rights groups, is Delaware Sen. Joseph R. Biden, Jr., a Democrat, who was the author of the Violence Against Women's Act.
On the other side are a variety of conservative and states' rights advocacy groups, the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers and the state of Alabama. They have told the court that the case is not a test of women's need for new forms of federal protection but a test of Congress' powers to reach out and take over areas that the Constitution preserves for the states.
For example, the conservative Institute for Justice told the court that, if the 1994 law is upheld, Congress "in a twinkling could federalize the entire criminal law" and all other laws protecting one individual from harms by another.
Its brief adds: "If that happens, then the doctrine of enumerated federal powers, and the division of powers between the federal and state governments, becomes a distant memory. That tragic result would mean the end of federalism."
The court's hearing will be followed by months of discussions by the justices, with a final ruling expected by summer.
JUSTICES SKEPTICAL OF U.S. SUITS BY RAPE VICTIMS
Charlotte Observer, The (NC)
January 12, 2000
https://infoweb.newsbank.com/
U.S. Supreme Court justices appeared to doubt Tuesday whether Congress can attempt to protect women against violence by letting rape victims sue their attackers in federal court.
Hearing arguments in the case of a former Virginia Tech student who wants to sue two football players she says raped her, the justices noted such issues are traditionally left to state courts.
"Your approach ... would justify a federal remedy for alimony or child support," Justice Sandra Day O'Connor told Solicitor General Seth Waxman as he asked the justices to reinstate a key portion of the 1994 Violence Against Women Act.
Julie Goldscheid, the former student's lawyer, argued along with Waxman that the federal law, thrown out by an appeals court, is needed because gender-based violence restricts women's choices in jobs and travel.
Justice Antonin Scalia said all types of crime could have similar effects. Such logic "would allow general federal criminal laws on all subjects because all crime affects interstate commerce," he said.
Michael Rosman, representing the two former football players, said the law encroaches on traditional state powers and does not come under Congress' authority to regulate interstate commerce.
Allowing Congress to enact such laws could "relegate the states to a trivial and unimportant role," Rosman said.
The nation's highest court has increasingly tipped the balance of power away from the federal government and toward the states in a series of 5-4 decisions, including a ruling Tuesday. It shielded state governments against federal age-bias claims by their employees.
It seemed likely that the Violence Against Women Act case could follow the same pattern when it is decided by this summer.
Sen. Joseph Biden, D-Del., the law's author, said after the argument session that the court should show deference to Congress' conclusion that states were not doing enough to protect rape victims.
Waxman told the justices Congress found that "archaic prejudices and improper stereotypes" about women were affecting the outcome of cases in state courts. The government's court brief contended violent crime against women costs the nation at least $3 billion a year.
Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg suggested that the Violence Against Women Act could be seen as an "alternative remedy."
Congress could be saying, "We aren't taking over the states' domain. We are just complementing what the states do," Ginsburg said. "Why isn't that satisfactory?"
But Chief Justice William Rehnquist questioned whether people who sue their attackers would fare any better in federal court than in state court. Juries generally are drawn from similar pools of people, he said.
Thirty-six states are siding with Christy Brzonkala, the former Virginia Tech student who said she was raped at school, and are asking the court to reinstate the federal law.
Rosman said Congress can use its interstate-commerce authority only to regulate activity related to commercial transactions.
The case is a follow-up to the Supreme Court's 1995 decision throwing out the federal Gun-Free School Zones Act, which made it a crime to possess a gun near a school. The justices said the law was insufficiently linked to interstate commerce and usurped states' authority over such crimes.
The 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals relied heavily on that ruling when it threw out Brzonkala's lawsuit against the two former football players.
Brzonkala, who has approved publication of her name, became the first person to sue under the federal law in 1995 when she sued Antonio Morrison and James Crawford. The men were never charged with a crime. She said she became depressed after the alleged attack and ultimately withdrew from school.
Brzonkala is pursuing a separate lawsuit against Virginia Tech, which she says protected the two men because they were athletes.
The Violence Against Women Act also has criminal provisions, but those were not at issue in Tuesday's case.
Laws doing violence to the Constitution are wrong
Delaware State News (Dover, DE)
Author/Byline: Michael L. Sensor
January 17, 2000
https://infoweb.newsbank.com/
On Tuesday, Sen. Biden's "Violence Against Women Act" was quite literally put to the supreme test, as oral arguments were held before the United States Supreme Court in connection with a challenge to that law.
The Violence Against Women Act - VAWA for short - was a catch-all act intended to remedy a great problem facing the nation: what to do for victims of rape and domestic violence. The crown jewel in VAWA was the creation of a "private right of action" for these victims - meaning that women could sue an alleged offender of rape or domestic violence in Federal District Court to seek monetary damages, regardless of whether the alleged offender was ever charged or convicted. Domestic violence and rape are serious problems in our country, to be sure. So helping victims of these crimes is certainly a goal worthy of praise.
But there's a real question whether Congress exceeded its power in enacting VAWA - making the law unconstitutional. And that's precisely what the Supreme Court is going to decide. All this started in October 1994, when Christy Brzonkala met football player Antonio Morrison at a party. Both were students at Virginia Tech. In February 1995, Brzonkala alleged that Morrison and another football player raped her at the party. Morrison claimed the sex was consensual. Brzonkala's charges were presented to a Virginia grand jury, which refused to indict Morrison. Morrison was never charged with any offense as a result of Brzonkala's allegations.
After Virginia declined to prosecute Morrison, Brzonkala filed suit against Morrison and Virginia Tech in Federal District Court, seeking $8.3 million under the "private right of action" portion of VAWA. Federal District Court dismissed the suit on the grounds that VAWA exceeded Congress' powers. A full panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit agreed. Brzonkala then appealed to the Supreme Court.
Many Americans view Congress as an omnipotent body. But, in reality, the U.S. Constitution gives it very specific enumerated powers. One of them is found in the Constitution at Article I, Section 8, which gives Congress power to regulate commerce "among the several states." This is popularly known as the "Commerce Clause." For years, the Commerce Clause was interpreted to mean that Congress could prevent states from economically discriminating against other states by impeding the free flow of commerce among them. Now the Supreme Court is faced with a key question with VAWA: whether violence against women really affects interstate commerce, and, as such, whether this is something that Congress has the power to control.
If the Supreme Court doesn't invalidate VAWA, "there really are no limits on what Congress can do," says Scott Bullock, a senior staff attorney with the Institute for Justice, a Washington-based public-interest law firm that filed with the Supreme Court a friend-of-the-court brief opposing VAWA. "If we're going to allow this, why not have a Violence Against People Act? Where do we stop?" asks Bullock. "This case is going to determine whether the Court is serious about putting limits on Congress' powers to legislate." Limits that are much needed by a power-thirsty Congress. And it's not as if we need all of these laws. Every state has laws prohibiting rape and domestic violence, and erecting mechanisms to enable victims of such crimes to seek restitution. These repulsive crimes are taken very seriously all across the nation.
In fact, here in Delaware, an offender convicted of first-degree rape can end up in jail for the rest of his life - right where he belongs. So why, then, do these laws like VAWA exist if America doesn't need them? The answer is simple: politics. Many Americans don't remember basic civics. They forget that in our unique system of government, the states and the federal government were supposed to have separate, distinct roles to play. And they also forget that the Constitution gives Congress very limited, specific powers. Our federal senators and representatives take advantage of this ignorance by sponsoring and passing laws that they can take back to their constituents as evidence that they've done something, anything, that they think is important - all without regard to whether those laws are something that Congress should be doing in the first place.
By penning VAWA, Sen. Biden was quite correctly able to boast that he passed a law protecting victimized women. And he didn't have to worry about anyone calling him on the fact that the law wasn't necessarily something Congress was supposed to do, because too many Americans have forgotten about the concept of limited powers. But with this Supreme Court challenge, Americans have been reminded of what Congress is and isn't allowed to do. Sen. Biden has done some commendable things for victims of domestic violence. He most recently organized a very successful drive to collect used cellular telephones for battered women to use to call for help if they need it. He should be praised for this voluntary, charitable effort.
But Sen. Biden should be ashamed of himself for engaging in such blatant political grandstanding for the sake of his career over an unconstitutional, redundant and useless law. Convicted rapists and batterers belong in the custody of the state - either on probation or in jail where they can't harm innocent women. And victims of rape and domestic violence need our help, support and compassion. What they don't need is laws that do violence to the Constitution. Let's hope the U.S. Supreme Court does the right thing and reins in Congress by striking down the Violence Against Women Act. Because the last thing this country needs is a Congress that's forgotten its limits.
EDITOR'S NOTE: Michael L. Sensor, a former state chair of the Libertarian Party of Delaware, is a Wilmington attorney and political commentator.
Hyperactive - How the right learned to love judicial activism
New Republic, The (USA)
Author/Byline: By Jeffrey Rosen
January 31, 2000
https://infoweb.newsbank.com/
LAST WEEK, the Supreme Court heard arguments in a constitutional challenge to the Violence Against Women Act. On the same day, the justices announced that Congress lacks the power to authorize individuals to sue states for violating the Age Discrimination Act. Both cases show that the five conservative justices have started down the road toward a full-scale confrontation with Congress that has no logical stopping point. In the process, they have turned themselves into the mirror image of the judicial activists whom they have spent their careers attacking.
After languishing in Congress during the last years of the Bush administration, the Violence Against Women Act was passed in 1994 in the wake of Nicole Brown Simpson's murder. The question before the Supreme Court is whether Congress has the power to give the victims of "gender-motivated violence" the right to sue their attackers in federal court. (State courts already guarantee this right, allowing Nicole Simpson's parents to sue O.J. Simpson for civil damages.) The Constitution authorizes Congress "to regulate Commerce . . . among the several States," and Congress, after weighing its options, concluded that the commerce clause provides the most convincing constitutional basis for the Violence Against Women Act. Specifically, in the early '90s, the House and Senate heard extensive testimony that violence against women has a substantial effect on interstate commerce. Corporate managers, for example, testified that battered women were less productive workers and might be afraid to take jobs involving nighttime travel.
Although the effects of violence against women on interstate commerce are open to question, Congress's careful consideration of the issue would have been enough to persuade the deferential Supreme Court for most of the twentieth century. Between 1937 and 1995, the Court refused to strike down a single law on the grounds that Congress had exceeded its power to regulate interstate commerce, no matter how remote the interstate effects in question--even in cases involving backyard wheat farming or racial discrimination in Southern motels. This long period of judicial restraint was defended by liberals and conservatives alike who objected to the way the Court, during the Progressive and New Deal eras, had second-guessed the political branches by stretching and extrapolating from the constitutional text. In 1995, however, for the first time in nearly 60 years, the Supreme Court struck down an act of Congress, the Gun-Free School Zones Act, holding that its effects on interstate commerce were too remote. Rejecting the argument that the mere possession of guns in school might affect children's education in a way that would harm their future productivity as adults, the Court announced that Congress can only regulate economic activities that "substantially affect" interstate commerce.
ARMED WITH THIS legal test, the five conservative justices--William Rehnquist, Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas, Anthony Kennedy, and Sandra Day O'Connor--now seem poised to strike down the Violence Against Women Act (although O'Connor, as always, reserves the right to change her mind). Violence against women is not an economic activity or an instrumentality of commerce, the argument goes, and, even if gender-motivated violence affects the economic activities of women within a state, its effects on interstate commerce aren't substantial enough to pass constitutional muster.
But, if the Supreme Court strikes down the Violence Against Women Act on that basis, it will call into question scores of other federal laws and embolden states-rights judges on lower courts to declare war on Congress. The Endangered Species Act, for example, regulates violence against animals, many of whom don't engage in interstate travel. Will it soon be unconstitutional for Congress to prohibit shooting a puma for sport in a national park?
In a harbinger of things to come, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit has refused to enforce certain federal environmental laws, such as the Clean Water Act's protection of wetlands, in cases where the wetland has no obvious effects on interstate commerce. (A federal appeals court in Chicago was recently forced to hear testimony about how many migratory birds used a wetland and how many interstate birdwatchers they enticed.) Even more absurdly, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit recently refused to enforce a federal electricity regulation on the grounds that only states have the power to regulate electricity that doesn't cross state lines. If the courts get back in the business of policing the eighteenth-century distinction between interstate and intrastate commerce in the age of the Internet, when even the most local activities have national and international economic effects, the resulting chaos could make the New Deal crisis look quaint.
In his thoughtful concurring opinion overturning the Violence Against Women Act, Chief Judge J. Harvie Wilkinson III of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit candidly conceded that the ruling amounted to "judicial activism," the vice that most conservative judges can't bring themselves to acknowledge. But Wilkinson argued that, unlike the decisions of the 1920s and '30s, which single-mindedly favored capital over labor, the activist decisions of the current era "display no pattern of favoritism" toward a particular constituency but instead are "unfavorable to a variety of interests" in their efforts to enforce the structural principles of federalism. But this distinction isn't entirely convincing. In striking down symbolic federal laws that criminalize activities already regulated by the states--guns in schools, violence against women, age discrimination, and religious discrimination--conservative judicial activists are declaring war on the well-organized (and generally liberal) identity-politics constituencies that appeal to bipartisan majorities in Congress. The wisdom of these laws is open to question, but the wisdom of laws is not the province of the courts.
In searching for meaningful limitations on Congress's power to regulate interstate commerce, the conservative justices can at least claim to be strictly construing the constitutional text. But, in its decision holding that Congress lacks the power to authorize individuals to sue states for violating the Age Discrimination Act, the Court has abandoned any pretense of strict construction. The text of the Constitution says that states can't be sued by citizens of other states in federal court; but the conservative justices have expanded this into an amorphous and historically incoherent doctrine that the "dignity" of states prohibits them from being sued by their own citizens in federal court. In the process, the justices have also imperiously expanded their own power, holding that only the Court, rather than Congress, has the power to decide what sort of discrimination violates the Constitution.
These "sovereign immunity" decisions may ultimately provoke an even more powerful backlash against the Court than a decision striking down the Violence Against Women Act. As a result of last week's decisions, Congress now appears to lack the power to authorize individuals to sue state agencies not only for violating the Age Discrimination Act but also for violating the Americans with Disabilities Act and the Equal Pay Act and for engaging in other forms of discrimination--including certain types of sexual harassment--that, in the Court's view, don't amount to a constitutional violation. And the economic implications could be equally disruptive. Last July, for example, the Court held that individuals can't sue state agencies or universities for patent violations. This means that if researchers at a laboratory run for profit by the University of California at Berkeley steal the patented software of their competitors in Silicon Valley, the competitors have no legal remedy.
For most of the twentieth century, conservative critics of judicial activism argued convincingly that Congress deserves deference from the courts regardless of whether the political branches make good decisions. Congress, conservatives insisted, deserves deference because there are plausible arguments on both sides of most political questions. And, in the face of uncertainty, elected officials rather than unelected judges should be given the benefit of the doubt, because if the people disagree, they can vote the politicians, but not the judges, out of office. The most startling quality of today's conservative judicial activists is not only the unself-conscious hypocrisy with which they are abandoning the judicial philosophies on which they have staked their careers. It is also their overconfidence and lack of humility--as they blithely substitute their own policy judgments for those of Congress, the president of the United States, and even the states in whose name they claim to speak.
Gender Violence Act would protect women
Chicago Sun-Times (IL)
February 9, 2000
https://infoweb.newsbank.com/
The Gender Violence Act, which is being sponsored by state Reps. Sara Feigenholtz (D-Chicago) and Rosemary Mulligan (R-Des Plaines) and state Sen. Lisa Madigan (D-Chicago), would be a great step forward for our state.
"We owe this to women. There is never an end to what the General Assembly should provide to remedy women and people who are victims of violence," Feigenholtz said Tuesday.
Gov. Ryan is supporting this legislation, making the argument that Illinois has an opportunity to set the standard "with an anti-violence law that empowers victims."
The Governor's Commission on the Status of Women has recommended prompt action on this proposal.
What is important about the Gender Violence Act is that it gives victims of gender-based violence the option of collecting damages from the individual who has harmed them. For example, in a domestic violence case, a battered wife could be a double victim if her husband is sent to jail and she is left without an income to pay child support and her damages. The Gender Violence Act would give her the option of taking a civil action.
In a statement issued by his office, Ryan said: "This law would simply create a way for victims of brutal crimes and frightening threats to have the ability to strike back at batterers and abusers by going after their checkbook_to make them pay money damages for their acts of violence or threats."
The business community is supportive of this legislation. Construction executive Jim Kenny, LaSalle Bank Chairman Norman Bobbins and Jerry Roper, president of the Chicagoland Chamber of Commerce, shared the stage with Ryan and Feigenholtz at the press conference.
Under current law, a victim of sexual harassment can sue her employer, but not the harasser. Under the proposed law, she would be empowered to sue the harasser, and the company would have an incentive to work in collaboration with the victim.
This legislation is modeled after the 1994 federal Violence Against Women Act, which is being challenged in the U.S. Supreme Court. The '94 law was enacted following more than a year of congressional hearings on the problem of violence against women.
It's a problem in this state. In 1998, more than 6,000 criminal sexual assaults against women were reported in Illinois. From 50 percent to 85 percent of these cases are never reported.
For generations, the political establishment was slow to recognize the epidemic of violence against women. In her definitive study, Moving the Mountain: The Women's Movement in America, Flora Davis wrote that until the 1970s "most Americans assumed that rape, incest and wife-beating rarely happened. The women's movement revealed that they were common occurrences."
Davis cited studies that women had a one-in-three chance of being sexually abused before the age of 18, a one-in-five chance of being raped on a date and a 90 percent chance of being subjected to sexual harassment at work.
In large part because of the women's movement, crisis centers were established for rape victims and shelters for victims of domestic violence. Since President Clinton signed the Violence Against Women Act in 1994, more than $1.6 billion has been provided to law enforcement agencies and support groups to victims of such violence.
An important part of the Gender Violence Act would empower gay and lesbian victims of sexual or physical assault to collect damages from their attackers. In a political season when the Republican National Committee sponsored an attack commercial against the gay community, it is encouraging that the GOP still has people like Ryan and Mulligan who are for fairness. Illinois already has a Hate Crimes Act on the books that allows gays and lesbians to bring lawsuits against their attackers orother responsible parties, but the Gender Violence Act could provide additional protection against gay bashing. Feigenholtz and the Commission on Women did the right thing in adding this provision to the Gender Violence Act.
NO NEED FOR SPECIAL LAWSUITS RELATED TO 'GENDER VIOLENCE'
Pantagraph, The (Bloomington, IL)
February 18, 2000
https://infoweb.newsbank.com/
A proposal to allow special civil lawsuits by people who claim to be victims of "gender violence" should be rejected by the General Assembly.
The bill is unnecessary, vague and overly broad. In an already litigious society, do we need another foot in the courthouse door?
Supporters say the Gender Violence Act would give power back to victims of abuse related to gender, sexual orientation or perceived "nonconformity."
But people who are physically attacked without justification already can sue their attackers.
The vagueness and broad definitions within this legislation seem to expand the right to sue beyond existing boundaries - but that should be an argument against House Bill 4407, not in favor of it.
The bill covers not only acts of violence but also "physical aggression." Its definition of "sex discrimination" includes "physical intrusion or physical invasion of a sexual nature under coercive conditions." Even the threat of violence, physical aggression or intrusion would be subject to a lawsuit.
And that lawsuit could be filed as much as seven years after the acts allegedly occurred.
Rep. John Turner, R-Atlanta, cited reservations about the bill's necessity, employer liability and the long statue of limitations in quite properly voting against the bill in committee.
Unfortunately, the House Judiciary Civil Law Committee approved the measure 6-5.
If the person bringing the suit wins, they may receive actual damages, compensatory damages, punitive damages, an injunction or anything else the judge thinks is appropriate. The defendant also could be ordered to pay attorney's fees and other costs.
There is no mention of paying legal fees for wrongfully accused defendants.
Lawsuits could be brought against not only the individual who actually carried out the violence but also any "group, corporate entity or institution" deemed "responsible." That has many business owners justifiably concerned.
If the bill is approved, Illinois would be the first state to have such a law. This is one area where Illinois should not be a leader.
The proposal is patterned after the federal Violence Against Women Act. However, that law has been challenged and is under review by the U.S. Supreme Court. In addition, the federal law covers only women. The state proposal would include people who were subjected to violence, aggression or threats because they are or were assumed to be homosexual.
At a minimum, the state should wait until the Supreme Court has decided whether the federal law that is the basis of the state proposal withstands legal scrutiny.
There may be situations where lawsuits of this nature are justified - individuals who fall between the cracks of existing protection.
However, this vague and overly broad legislation also could trap in its net innocent parties who would be stuck with large attorney's fees, time-consuming legal proceedings and the risk of large monetary judgments.
Gov. George Ryan is among the supporters of this bill, so hoping for a veto is not an option. This bill should be stopped.
BRZONKALA, TECH REACH SETTLEMENT IN LAWSUIT
Roanoke Times, The (VA)
February 26, 2000
https://infoweb.newsbank.com/
Christy Brzonkala and Virginia Tech have settled her lawsuit over the school's handling of rape allegations she made against two football players, as the U.S. Supreme Court continues to wrestle with the constitutionality of her separate claim against the ex-Hokies.
Under the settlement announced Friday, the university denies any wrongdoing and agrees to pay the former student $75,000 but none of her attorneys' fees, a far cry from the $4.3 million she sought in her federal lawsuit.
"We have been exonerated at every court level," said former university president Paul Torgersen, who oversaw the settlement action before stepping down. "The courts would likely find in our favor on the next issue. However, this case has carried on far too long and cost the university untold thousands of dollars. Although we are convinced that we would prevail in court, this settlement precludes any further investment preparing for discovery and trial."
The settlement was worked out at a December conference before U.S. Magistrate Judge Glen Conrad in Roanoke. The judge put a gag order on the lawyers until the state Attorney General's office approved the settlement, which didn't happen until this week.
Brzonkala attorney Eileen Wagner said Friday morning that she still felt bound by the gag order and only commented, "We're glad it's over."
The settlement does not affect Brzonkala's separate and higher-profile claim against the two men she accused of rape - a case under review by the U.S. Supreme Court. But Friday's announcement does end Virginia Tech's chapter of the Brzonkala saga that has spanned the last five years.
According to her lawsuit, Brzonkala was raped by Tony Morrison and James Crawford in their dorm room on Sept. 22, 1994, during her first month on campus. She kept the incident a secret for months, until April 1995, when she charged the players with assault in the University Judicial System.
That May, a campus judicial panel found insufficient evidence against Crawford, but suspended Morrison for two semesters for sexual misconduct. At a second hearing in July, Morrison was convicted of the less serious abusive conduct, but given the same punishment.
That August, though, Tech Provost Peggy Meszaros reduced his suspension to probation, and Morrison returned to Tech in time for football season. The U.S. Department of Education later chastised the university for failing to report accurately the alleged rape in violation of federal law.
In December 1995, Brzonkala filed an $8.3 million lawsuit in U.S. District Court in Roanoke. She sued the players under a provision of the Violence Against Women Act, passed by Congress in 1994, that allows victims of gender-motivated violence to sue their attackers in federal court.
She sued the university under Title IX, a federal law that forbids gender discrimination by schools that receive federal funding. She claimed the school created a hostile environment once she made the assault complaint, and that its judicial proceedings were biased in favor of the male players.
In 1996, U.S. District Judge Jackson Kiser dismissed the lawsuit. He declared the Violence Against Women Act unconstitutional and said Brzonkala had failed to show Tech acted with an "anti-female" bias.
Last March, the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld Kiser's opinion, but left in limbo the Tech portion pending a Georgia case that was then before the U.S. Supreme Court. The high court later held in Davis vs. Monroe County Board of Education that a school system, in certain cases, can be held liable for failing to stop student-on-student sexual harassment, briefly reviving Brzonkala's lawsuit.
Both sides met in September before Kiser to begin anew the process. At that hearing, attorney Wagner asked for a settlement conference, setting up the December meeting before Conrad.
As for the rest of her lawsuit, the U.S. Supreme Court heard arguments in January on whether Congress overstepped its authority by enacting the Violence Against Women Act. The justices will issue their opinion by June.
Morrison and Crawford never were charged with any crime.
Curt Levey, director of legal and public affairs for the Center for Individual Rights, which has joined in Morrison's defense, said, "Given that Christy and her attorney agreed to a settlement that doesn't begin to cover their legal fees, they just can't be confident that they can win on the facts in court."
The payout to the 23-year-old Brzonkala, who dropped out of Tech after her freshman year and now lives in Washington, will come from a state insurance fund that is maintained with contributions from public universities and state agencies, Tech spokesman Larry Hincker said.
He acknowledged that the publicity surrounding the 1994 dormitory incident and the subsequent lawsuit damaged Tech's public image.
"You can win legally and lose publicly and the university has suffered because of this," he said.
Hincker said the university has adequate policies to address incidents like the one that involved Brzonkala. But the incident has heightened awareness of women's safety issues, he said, and the university has been "ever more vigilant" about addressing women's concerns.
The Brzonkala Case
The status of the lawsuit filed by former Virginia Tech student Christy Brzonkala
1. Against former players James Crawford and Tony Morrison: Has yet to be heard, because lower courts have ruled the Violence Against Women Act unconstitutional. U. S. Supreme Cout expected to rule by summer.
2. Against Virginia Tech: Settled out of court; Tech to pay $75,000.
LAW PROTECTS IMMIGRANTS FROM ABUSES
BATTERED WOMEN CAN SEEK RESIDENCY
Sun Sentinel (Fort Lauderdale, FL)
March 6, 2000
https://infoweb.newsbank.com/
Abusive spouses thrive on control. When their victims are undocumented immigrants, the power they wield is like a weapon: If victims protest, abusers can threaten to turn them in to immigration authorities.
Dora Alicia GarcÂia-de Serur's options offered little hope: Beatings at the hands of her husband in Indiantown or deportation back to Mexico. She lived with the abuse for three years. But federal law is giving GarcÂia-de Serur, and thousands of others like her, a way to reclaim their lives.
GarcÂia-de Serur is seeking relief under the Violence Against Women Act of 1994, which allows battered undocumented immigrants to apply for residency if they are married to a U.S. citizen or legal resident who won't file the petition for residency on their behalf.
Normally, a U.S. citizen or permanent resident must apply for residency on behalf of an immigrant spouse. But the Violence Against Women Act, part of a crime bill which funds battered women's programs, allows spouses who prove abuse to seek lawful permanent residency independently of their abusers.
Between 1996 and 1999, INS allowed 5,221 abused immigrants to self-petition for residency, according to Leslye E. Orloff, director of the Immigrant Women Program at the NOW Legal Defense and Education Fund. About 250 new cases are filed each month. The majority are women, but men and children also can apply.
The Violence Against Women Act "recognizes that abusers often will use the immigration laws as tools for power and control," said Lauren Gilbert, managing attorney at the Florida Immigrant Advocacy Center in Miami.
Soon after her marriage in 1994, GarcÂia-de Serur, 42, said she fell into a cycle of abuse that left her with scars and broken teeth. Her abuse was compounded by isolation. With no relatives here, she felt there was no one to turn to.
So she stayed. Twice her husband was arrested on abuse charges. But he was soon released.
In 1997, GarcÂia-de Serur's husband finally turned her in to INS officials after she bit him while trying to escape during a fight. She has been in custody for more than two years and separated from her 11-year-old daughter, a U.S. citizen, as she awaits resolution. She said she never knew she could seek help with the very agency she feared: INS. Many other abused immigrants in rural areas may not know they have a legal remedy to free them from their abusers.
"It's the primary way for a battered woman to get relief," Orloff said. "The problem is that [the numbers] reflect battered women who have found their way to a trained attorney who understands how to assist them."
To qualify for self-petitioning, an abused immigrant must prove her marriage to a U.S. citizen or resident, show "good moral character" and prove that deportation would cause her "extreme hardship," among other requirements.
Orloff said the Battered Immigrant Women's Protection Act of 1999, which is pending in the U.S. Senate, would provide funding to train immigration judges and INS interviewers to recognize the dynamics of domestic violence when making their decisions. If approved, the bill could remove the need to prove "extreme hardship," a requirement that is often difficult to establish without lengthy documentation.
GarcÂia-de Serur has lived as a prisoner since her husband turned her in. Her attorney at the advocacy center withheld his name for fear of retribution.
Initially, immigration officials considered her a flight risk and a danger to the community due to a DUI arrest and a battery arrest for biting her husband. Her attorneys say both arrests stemmed from her abuse.
Though she was scheduled for deportation, her case has been reopened and her appeal will be heard again. But GarcÂia-de Serur does not have the $5,000 she needs to bond out of the Krome Detention Center. She earns $7 a week doing janitorial work, but that money goes toward buying phone cards to call her daughter, who is living with friends in Miami-Dade County.
She hopes to use the Violence Against Women Act to take back her life.
"He stole my worth as a person and I was afraid of lawyers," GarcÂia-de Serur said. "That's why many people like me tolerate men like this."
For more information about the Violence Against Women Act and abused undocumented immigrants, call the Florida Immigrant Advocacy Center at 305-573-1100, ext. 1120, or the Immigrant Women program at the NOW Legal Defense and Education Fund at 202-546-1100.
ENTERTAINERS GET BEHIND FEDERAL LAW ATTACKING VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN
St. Louis Post-Dispatch (MO)
March 9, 2000
https://infoweb.newsbank.com/
Singer Michael Bolton and TV actress Erin Gray handed lawmakers a 40,000-signature petition Wednesday, urging them to extend the Violence Against Women Act of 1994.
"Every year in our nation, about 1.5 million women are victims of domestic violence," said Rep. Connie Morella, R-Md., sponsor of the bill to extend the law beyond its scheduled expiration Oct. 1. "This critical legislation has improved services for victims of domestic violence, while giving them access to justice and increased safety."
Gray, who starred in the TV series "Silver Spoons," recounted abuse inflicted on her and her mother. "We must heal the whole situation, or the victim will slip back into the whole cycle of violence," she said.
Bolton said media attention to the subject has ebbed. "From what I've seen, it's far from an old issue," he said. "The survivors here tell me otherwise."
"Lives quite literally may be lost" if Congress does not move quickly, he said.
The petitions were organized by the National Task Force to End Sexual and Domestic Violence Against Women and were distributed and signed at Lilith Fair and other concerts in the past year.
The Supreme Court is expected to decide by late June whether Congress exceeded its authority with one provision in the law allowing rape victims to sue their attackers in federal court. The court case, focusing on a Virginia Tech student's lawsuit against two football players she says raped her in a dormitory room, does not involve the 1994 law's criminal provisions.
Extending the law would cost about $1 billion over five years, according to the National Resource Center on Domestic Violence. The money would fund shelters and services, hot lines, training for law enforcement officers, rape prevention education and detection, grants for community initiatives and other related services.
Providence officer faces another charge
Providence Journal (RI)
March 15, 2000
https://infoweb.newsbank.com/
* Patrolman Donnie Ashley, previously charged with domestic violence, pleaded not guilty yesterday to violating a no-contact order.
* * *
PROVIDENCE - A police officer who has pleaded no contest to domestic-violence offenses three times in less than two years was charged yesterday with violating a court order that barred him from contacting his wife.
Patrolman Donnie Ashley, 38, of Adelaide Avenue, was arrested after his wife, Milagros Ashley, complained to the police that he had called her several times in recent days, said Maj. Martin F. Hames, who oversees internal affairs.
Ashley has not reported to work since he admitted to assaulting his wife more than two months ago, Hames said. As a result of the domestic violence arrests, the Police Department wants to fire Ashley, Hames said, and it is preparing to bring him before an internal review board, as required under the Law Enforcement Officers Bill of Rights.
Yesterday in District Court, Ashley pleaded not guilty and was ordered held without bail at the Adult Correctional Institutions until a probation violation hearing next Tuesday.
Ashley was on probation as a result of pleading no contest on Jan. 5 to charges of domestic assault and refusing to relinquish a telephone.
On Dec. 28, Ashley allegedly threatened to punch his wife, pressed his face against hers until her gums bled, smashed a computer and monitor, ripped out telephone lines and broke a doorbell.
In that case, Ashley was sentenced to one year in prison, suspended with probation, and was ordered to undergo counseling for alcohol abuse, uncontrolled anger and domestic violence including 90 days in a residential facility.
Ashley had been arrested twice before for domestic violence.
On March 25, 1998, he was charged with domestic assault after allegedly striking his wife in the face and choking her.
District Court Judge John J. Cappelli placed Ashley on probation and ordered him to undergo domestic violence counseling, but he also filed the case meaning it would be removed from Ashley's record if he behaved himself for a year.
But on July 7, 1998, Ashley was arrested again, this time after his wife reported that he had gone on a rampage in her house, breaking several items, flipping over a dresser, throwing a TV set and a computer monitor to the floor, and breaking the windows on her car.
Milagros Ashley also said her husband had grabbed her wrist and twisted her arm. A police affidavit says four children witnessed the violence.
Ashley admitted to violating his probation in the March case, and District Court Judge Frank J. Cenerini vacated the original sentence and imposed a one-year probation term.
A domestic assault charge from the July incident was dismissed, but Ashley pleaded no contest to domestic disorderly conduct, and Cenerini sentenced him to an additional six months' probation.
When Ashley pleaded no contest to his third domestic-violence charge in January, his wife told a reporter that Ashley was "not a monster," but "he just needs help."
At the Police Department, Ashley's future looked bleak even before this latest arrest.
Not only was Ashley awaiting an internal disciplinary hearing, but Capt. John J. Ryan, head of administration, said that under the federal Violence Against Women Act, Ashley did not appear to be eligible to carry a gun an essential requirement even for a desk job, Ryan said.
A controversial clause in the 1992 law bars anyone who has been convicted of a domestic violence crime from carrying a gun across state lines or using a gun in anything affecting interstate commerce.
Ashley is still safe from a provision in the state Domestic Violence Prevention Act that makes any domestic violence offense after two convictions a felony. Although Ashley has been charged four times, no-contest pleas resulting in a probation sentence do not count as convictions under Rhode Island law.
Janice Dubois, head of the state Supreme Court's Domestic Violence Training & Monitoring Unit, said Ashley's case shows a flaw in the criminal-justice system that allows repeat offenders in domestic cases to elude punishment for a long time.
"This is our common experience," Dubois said. "These guys get bite after bite after bite of the apple. . . . In this case, the system has finally kicked in, but it shouldn't have taken so long."
NEW DOMESTIC VIOLENCE TREND: MORE FEMALE ARRESTS
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette (PA)
March 19, 2000
https://infoweb.newsbank.com/
Defenders of battered women have long struggled to persuade authorities to crack down on brutal men who reigned by the fist at home and in recent years have largely won. But, as laws and police have become more aggressive, they have produced an unexpected consequence: In some places nationwide, one quarter or more of arrests for domestic assault are not of men but of women.
Among residents of Concord, N.H., who were arrested for domestic assault this year, nearly 35 percent were women. In Boulder County, Colo., one-quarter of defendants charged in domestic violence cases through September were women. In Vermont, similarly, nearly one quarter of domestic assault arrests this year have been of women.
Those are simple statistics. But little else about the surprising arrest rate of women in some places is so clear, experts say, except that it seems to have emerged as an unintended result of "mandatory arrest" laws and tougher police rules meant to help women who were domestic violence victims.
Advocates for battered women and many social scientists say most of the women arrested in these cases were acting in self-defense, and to punish them is unjust and even dangerous because victims will be unlikely to call the police again.
But other social scientists and police say the arrest numbers reflect a real level of violence by women, even though women cause far fewer injuries than men do, and the finer nets set at women's urging to catch more domestic abuse naturally sweep up some women as well.
Nearly 1 million cases of "intimate partner violence" are reported in the United States each year, according to the Department of Justice, with female victims outnumbering males by more than five to one. A different federal poll, called the National Violence Against Women survey, which uses a smaller sample and different methodology, found the gender gap was less pronounced: It estimated last year that 1.5 million women and 835,000 men annually were raped or assaulted by an intimate partner, a ratio of just under 2 to 1.
The issue of women's arrests sometimes takes on a gender-wars edge. Some women's advocates see a backlash among predominantly male police officers. Some men's advocates see a silent epidemic of domestic abuse of men by women, and call the arrest numbers further proof.
But virtually no one claims to fully understand the phenomenon, which mystifies because it diverges by such a wide margin from the generally accepted estimate that 95 percent of batterers are men. Officials say efforts are under way both to study the phenomenon and improve training for police, who must wade daily into "he said, she said" battles.
"I just wish I could tell you what the cause of it is," said Bonnie J. Campbell, director of the Violence Against Women Office, which oversees the $1.6 billion allotted by Congress for five years under the 1994 Violence Against Women Act. "My instincts tell me some of it is the need to fine-tune and do a lot of training. I suspect one piece of it is backlash, but that's just my instinct." In addition, she noted, "We are seeing numbers that suggest that young women are getting more aggressive."
Scholars and advocates say they are giving more attention to the arrests of women. The high numbers have been cropping up for years in spots, but lately, said Sue Osthoff, director of the National Clearinghouse for the Defense of Battered Women, "it's become a bigger problem."
She continued, "I just think it's happening to more women in more communities."
National numbers on arrests of women in domestic violence cases are hard to come by, but local numbers in some places do show a rise. In Vermont, only 16 percent of domestic assault arrests in 1997 were of women, compared with 23 percent this year; similarly, arrests of women in Concord, N.H., rose to nearly 35 percent this year, from 23 percent in 1993, the first year for which police had figures.
In Concord, police joined women's advocates and others last summer to try to learn what was going on. But after examining 67 arrests of women for domestic assault, there was no single easy answer, said city police Chief Bill Halacy.
"We had all these hypotheses, most of which didn't turn out to be true," he said. One theory was that the arrests might be "dual arrests" - the arrest of both partners in a fight - but that was true in only 22 percent of the cases, Halacy said. Then, he said, "We started looking at: ` Is she a former victim, and this is, like, catch-up time?' " They found that 21 percent of the defendants had earlier come to police attention as victims. And among the victims, 16 percent had previously been defendants.
Among the clear points that emerged, Halacy added, only three of 67 assault victims had to go to a hospital, where they were examined and released, illustrating that violence by women causes far less injury than violence by men. In 24 percent of cases, he said, both parties in the assault were women, including six cases of mothers assaulted by their daughters.
Grace Mattern, executive director of the New Hampshire Coalition Against Domestic and Sexual Violence, said some officers said they needed "better training on making that on-the-spot decision on who's the primary aggressor."
It also seemed, Mattern said, that many of the women arrested were involved in violent relationships that didn't rise to the level of battering. In classic battering, one partner seeks to control and terrorize the other. In these cases, she said, "when the couple gets angry, they push each other, they shove each other, one slaps the other, but no one's a victim or a batterer." It's more a "you hit me, I'm calling the police" situation, she said. Throwing things, shoving and hitting, "in this day and age, can get you arrested," she said.
In the last two or three decades, there has been a growing movement to defend battered women that has fought for tougher laws concerning what many had long considered "family matters." A more recent wave of laws and policies has shifted the focus in some places to identifying and arresting the "primary aggressor," but the upshot has remained the same: a surge in domestic violence arrests.
The trouble is that officers face a difficult task when they enter a house where both partners are disheveled, bruised and furious. Officials and experts emphasize that police must have the time, training and willingness to investigate thoroughly enough to determine whether a woman is a victim or an abuser.
But in some cases, said Bob Moyer, executive director of the Family Violence Council of Lancaster County, Neb., an officer is wont to say: "I can't sort this out so I'm just going to arrest both parties."
Biden says GOP blocking crime bill
Delaware State News (Dover, DE)
April 14, 2000
https://infoweb.newsbank.com/
DOWNSTATE - Renewal of the Biden Crime Bill and other important legislation is being held up because of partisan politics and game-playing, according to Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr., D-Del.
"The U.S. Senate is going out of session, leaving a lot of important things unattended," Sen. Biden said Thursday morning. "The Republican leadership announced that the Senate is only in session for another 80 days. They don't want us to vote on certain things I have been involved with."
The crime bill, which the senator claims has wide support from police agencies, is one of the programs that will lose funding if not reinstated in the last days of this session.
The bill gives local authorities resources to keep officers on the beat, support boot camps, and fund shelters for abused women.
The original crime bill, which passed in 1994, established a trust fund using money saved by downsizing the federal government. Funding authorization for programs in the bill was to last five years, which end Sept. 30.
"Everyone assumed that additional funding would be authorized," Sen. Biden said. "But the Republican leadership doesn't want to support this.
"Every major police organization is pushing to help me get this thing passed. I hope we won't leave this place without having reinstated this trust fund. It funds the Violence Against Women Act, the shelters for women, cops programs, after school programs, boot camps and prison programs."
The trust fund distributed $32 billion nationwide for programs authorized through in the crime bill over five years. Delaware received $46 million.
If the fund is not reinstated, money that was earmarked for crime prevention will go into the general fund and compete with other agencies and programs like education and welfare.
Sen. Biden said Republican leadership opposes the bill because it's a Democratic bill and it usurps the role of the state in local policing.
"I went to Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) and said, 'Let's rename the crime bill and trust fund. Call it what ever you want to call it. Call it the Hatch Crime Bill.'" Sen. Biden said.
"'That's not a bad idea,' he said," Sen. Biden continued.
"He (Sen. Hatch) got clobbered in his conference for that." Sen. Biden concluded. "They (the Republican leadership) say its not the role of the federal government to subsidize local police. The states have surpluses. The states should do the job."
The senator's position is that 60 percent of the problems are drug-related - drugs that are transported on interstate highways. Since drug issues are a federal problem, the federal government is obligated to help the states fund local crime problems.
"We're very appreciative of what the Biden Crime Bill has been able to do in Delaware," said James A. Smith, spokesman for Gov. Thomas R. Carper. "We hope the Senate can come to some compromise."
While Sen. Biden seeks reinstatement of the trust fund, some local and state police departments have provisions in place to counter lost funding.
The Harrington Police Department received crime bill funding for two officers for three years. It is continuing to comply with the conditions of the grant without additional funding.
"The grant's basic point is that the station must keep personnel for a full fiscal year after the grant ends," said Harrington Police Chief John E. Horsman.
"We have already run out of our grant money and we did so about a year ago. So we are complying with the grant now.
"Our goal along with the grant's goal is to continue with more manpower and to have more police officers for the state and especially for Harrington."
According to Lt. John A. Yeomans, spokesman for Delaware State Police, the department is continually looking for funding opportunities.
The department has received grants under the crime bill since 1994.
"We use those funds for such programs as Operation Safe Streets and domestic violence," said Lt. Yeomans.
"If programs like this are discontinued we seek other revenues for our funding. We have to be realistic because any bill or grant can be discontinued."
FAMOUS NAMES GET ATTENTION
CELEBRITIES AND ADVOCACY GROUPS ARE LEARNING THAT A BIG NAME PROVIDES ATTENTION FROM LAWMAKERS AND THE NEWS MEDIA
Orlando Sentinel, The (FL)
May 6, 2000
https://infoweb.newsbank.com/
WASHINGTON - Gliding into the dining room of a House office building looking much like she did in the 1970s TV series Charlie's Angels, actress Cheryl Ladd is surrounded by admirers.
It would normally be considered a familiar scene for the actress.
But these fans are different: They're members of Congress. And Ladd isn't just signing autographs, she's calling for measures to help end child abuse.
Welcome to lawmaking in a media-saturated culture, where advocacy meets Hollywood meets Capitol Hill.
More and more celebrities these days are using the Capitol dome or a congressional hearing room as a backdrop for touting their pet issues - a boon for advocacy groups that have learned star power prompts instant attention from lawmakers and reporters.
``To bring attention, sometimes it takes celebrities, someone to get those cameras there,'' Ladd said after a recent luncheon that included Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott and House Speaker Dennis Hastert.
Adds supermodel/actress Lauren Hutton, recently in town to promote hormone-replacement therapy for menopausal women, ``Many places where we are, we probably wouldn't be on TV or get a lecture hall if it wasn't that you had someone that everyone had heard the name of before.
``It's what people know and feel comfortable with. It's almost like a brand name.''
In recent weeks, lawmakers have heard from a host of celebrities, including singer Michael Bolton on extending the 1994 Violence Against Women Act, singer James Taylor on music education and Miss America Heather French on increasing federal funding to help homeless veterans.
Relying on a celebrity's aura to draw attention to an issue isn't new.
``Celebrity advocacy is as old as Gloria Swanson,'' said Robin Bronk, executive director of The Creative Coalition, a social and political advocacy group composed of entertainers. ``What you are seeing now is expected of celebrities. Just as it's expected to have a manager and publicity, they also have an issue.''
Swanson, who became a star in the 1920s and appeared in Cecil B. DeMille's movie Don't Change Your Husband, had been married six times when she joined efforts in the 1960s to reduce taxes on single people. She told the House Ways and Means Committee she had been ``single most of her life.''
The result was a tax structure that both Democrats and Republicans are now clamoring to overturn by eliminating the so-called ``marriage penalty.''
Celebrities today enjoy that same power, a fact readily conceded by lawmakers.
``People don't listen to Congress. But they're going to listen to Miss America,'' Rep. Julia Carson, D-Ind., said after French got a standing ovation for her testimony before a House subcommittee.
Supreme Court strikes down violence against women act
CNN
May 15, 2000
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- The Supreme Court ruled Monday that Congress had exceeded its constitutional authority in trying to give women who were victims of sexual violence the ability to sue for civil damages in federal courts under the Constitution's Commerce Clause.
The court struck down provisions of the Violence Against Women Act by a 5-4 majority.
"Gender motivated crimes of violence are not in any sense economic activity," Chief Justice William Rehnquist wrote for the majority.
Virginia Tech student Christy Brzonkala had filed suit under the act alleging two football players had raped her in a university dormitory in 1994.
Her case contended that because she subsequently dropped out of college she had suffered an economic consequence of a lesser education and poorer job opportunities.
But the conservative wing of the court found neither the Commerce Clause nor the 14th Amendment suitable for congress to pass such a law.
"If the allegations are true, no civilized system of justice could fail to provide a remedy," Rehnquist said in delivering the court's opinion. "But it must come from the Commonwealth of Virginia, not the federal government."
The ruling comes in two combined cases: Brzonkala v. Morrison and United States v. Morrison, argued January 11, 2000.
The Supreme Court: The court on federalism; Women lose right to sue attackers in federal court
NY Times
Published: May 16, 2000
Declaring that ''the Constitution requires a distinction between what is truly national and what is truly local,'' the Supreme Court today invalidated a six-year-old provision of federal law that permitted victims of rape, domestic violence and other crimes ''motivated by gender'' to sue their attackers in federal court.
The 5-to-4 decision, striking down the civil remedy provision of the Violence Against Women Act, was the latest application of the court's newly restrictive view of Congressional power and of the degree of deference that Congress is owed by federal courts. Although one of the most sweeping of the justices' decisions in this area recently, it will almost certainly not be the last.
Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist's majority opinion rejected each of the two sources of constitutional authority that Congress had asserted as the basis for the legislation. The majority concluded that the civil remedy provision was neither a valid regulation of interstate commerce nor a proper means of enforcing the equal protection guarantee of the 14th Amendment.
The decision affirmed a ruling last year by the federal appeals court in Richmond, Va., dismissing a suit brought by a college student against two varsity football players whom she accused of raping her in her dormitory room shortly after the start of her freshman year.
The plaintiff, Christy Brzonkala, withdrew from Virginia Polytechnic Institute and brought her suit after learning that the football players, Antonio Morrison and James Crawford, would not be disciplined by the college. When the defendants then challenged the constitutionality of the Violence Against Women Act, the federal government intervened in the suit to defend the law.
The law's supporters argued that widespread violence against women, and fear of violence, had a negative effect on the nation's economy, measured in the billions of dollars a year, by impairing the productivity and the mobility of female employees and students. To accept that reasoning, the chief justice said today, ''would allow Congress to regulate any crime as long as the nationwide, aggregated impact of that crime has substantial effects on employment, production, transit or consumption.'' But a general police power is something ''which the founders denied the national government and reposed in the states,'' he added.
The Violence Against Women Act also has a criminal provision, making it a federal crime to cross state lines to engage in domestic violence or stalking. The Supreme Court last year refused to hear a challenge to that provision, which was not at issue in the case today but which the chief justice suggested in a footnote was constitutional because of the explicit requirement of interstate conduct. The law also provides federal money to the states for programs to prevent violence and assist victims.
Much of the attention and debate surrounding the law has focused on the civil damages provision at issue today, which the lower courts have applied some 50 times, a number that would probably have been larger had the law not been under a constitutional cloud. While most states have laws permitting people, including victims of sexual assaults, to seek damages against their attackers, Congress acted after dozens of studies showed that women seeking such relief faced considerable obstacles from state judicial systems that regarded sex offenses as unworthy of serious attention.
Senator Joseph R. Biden Jr., the chief Senate sponsor of the Violence Against Women Act, said at a news conference today that ''this decision is really all about power: who has the power, the court or Congress?''
Senator Biden, a Democrat from Delaware, said there had been notable improvement in the states since Congress put the issue on its agenda in the early 1990's. He predicted that the decision today ''will have a lot less impact on violence against women than on the future role of the United States Congress,'' adding, ''The damage done to the act is not as bad as the damage done to American jurisprudence.''
Both Senator Biden and Senator Charles E. Schumer, a New York Democrat who was the law's chief sponsor when he represented Brooklyn in the House of Representatives, said years of hearings before the legislation was passed had been aimed at compiling a record of the scope of the problem, to persuade the Supreme Court that a national solution was warranted.
''Just at a time when the economic and social conditions of the world demand that we be treated as one country and not as 50 states, the Supreme Court seems poised to undo decades and decades of a consensus that the federal government has an active role to play,'' Senator Schumer said in an interview.
In a dissenting opinion today, Justice David H. Souter included three pages of the findings from various Congressional reports, and predicted that the majority's ''new judicially derived federalism'' would eventually prove as serious a wrong turn for the court as the decisions of the 1930's that, in rejecting elements of the New Deal, provoked the court-packing crisis of 1937. Referring to that episode's ''pedigree of near-tragedy,'' Justice Souter said that ''today's decision can only be seen as a step toward recapturing the prior mistakes.''
The justices' 5-to-4 division was familiar from a series of decisions over the last five years that have struck down federal laws or created new state immunities from the application of federal law. Beginning with its ruling in United States v. Lopez in 1995, which overturned a law against carrying a gun near a school and marked the first time since the New Deal that the court had invalidated a law as exceeding the power of Congress to regulate interstate commerce, the court has also struck down part of the Brady gun control law and laws making states liable to suit in federal court for patent and trademark violations. Earlier this year, the court ruled that states could not be sued by their employees for violating the Age Discrimination in Employment Act.
Joining Chief Justice Rehnquist in the majority today, as in all the other decisions, were Justices Sandra Day O'Connor, Antonin Scalia, Anthony M. Kennedy and Clarence Thomas. Justice Thomas wrote a brief concurring opinion to say that the court should have put Congress under an even tighter rein. Justice Stephen G. Breyer wrote a dissenting opinion and also signed Justice Souter's dissent, as did Justices John Paul Stevens and Ruth Bader Ginsburg.
Although the tone of the opinions today, totaling 71 pages, was quite muted, the gulf between the two factions of the court is wide and growing wider. The court has already granted review in three more federalism cases, and the decision today, United States v. Morrison, No. 99-5, is likely to inspire more challenges to the reliance of Congress on its authority to regulate interstate commerce. Federal environmental regulations that restrict the use of private property might present an inviting target for such a challenge, some students of these recent developments believe.
Chief Justice Rehnquist's majority opinion today reiterated that the ''economic nature of the regulated activity'' was at the heart of any analysis of Congress's exercise of its commerce authority. ''Gender-motivated crimes of violence are not, in any sense of the phrase, economic activity,'' he said.
The opinion stopped short of adopting a categorical rule that Congress can never do what it claimed to do in this law: address the aggregate economic effect of activity that itself may not be inherently economic. But the chief justice noted pointedly that the court had never endorsed such an approach. In any event, he said, the court is and will remain ''the ultimate expositor of the constitutional text.''
In his dissenting opinion, Justice Souter said that when it came to ''supposed conflicts of sovereign political interests implicated by the Commerce Clause,'' the court should step back and let the political system work out the problem. Noting that 36 states had filed briefs supporting the law, he said it was ''not the least irony'' of the case that ''the states will be forced to enjoy the new federalism whether they want it or not.''
Chief Justice Rehnquist said the provision could not be sustained under the 14th Amendment because that amendment prohibits discrimination by states or ''state actors'' rather than the private individuals whose conduct is the target of this law.
Kathryn J. Rodgers, executive director of the NOW Legal Defense and Education Fund, which represented Ms. Brzonkala (pronounced brahn-KAH-lah), criticized the decision, saying it took ''the federal government out of the business of defining civil rights and creating remedies.''
Michael E. Rosman, general counsel of the Center for Individual Rights, which challenged the law on behalf of the defendants, said the decision was a welcome reminder that ''democratic majorities are limited by the text of the Constitution.''
''This was an effort by Congress to aggrandize its authority,'' Mr. Rosman added, ''and the court is now requiring Congress to toe the constitutional line.''
Congress knocked down a peg
Chicago Sun-Times (IL)
Author/Byline: Dennis Byrne
May 17, 2000
https://infoweb.newsbank.com/
Without danger of overstatement, it is safe to say that the U.S. Supreme Court on Monday stuck a dagger into the heart of Congress' increasing proclivity to try to regulate every aspect of American life.
What was so amazing about the high court's decision to strike down a provision of the Violence Against Women Act_because it went beyond Congress' constitutional powers_was that anyone should be amazed by it. The court previously had ruled that Congress had improperly intruded on state matters, a finding that anyone who reads the Bill of Rights should clearly understand.
To wit, the 10th Amendment: "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people."
Congress obviously had on its blinders when it said in the 1995 Violence Against Women Act that rape victims could a file civil suit against their attackers for damages in federal court. Nothing in the Constitution gives Congress the power to supersede the states' long-established, preeminent authority to pass such laws. Pish, said the advocates of Congress' expanding authority; Congress is delegated this authority under its constitutional power to regulate interstate commerce andundertheequal protection guarantee of the 14th Amendment. Well, the majority of the court responded, the 14th Amendment provision applies to states and state officials, not to conduct between two private parties.
As for the interstate commerce provision, the court said that if the economic effects of rape can be used to justify congressional intrusion into this area, there is no stopping congressional intrusion into just about anything, the Constitution be damned. For decades, that has been just what Congress has been doing, justifying all kinds of laws and regulations, no matter how tenuous their connection with interstate commerce. Congress regarded the 10th Amendment as a mere trifle, notevenworthbothering about, as it went full speed ahead in passing laws affecting the environment, land use, property rights, education, crime, hate crimes and other matters rightly within the states' jurisdiction. Congress high-handedly acted as if it didn't need a constitutional amendment to surgically remove the 10th Amendment; it acted as if it needed only to ignore it.
Sen. Joseph Biden (D-Del.), a proponent of congressional supremacy, knew exactly what the latest inning in this ballgame meant when he said the decision "will have a lot less impact on violence against women than on the future role of the United State Congress. (T)his decision is really all about power: Who has the power, the court or Congress?" He might have added: "Congress or the states?"
At least he saw things clearer than Justice David Souter, who said in his dissenting opinion that in cases of perceived conflicts over state power, the court should step back and let the political system work it out. Obviously, Souter put out of his mind how the high court stepped into the abortion issue, taking it out of the states' hands and the political system.
Despite the gnashing of teeth over the "end of civil rights" and the "open season on women," this decision actually is a return of the pendulum toward a sensible middle ground, and the founding fathers' vision of separation of powers. This is, after all, a federal form of government, based on the belief that the closer governmental decisions are made to the people, the more effective is democracy.
So liberals will have to bring their agenda back to the states and the people. And in Illinois, that means the drums already are beating for the Gender Violence Act, a first-of-its-kind piece of legislation that I've previously noted is vague, unfair, unrealistic, poorly drafted, utterly useless and an assault on common law and possibly free speech. Thankfully, it hasn't gone anywhere in the Illinois Legislature.
See, there you go. Proving the case that Congress really should leave these matters up to the wisdom of states and the people.
Domestic violence against women declining
Daily Breeze (Torrance, CA)
May 18, 2000
https://infoweb.newsbank.com/
WASHINGTON -- The rate at which American women are attacked or threatened by loved ones dropped 21 percent in the mid-1990s, Attorney General Janet Reno said Wednesday while calling for the renewal of the 1994 Violence Against Women Act's programs and funding.
This comes after the Supreme Court on Monday struck down a key provision of the law that let rape victims sue their attackers in federal court. Reno called that "deeply disappointing" and called on Congress to act on the renewals before the October deadline.
"Violence still devastates too many lives," she said at a news conference in front of the Capitol.
In a report, "Intimate Partner Violence," the Justice Department's Bureau of Justice Statistics described a widespread drop in violence among husbands and wives, boyfriends and girlfriends that mirrors the general decline in serious crimes nationwide since 1992.
The rate at which women were attacked by "intimate partners" -- current or former spouses, boyfriends, girlfriends or partners -- dropped 21 percent during the mid-1990s and the number of men murdered by wives or girlfriends plunged 60 percent from 1976 through 1998.
"We've given wives alternatives to feeling like they have to pick up a loaded gun to kill their loaded husbands," said Professor James Alan Fox of Northeastern University in Boston. "Divorce is easier."
Reno and Sen. Joe Biden, D-Del., the sponsor of the 1994 legislation, credited the act for the decrease. Under the law, states had to honor protective orders issued by other states, federal funding for shelters more than doubled and new grants were given to train police and prosecutors, set up special units and track incidents.
To qualify for certain grants, states also had to adopt policies that encourage police to arrest offenders on a domestic call. In many states, police now must make an arrest when they go to a domestic dispute or explain in writing why they didn't.
The Supreme Court on Monday threw out the provision allowing rape victims to sue their attackers in federal court, saying Congress wrongly trampled on an area of state authority. The other provisions were not at issue in the decision.
Biden said he could not figure out a way to rewrite the law to allow rape victims to circumvent the ruling. Asked if there were any changes that could be made to make federal rape lawsuits legal, he replied: "Yes, two new justices."
The bureau report, citing FBI data, showed the number of intimate partner homicides dropped since 1976 for every race and gender group except white women. Some details of the report:
[] In 1998, 1,320 women were murdered by intimates but only 510 men. In 1976, women had accounted for just over half of the 3,000 men and women killed by intimates.
[] For black men, the number murdered by intimates declined by 74 percent from 1976 through 1998.
[] For black women, the number murdered by intimates was down 45 percent.
[] For white men, it declined 44 percent.
[] Between 1976 and 1993, the number of white women killed by intimate partners was fairly stable, but such murders dropped by 23 percent between 1993 and 1997. Then in 1998, they shot up 8 percent, leaving the total 3 percent above the 1976 figure.
[] Black women were far more likely to report intimate violence to police than white women -- 67 percent of the time, compared with 50 percent for white women.
[] Overall, the percentage of women who reported intimate violence to police rose from 48 percent in 1993 to 59 percent in 1998. Among men, 46 percent reported intimate violence to the police, with next-to-no difference between races.
[] Counting both deadly and lesser violence and threats of violence, attacks on women by intimate partners fell from 1.1 million in 1993 to 876,340 in 1998.
[] The rate at which men were attacked by wives or girlfriends remained stable during this period, with 160,000 attacks on men in both 1993 and 1998.
[] Two-thirds of all intimate attacks were simple assaults, the least serious form of violence studied.
LAW CREDITED FOR DROP IN VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN
RENO PUSHES FOR RENEWAL OF LEGISLATION'S PROGRAMS AND FUNDING
Miami Herald, The (FL)
May 18, 2000
https://infoweb.newsbank.com/
The rate at which American women are attacked or threatened by loved ones dropped 21 percent in the mid-1990s, Attorney General Janet Reno said Wednesday while calling for the renewal of the 1994 Violence Against Women Act's programs and funding.
This comes after the Supreme Court on Monday struck down a key provision of the law that let rape victims sue their attackers in federal court. Reno called that ``deeply disappointing'' and called on Congress to act on the renewals before the October deadline.
``Violence still devastates too many lives,'' she said at a news conference in front of the Capitol.
In a report, ``Intimate Partner Violence,'' the Justice Department's Bureau of Justice Statistics described a widespread drop in violence among husbands and wives, boyfriends and girlfriends that mirrors the general decline in serious crimes nationwide since 1992.
The rate at which women were attacked by ``intimate partners'' - current or former spouses, boyfriends, girlfriends or partners - dropped 21 percent during the mid-1990s and the number of men murdered by wives or girlfriends plunged 60 percent from 1976 through 1998.
``We've given wives alternatives to feeling like they have to pick up a loaded gun to kill their loaded husbands,'' said Professor James Alan Fox of Northeastern University in Boston. ``Divorce is easier.''
Reno and Sen. Joe Biden, D-Del., the sponsor of the 1994 legislation, credited the act for the decrease. Under the law, states had to honor protective orders issued by other states, federal funding for shelters more than doubled and new grants were given to train police and prosecutors, set up special units and track incidents.
To qualify for certain grants, states also had to adopt policies that encourage police to arrest offenders on a domestic call. In many states, police now must make an arrest when they go to a domestic dispute or explain in writing why they didn't.
The Supreme Court on Monday threw out the provision allowing rape victims to sue their attackers in federal court, saying Congress wrongly trampled on an area of state authority. The other provisions were not at issue.
Taking away women's protection
Austin American-Statesman (TX)
May 19, 2000
https://infoweb.newsbank.com/
Thanks to a 5-4 vote by the Supreme Court, women across the country lost an invaluable right Monday.
Six years ago, the Violence Against Women Act earned victims of gender-based crimes -- such as rape and domestic violence -- a significant victory: They could sue their attackers for damages in federal court. By declaring that provision unconstitutional, the Supreme Court dealt victims of gender-based crimes another blow.
In passing the act after four years of hearings, Congress recognized the volumes of evidence showing that violence against women had a negative effect on the national economy, with billions of dollars in lost jobs and lowered productivity. It also recognized the irrevocable damage done to the lives of the victims.
Before this legislation, attackers who crossed state lines to commit their crimes often went unpunished.
Moreover, historically, judicial systems have varied from state to state in the recourse they offer to victims of gender-based crimes. But the federal legislation changed that. By finally giving women in every state access to the same legal remedy it also satisfied the Fourteenth Amendment, which guarantees -- among other things -- equal protection under the law.
Yet, in the eyes of the Supreme Court majority, neither of these arguments was persuasive enough.
Writing for that majority, Chief Justice William Rehnquist noted that ``Indeed, if Congress may regulate gender-motivated violence, it would be able to regulate murder or any other type of violence since gender-motivated violence, as a subset of all violent crime, is certain to have lesser economic impacts than the larger class of which it is a part . . . We accordingly reject the argument that Congress may regulate noneconomic, violent criminal conduct based solely on that conduct's aggregate effect on interstate commerce."
The opinion went on to say that ``the Constitution requires a distinction between what is truly national and what is truly local."
There can be little argument on that point. But ensuring that women who have been so gruesomely attacked have access to equal justice is indeed a matter of national concern. By ruling that provision unconstitutional, the Supreme Court left an already weakened group even more vulnerable.
It is now up to members of Congress to restore that lost protection.
Domestic homicides increasing
Bangor Daily News (ME)
May 22, 2000
https://infoweb.newsbank.com/
A domestic violence advocate fears that news of a nationwide decline in serious crime will cause people to think there is less of a need to pay for domestic violence services.
The reality is that while other crime rates may be dropping, domestic violence-related homicides are on the rise, said Kate Faragher of the Augusta Family Violence Project.
Homicides related to domestic violence have increased over the past 10 years, as has the number of people receiving help dealing with domestic abuse, Faragher said.
Domestic violence murders represented 37 percent of Maine's total homicides between 1985 and 1989. That percentage increased to 53 percent between 1996 and 1999, Faragher said.
During that time, there were 50 homicides -- 30 women, 14 children and six men -- related to domestic violence, she said.
"In Maine, as Governor Angus King said, it's Public Enemy No. 1," Faragher said. "Family violence projects in the state report our numbers are really going up."
According to a U.S. Justice Department report, "Intimate Partner Violence," the rate that women were attacked by "intimate partners," including husbands and ex-husbands, boyfriends, girlfriends or gay partners dropped 21 percent nationwide in the mid-1990s. The number of men murdered by wives or girlfriends plunged 60 percent from 1976 to 1998.
U.S. Attorney General Janet Reno credited the Violence Against Women Act of 1994, which required states to request out-of-state protective orders, provided more federal money for shelters and new grants to train police and prosecutors.
Faragher believes the drop in the number of men killed shows that services for battered women are helping women keep themselves and their children safe without having to resort to violence against abusive partners.
CLINTON HITS RIVAL'S RECORD
Times Union, The (Albany, NY)
June 15, 2000
https://infoweb.newsbank.com/
NEW YORK -- The Senate race got a little noisier and a lot fiercer Wednesday as Hillary Rodham Clinton launched an all-out attack on her Republican Senate opponent, Rep. Rick Lazio.
The First Lady called the Long Island congressman ``a follower, not a leader'' and accused him of voting ``against the interests of New York women, children and families'' because of his positions opposing gun licensing, a patient's bill of rights and federal funding for abortions for poor women.
Lazio's spokesman Dan McLagan fired back, saying: ``Mrs. Clinton's campaign is out of state, out of touch, out of ideas and maybe even a little bit out of control.''
Clinton went on the offensive and kept it up throughout a half-hour speech to 1,100 supporters attending a ``New York Women for Hillary'' breakfast fund-raiser at the Waldorf-Astoria.
On abortion, Clinton pledged to use Roe vs. Wade as a litmus test in confirming Supreme Court nominees and noted that Lazio has voted against federal funding for abortions for poor women.
``My opponent calls himself pro-choice, but if you look at his record, he's apparently pro-choice for rich women,'' she said.
On gun control, Clinton said, ``My opponent has called licensing extreme. I don't understand that. He lives in a district that has tough gun measures that include licensing and registration. But apparently he is willing to go along with the Republican leadership and the NRA rather than the children and families of New York.''
Clinton also condemned the Central Park attacks in which 26 women were harassed by men who sprayed them with water guns, tore their clothes and groped them.
The First Lady called for reauthorization of the federal Violence Against Women Act, saying: ``We need to reauthorize this act, to provide the better training and resources and sensitivity to police, judges and public officials that will enable them to respond quickly and understand that it is not just some kind of prank.''
HILLARY CLINTON WON'T FACE INDICTMENT OVER TRAVEL OFFICE FIRINGS
Columbian, The (Vancouver, WA)
June 23, 2000
https://infoweb.newsbank.com/
ALBANY, N.Y. -- New Yorkers weighing the U.S. Senate candidacy of Hillary Rodham Clinton have been given a fresh reminder of scandals that have dogged the first lady and her husband.
Independent Counsel Robert Ray said Thursday that he will not charge Hillary Clinton over the 1993 firings in the White House travel office but said there is "substantial evidence" she played a role despite her denials.
Ray said he could not prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Hillary Clinton's statements and testimony about the matter were "knowingly false." He has closed the investigation into the 1993 firings of all seven employees of the travel office, which spurred one of the first major controversies of President Clinton's tenure.
The issue has not been a high-profile one in Hillary Clinton's campaign against Republican Rep. Rick Lazio, but independent pollster Lee Miringoff said "it's obviously unwelcome news for her."
"It's not going to lose the election for her, but it's not a plus," added Jay Severin, a New York GOP political operative and commentator. "The biggest problem is that it reinforces a major existing negative for her. It's a major reminder that she appears to be among those who look like they're above the law."
Hillary Clinton has denied playing any role in the firings, an assertion challenged in a memo by former White House administration director David Watkins. Ray concluded that Hillary Clinton's discussions with presidential aides and friends "ultimately influenced Watkins' decision to fire the travel office employees."
"Nevertheless, the evidence was insufficient to prove to a jury beyond a reasonable doubt that any of Hillary Clinton's statements and testimony regarding her involvement in the travel office firings were knowingly false," he said.
The workers served at the pleasure of the president and could have been terminated without any reason.
The White House conducted an internal review and issued a public apology, saying the firings had been mishandled. It reprimanded four presidential aides while recommending that five of the former employees be given new government jobs. The former head of the office was acquitted of financial wrongdoing.
Investigators later concluded that deputy White House counsel Vince Foster was despondent over the controversy before his 1993 suicide in a Virginia park. In a diary released by the White House, Foster expressed concern that presidential aides would become entangled in investigations and worried that a role by Hillary Clinton would be misconstrued.
The firings became a partisan issue, with Republicans accusing the White House of pressing the FBI to open a criminal investigation to justify the dismissals.
In his statement, Ray criticized the White House for what he called "substantial resistance" to providing evidence, including documents and e-mails.
The White House, however, accused the Independent Counsel of politicizing an investigation.
While Lazio's campaign refused to comment on Ray's statement, other New York Republicans said it would hamper the first lady's run even if the GOP doesn't flog it.
"I think it's got legs of its own," New York state GOP Chairman William Powers said.
Miringoff noted that Ray's actual report is sealed for at least 90 days, meaning there could be fresh news reports on it at a key time.
Caption:
U.S. Senate candidate Hillary Rodham Clinton, center, holds a news conference Thursday on the steps of New York City Hall surrounded by members of the city council. Clinton called on Congress to reauthorize the Violence Against Women Act in the wake of the recent Central Park attacks.
Judge says trial will proceed
Attorneys for Allen Blackthorne wanted the charges thrown out
Sarasota Herald-Tribune (FL)
June 24, 2000
https://infoweb.newsbank.com/
A U.S. district judge ruled Friday that there is " sufficient evidence" for Allen Blackthorne's federal murder-for-hire trial to continue despite an intense effort by defense lawyers to portray another man as the killer of Blackthorne's ex-wife, Sheila Bellush.
On the trial's ninth day, defense attorney David Botsford argued that no witness for the government has provided proof that Blackthorne instructed golfing buddy Daniel Alex Rocha to go from Texas to Florida to have Bellush killed in the summer of 1997.
Bellush, 35, a mother of six including quadruplets, was found dead Nov. 7 , 1997, in her Sarasota home six weeks after her new family had moved from San Antonio, in part, to escape from her ex-husband. Rocha, 30, was convicted in Florida of conspiracy in her death and has admitted hiring friend Sammy Gonzales, who in turn allegedly hired his cousin Jose Luis Del Toro Jr. to carry out the attack.
Rocha is serving life in prison. Gonzales got 19 years. Del Toro will go on trial in three weeks in Sarasota.
"It was Rocha's independent impulses" to want to harm her, Botsford argued. Defense lawyers said Rocha thought he'd gain financial favors from the millionaire if Sheila were harmed. "We have Rocha being the legal cause of Del Toro's travel from Texas to Florida."
First Assistant U.S. Attorney John Murphy sternly denounced the defense's attempt to dismiss the case, arguing that "there's no question as to the overwhelming guilt of the defendant on both counts."
U.S. District Judge Edward C. Prado ruled for the government: "The court is of the opinion the government has provided sufficient evidence to allow the case to continue."
Blackthorne was charged Jan. 4 with two federal crimes: crossing state lines to commit murder for hire and crossing state lines to commit domestic violence. The second charge was made under the 1994 Violence Against Women Act.
Botsford wanted the second charge dismissed after a recent Supreme Court ruling invalidated a portion of the law; again, Prado ruled against that.
With those legal efforts out of the way, the defense attorneys spent Friday trying to portray Blackthorne in a better light: that the five-day-a- week golfer, now 45, didn't always wager thousands of dollars a hole against competitors; that he didn't have a neighbor of the Bellushes in Boerne, Texas, spy on behalf of him; and that his deep love of his youngest daughter , Daryl, then 12, continued even after he terminated his parental rights to his children in July 1997.
A Bellush neighbor who befriended Blackthorne, Pat Aday, testified that Daryl fled to her house several times in 1997 after being disciplined, including one time when she claimed to have been left with reddish welts on a thigh and a cheek. That report got Sheila Bellush arrested and landed Daryl, temporarily, at a state youth shelter.
Daryl, now 14, testified this week that she exaggerated her injuries at the behest of Allen Blackthorne.
But Aday said she didn't believe that.
"That's not how she normally looked," Aday said.
During the period of alleged abuse, Aday and her husband, Pat, sought to adopt Daryl. The prosecutors implied that the attempt was a roundabout way to get her back under Blackthorne's control.
Under questioning by defense lawyer Richard Lubin, Aday denied that.
"No, that's not what we were doing," she said. "I was worried sick about Daryl."
This week, the prosecutors contended that Blackthorne relentlessly tried to find his ex-wife and Daryl after the Bellushes moved to Florida in 1997.
His motivation, they said, wasn't out of concern but out of anger. They said he wanted an address in Sarasota so he could send a hit man after his wife.
Testimony this week was that Blackthorne tried to get the Bellush address through private investigators, an employee of his medical sales company and his secretary. Witnesses also said he posed as a bookie named Al and claimed that Jamie Bellush, Sheila's husband since 1993, owed him a $25,000 gambling debt.
Sheila and Allen Blackthorne were married from 1983 to 1988.
In focusing on Daryl's alleged abuse, the defense sought to show that Blackthorne had valid concerns for her safety.
"There were reasons to find Sheila that had nothing to do with causing her harm," Lubin said after court adjourned Friday afternoon.
A friend of the Blackthornes, Lori Bindseil, testified that "(Daryl) was afraid to go home" after one beating.
The defense portrayed Blackthorne as a man who wept in a judge's chambers after deciding to give up his parental rights, and only did so because he thought it might end the custody battle between him and Sheila Bellush, and keep the girl out of harm's way.
But prosecutor Murphy asserted that Blackthorne "didn't get out of the picture," as he claimed to be doing.
The defense indicated to Prado that its case could be finished as early as Tuesday. The jury could then begin deliberations by Wednesday.
Biden pushes renewal of bill to protect women
USA TODAY (Arlington, VA)
June 28, 2000
https://infoweb.newsbank.com/
Sen. Joe Biden, D-Del., has joined forces with the Republican chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee to renew the Violence Against Women Act.
The first Violence Against Women Act, written by Biden, was passed in 1994. A fund it established for police, courts, prosecutors, judges, shelters, and other services for women is set to expire this year.
The Violence Against Women Act II, as the Biden-Hatch version is called, would provide housing for women and children where shelter space is limited; provide free or reduced-cost legal assistance for victims, and set up "safe havens" to protect children during parental visits.
"Time is running out in the session, and this bill is too important to the safety of our nation's women and children to let it die and take to the grave all the progress we've made over the last few years," Biden said.
The bill, introduced Monday, already had 49 backers as of Tuesday. Rep. Connie Morella, R-Md, has introduced a House version.
Momentum builds for expanding Violence Against Women Act
USA TODAY (Arlington, VA)
June 28, 2000
https://infoweb.newsbank.com/
Chances for extending and expanding the Violence Against Women Act increased significantly this week when legislation in the House and Senate passed key hurdles.
First signed into law in 1994, the act attempts to improve states' efforts to protect victims of domestic violence through various training programs for law enforcement officials and by providing money for legal services to battered women.
The House Judiciary Committee on Tuesday passed a bill authorizing $185 million annually for fiscal years 2001 through 2003 for law enforcement and prosecution grant programs, and $195 million in fiscal 2004. The bill also would authorize $1 billion over five years for family violence prevention programs.
"Since its inception, the Violence Against Women Act has provided women the resources necessary to escape abuse," said Rep. Mary Bono, R-Palm Springs, a member of the Judiciary Committee. "Domestic violence does not hide in any specific social class, geographic area or ethnic group. Physical abuse occurs in every neighborhood of every town, in every state in America.
"The Violence Against Women Act has made a difference."
In the Senate on Monday, Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr., D-Del., after forging a compromise with the Judiciary Committee chairman, Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, introduced bipartisan legislation that would renew and expand programs under the original Violence Against Women Act.
"Time is running out in the session, and this bill is too important to the safety of our nation's women and children to let it die and take to the grave all of the progress we've made over the last few years," Biden said.
A central part of the bill would extend The Violent Crime Reduction Trust Fund, due to expire in 2000, through 2005. The trust fund provides money for police, courts, prosecutors, judges, legal services and shelters.
All told, the legislation would authorize spending of $645 million a year over the next five years. The authorization is now $266 million a year.
Blackthorne jury in deliberations
Sarasota Herald-Tribune (FL)
June 29, 2000
https://infoweb.newsbank.com/
Jury deliberations will begin today in Allen Blackthorne's federal murder trial in San Antonio, Texas.
Blackthorne's defense team wrapped up its case Tuesday with testimony from the millionaire businessman's wife, Maureen. The court took a one-day recess Wednesday after the jurors heard from nearly 50 witnesses over 11 days of testimony.
The jury will begin deliberating after closing arguments, which are to begin at 2:30 p.m.
Defense lawyer David Botsford said he expects the jury to reach a verdict by Friday night because of the July 4 holiday.
The lawyers spent Wednesday presenting to a judge the evidence they thought the jury should be allowed to consider.
Authorities say Blackthorne, 45, masterminded a murder-for-hire plot that led to the slaying of his ex-wife, Sheila Bellush, in her Sarasota home.
Blackthorne faces life in prison if convicted of the most serious charge, crossing state lines to commit murder for hire. A domestic violence charge stemming from the 1994 Violence Against Women Act is also pending against him.
Whom to believe is key for Blackthorne jury
Tampa Bay Times (FL)
June 29, 2000
https://infoweb.newsbank.com/
Jurors will weigh the credibility of the defendant and another man convicted in Sheila Bellush's murder.
The decision in the murder-for-hire case against Allen Blackthorne basically boils down to whom to believe: Blackthorne or convicted accomplice Danny Rocha.
The 14 jurors have heard Rocha testify that Blackthorne hired him to find someone to kill his ex-wife, Sheila Bellush.
Blackthorne, facing a mandatory life sentence, took the stand and told the jury he did no such thing.
"Right now, it's right down the middle," said Lupe Valencia, a 54-year-old San Antonio teacher who has watched the trial from the start.
The jurors, after listening to two weeks of testimony, likely will get the federal case late today after the prosecution and defense have their last say in closing statements.
Late Wednesday, Judge Edward C. Prado and attorneys for both sides met without the jury and haggled over wording Prado will use today in his instructions to jurors.
Blackthorne, who made his fortune developing a medical device for sore muscles, was indicted earlier this year on a charge he conspired to commit murder-for-hire across state lines. He also is charged under the Violence Against Women Act - causing someone to travel across state lines to hurt his ex-spouse.
Even if Blackthorne is acquitted on both federal charges, he has a companion murder charge awaiting him in Bexar County Court in San Antonio.
Unlike in Texas state court, testimony from an accomplice is sufficient to convict someone in federal court. Other witnesses or independent evidence is not necessary.
The cornerstone of the federal prosecution's case is Rocha, a bookmaker who met Blackthorne on a golf course in 1996 and struck up a friendship through gambling and golf.
"The jury has to be convinced that Rocha's telling the truth," said Anthony Nicholas, a criminal attorney in San Antonio.
U.S. Attorney Bill Blagg agreed. "In essence, if they believe Rocha, that's all we need to convict him."
But Rocha has credibility problems.
He changed versions of his statement to authorities several times and asked people to make up evidence against Blackthorne. His lies forced prosecutors in Florida to forgo a case against Blackthorne.
Prosecutors say that while details of his story changed, Rocha never waivered on Blackthorne being the initiator of the scheme.
"Rocha's credibility will be a significant issue for the jury," federal prosecutor Richard Durbin wrote in a recent court document.
A 30-year-old junior college dropout, Rocha testified that Blackthorne asked him several times if he knew anyone who would kill his ex-wife.
He told jurors in San Antonio that Blackthorne gave him a picture of Mrs. Bellush, her address in Sarasota and $4,000 to pay the middlemen. As the plot evolved, Blackthorne told Rocha he would pay another $50,000 if he got custody of Stevie and Daryl, the two daughters he had with his ex-wife.
Rocha said Blackthorne told him to tell the middlemen to "use their imagination" when it came to deciding how to hurt his ex-wife. Rocha said she could die.
"He said to dump her in the ocean or bury her in the woods," Rocha testified.
The links in the chain are this: Rocha approached his friend, Sammy Gonzales, 29, also of San Antonio. Gonzales, now serving a 19-year sentence for his role in the conspiracy, testified he asked his cousin, Jose Luis Del Toro Jr., 24, if he would kill her.
Del Toro, investigators say, drove from Texas to Florida and killed Mrs. Bellush on Nov. 7, 1997.
Mrs. Bellush, 35, was inside her Sarasota home when she was shot in the face. Her throat was cut twice. She was killed six weeks after she moved from San Antonio with Stevie and Daryl, her husband, Jamie Bellush, and their quadruplet toddlers.
Richard Lubin, Blackthorne's lead attorney, has said all along that Rocha is the brains behind the plot, that he wanted to extort Blackthorne, 45.
"Danny Rocha is a liar," Lubin told a throng of reporters outside court.
When asked about Rocha's motive for dreaming up the plot on his own, Lubin said: "It's hard to read or understand the mind of a sociopath . . . I can't tell you exactly what his goal was."
Federal prosecutors Durbin and John Murphy say they have proven beyond a reasonable doubt that Blackthorne had a "murderous hatred" for his ex-wife and that he is responsible for her death.
Their case included witnesses who described threats Blackthorne made to kill or maim his ex-wife.
But when Blackthorne took the stand in his own defense Monday, he disputed all of the testimony. He said the only time he threatened his ex-wife was when one of the daughters fell out of a window.
Blackthorne said he told his ex-wife: "If anything happens to my kids, I will kill you."
By mid-1997, Mrs. Bellush, who by that time had remarried and had the quadruplets, was seeking to use a past sexual assault charge against Blackthorne to get the court to terminate Blackthorne's visitation and increase his child support.
Federal prosecutors say this led Blackthorne to plot the murder. But prosecutors were prohibited by the judge from going into detail before the jury.
Of course, opinions among court spectators vary on what the Blackthorne verdict might be. At A.H. Burritos in downtown San Antonio, waitresses theorize after reading newspaper accounts.
"I find it hard to believe that Blackthorne did not know anything," said A.H. Burritos owner Rick Birdwell, 41. "But I think he'll get off."
But Gary De Los Santos, a Texas Ranger who investigated the murder and is part of the prosecution's team, said he has a wager with someone for a 12-pack of Bud Lite. How long will it take the jury?
"Two hours," De Los Santos said. "Guilty."
PRESIDENT OF NOW URGES BUSH DEFEAT
Miami Herald, The (FL)
July 1, 2000
https://infoweb.newsbank.com/
Flanked by an advocate for South Florida's Haitian immigrants and a rape victim whose case went to the U.S. Supreme Court, National Organization for Women President Patricia Ireland on Friday urged Florida feminists to help ``defeat George W. Bush in Jeb Bush's backyard,'' and push for immigration-law reform.
Republicans may consider Florida ``in George Bush's pocket, but it's our intention to put it in play,'' Ireland said during the NOW national conference, which runs through Sunday at the Fontainebleau Hilton in Miami Beach.
``We are focused enormously on the 2000 election. . . . All three branches of government are up for grabs, and so are women's rights. We want to keep the ultraconservatives out of the White House, loosen their stranglehold on Congress, and in the process, save the Supreme Court from its direction as a politically conservative but judicially active court.''
Before introducing Marleine Bastien, president of the Fanm Ayisyen Nan Miyami (FANM), a nonprofit immigrant social-welfare group, Ireland noted how the Elian Gonzalez ``brouhaha'' highlighted the ``differential treatment'' of Cuban and Haitian migrants.
Ireland, who lives in Washington but maintains a South Miami-Dade home with her husband, said the case sharply divided some of her NOW allies, ``depending on how focused they were on custody or international issues.''
Bastien said the Elian case won ``some national support and little gains'' for 10,000 Haitian families facing deportation.
She decried the ``double discrimination'' facing people who are both female and immigrant.
``We are often sexually abused, and forced into sexual slavery . . . to pay their way into the United States.''
She called for legislation mandating equal treatment of immigrants fleeing ``oppressive governments'' worldwide.
That, she said, would help end the ``fragmentation of our community. When we look at Miami right now, we understand what I am talking about.''
Ireland pointed to the case of rape victim Christy Brzonkala as reason enough for feminists to work against Bush.
Brzonkala, 23, sued two Virginia Tech football players who allegedly assaulted her in 1994, and the university, which disciplined one of the two, then permitted both to rejoin the team.
She became the first person to sue under the the federal Violence Against Women Act. The high court ruled 5-4 against her earlier this year, in effect striking down the act.
Then it followed up with another 5-4 vote on ``partial-birth abortions.'' Though the decision upheld doctors' right to use the procedure, it was too close for Ireland's comfort.
``We have no reason to think that Bush won't appoint anti-abortion justices,'' she said.
While Vice President Al Gore supports a constitutionally acceptable anti-violence bill, Bush has said he respects justices Clarence Thomas and Antonin Scalia, ``who wrote the most scathing comments about the right to abortion.''
NOW has not endorsed a presidential candidate yet. Ireland called Gore ``charisma-impaired,'' and admitted it's difficult to get feminists to be enthusiastic about him.
Jurors convict Blackthorne
The Texas millionaire faces life in federal prison for orchestrating the murder of his ex-wife Sheila Bellush
Sarasota Herald-Tribune (FL)
July 7, 2000
https://infoweb.newsbank.com/
Allen Blackthorne kept an expressionless face when he heard he'd been convicted Thursday. Maybe the 45-year-old millionaire is used to losing.
A man whose life has been marked by bankruptcy, gambling losses on the golf course and defeats to his ex-wife, Sheila Bellush, in numerous divorce and child custody matters, appeared to take the news about a possible life behind bars so well that he turned to his wife, Maureen, who was shaking, and consoled her.
"It's OK," he mouthed to her.
Moments before, at 12:18 p.m. CDT, U.S. District Judge Ed Prado had read the verdict: guilty of crossing state lines to commit murder-for-hire and to commit domestic violence.
Blackthorne's lead lawyer, Richard Lubin, grasped his client's ashen hands just before the verdict was read and told him, "Whatever it is, we'll keep fighting."
Sentencing will be Nov. 2, and the murder-for-hire conviction carries mandatory life in prison. But Blackthorne, a resilient Oregon native, knows about tinkering with things that appear absolute.
Throughout the trial, which began with jury selection June 5, his six- member defense team peppered the court with protests over evidentiary issues , laying the groundwork for an appeal.
But on Thursday, victory was on the minds of government prosecutors and the numerous law enforcement officials from Sarasota County and Texas who investigated the case and ultimately saw four men jailed in the plot against Bellush in Sarasota 21/2 years ago.
"It's very satisfying for those who've been involved in the case since Nov. 7, 1997, to see it to the end," said Sarasota County Sheriff's Lt. Ron Albritton.
The jurors, many dressed in shorts, jeans and other casual attire, reached a decision at 11:29 a.m., after about 33 hours of deliberations over five days. Afterward, the eight men and four women declined to comment.
Relatives of Sheila Bellush, who was slain in front of her 23-month-old quadruplets, hugged and cried openly in the courtroom. Sheila's mother, Verma Gene Smith, a 64-year-old quilter and doll maker, left singing the Lord's Prayer.
Maureen Blackthorne, who faces the prospect of raising her sons, 5 1/2-year- old Brandon and 2 1/2-year-old Jacob, by herself, declined to comment as she left the courtroom. For days, she was a fixture on the windy boulevard that runs by the federal courthouse -- East Durango Avenue. She often stood in a strategic spot, waving to her husband as he was carted off in a maroon Ford Crown Victoria. He always managed to raise his arms, despite the handcuffs, to say hello.
"He's determined to keep up the fight," Lubin said afterward.
The verdict marked the last conviction in the plot that led to Bellush's death. The killer, Jose Luis Del Toro Jr., 24, pleaded guilty in Sarasota on Thursday morning, eliminating the need for a trial that had been scheduled to begin next week.
Two middlemen, Daniel Alex Rocha, 30, and Samuel Gonzales, 29, were convicted in Florida last year. The status of a $32 million wrongful death suit filed against the four men by the Bellush estate in 1998 remained unclear late Thursday.
With the jurors saying nothing, spectators were left to wonder what went on in their deliberations, which began June 29. They appeared to closely study each of the 35 pages of instructions given to them.
"We're very grateful to them. Once again, the jury system works," said First U.S. Assistant Attorney John Murphy, one of the lead prosecutors on the case.
Susan Reed, a former Texas state judge who is now the district attorney for San Antonio's Bexar County, said the jury's verdict was a victory for the 1994 Congressional Violence Against Women Act, the law that allowed prosecutors to link Blackthorne to a domestic violence crime. She said Bexar County, which also filed a murder charge against Blackthorne, will not make a decision about whether to drop or pursue its indictment until after he is sentenced in federal court this fall.
The prosecutors, who didn't expect the jury to come back with a verdict until today, were watching TV, waiting for coverage of Del Toro's sentencing in Sarasota.
Reporters, lawyers and spectators were making plans for lunch when the judge's secretary hinted that they ought to stick around. The news spread like a current through the courthouse. Moments later, U.S. marshals opened the locked courtroom doors on the third floor. Relatives went in first. About 20 reporters walked in next, many of them reminded by court officials to turn off their cell phones.
At 12:12 p.m., Prado, in a black robe, sprinted in like the host of a game show, and took his elevated seat. The jurors came in four minutes later and took their assigned seats. Foreman Brian D. Henry, a retired rodeo clown , confirmed that the vote was unanimous: Guilty beyond a reasonable doubt, on both charges.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Richard Durbin said he had no idea what to expect , since much of the government's case was circumstantial -- evidence that Blackthorne had threatened Sheila on many occasions during their marriage.
"It's like reading tea leaves," Durbin said.
If Blackthorne's conviction stands, it will complete a surreal tale that stretches back to Oregon in 1982, when Sheila Leigh Walsh was a pretty, 20- year-old legal secretary and Blackthorne, then Allen Van Houte, was a dark- haired entrepreneur seven years older.
He had overcome a terrible, abuse-filled childhood to turn sales savvy into financial success. They had two daughters, one -- Stevie -- the spitting image of her father. The youngest -- Daryl -- looked just like her mother. Their five-year marriage dissolved in 1988. By that time they had moved to San Antonio, and Allen had a new last name: "Blackthorne." He had taken it from the pages of a novel about an adventurer in Japan.
The 1990s seemed a time for both Blackthorne and his ex-wife to start over.
Blackthorne, having recovered from bankruptcy to launch a medical device business that made him a millionaire, met Maureen on a date with another woman. He passed muster -- her mother hired a private eye to investigate him .
Sheila met Jamie Bellush, a stout, handsome ex-Marine, on a Southwest Airlines flight from Phoenix. He accepted Daryl and Stevie as his own and the couple went on to start their own family; in-vitro fertilization produced their quadruplets, who were born Dec. 5, 1995.
Daryl and Stevie, however, were like a tangled fishing line that connected the two. The feuding former spouses kept their distance, communicating through lawyers and fax machines, but they were always linked.
They sparred over his child support payments (once $1,200 a month), visitation (he wanted more than his 100 days a year) and even what last names his daughters would sign on papers their schoolteachers would grade.
Blackthorne claimed that his daughters were being harshly disciplined by Jamie Bellush, who admitted spankings and beatings with wooden spoons for breaking house rules. Blackthorne ended the tug of war over custody issues by surrendering parental rights on July 22, 1997. That freed the Bellushes to move away from San Antonio.
Blackthorne stopped traveling so widely. Instead of spending weeks at a time on the road selling his muscle stimulator, which is now used by professional sports teams, he got home in time for 6:30 p.m. suppers. And he started playing golf. Lots of golf. Five days a week.
On the golf course in 1996 he met Rocha, a bookie who prosecutors say Blackthorne manipulated into helping him hatch a plot to hurt or kill Sheila . Rocha won thousands of dollars in bets from his millionaire friend, but envied the man's legitimate road to his riches.
The prosecutors say Blackthorne offered $4,000 and as much as $54,000, using Rocha as the head middleman, to maim Bellush or kill her in an effort to get Stevie and Daryl back. Gonzales and Del Toro were in on the plot.
On June 26, Blackthorne took the witness stand and insisted he had nothing to do with the plot. His lawyers suggested that the murderers acted on their own, at Rocha's independent bidding, in the hopes that the millionaire would reward them for the slaying or that they could use it to extort or blackmail him.
Noting repeatedly that Rocha and Gonzales changed their stories before they were separately convicted in Florida for their roles in the slaying, the defense lawyers branded them liars.
But it appeared that Blackthorne was the one who couldn't be believed.
"I think it sends a good message to women -- the entire case -- because he had tried to take her (Sheila) through the civil justice system before, and she prevailed every time," said Monica Lopez, coordinator of a San Antonio court monitoring program called Putting an End to Abuse Through Community Efforts. Lopez listened to practically every second of the trial.
"He thought his money would buy him freedom for what he did," she said, " and it didn't."
Men seek equality in law on battery
Washington Times, The (DC)
July 9, 2000
https://infoweb.newsbank.com/
Some national men's groups are seeking to broaden the 1994 Violence Against Women Act to include men, charging that the measure is unconstitutional since it provides no resources for battered men.
The crusade comes as the House and Senate prepare to reauthorize the VAWA, and leaders of the effort to make both battered men and women beneficiaries of the statute say their campaign is being stymied because feminists oppose the change.
"The whole domestic violence issue has been developed from a feminist perspective . . . and the feminists are being hypocritical," said David R. Burroughs, chairman of the Forum for Equity and Fairness in Family Issues, the organization that's leading the drive.
Mr. Burroughs, of North East, Md., says he's lobbied virtually everyone on Capitol Hill and has found that many Republicans privately support his goal. But most won't admit it publicly, he says.
"It takes a lot to stand up to these women's groups and the influence they have," says Tracie Snitker, a woman who is government relations manager for the Men's Health Network.
Other supporters include the American Coalition for Fathers and Children, the National Congress of Fathers and Children, and Stop Abuse for Everyone (SAFE).
A House staffer, who asked not to be identified, said several women's groups, led by the National Organization for Women's Legal Defense and Education Fund, recently demanded and got a language change in a bill that would provide $140 million in funding for programs that teach parenting skills to non-custodial parents and help them reconnect with their children.
The women's groups held that 86 percent of non-custodial parents are fathers, and they argued that the so-called Fathers Count bill discriminated against women.
"We agreed to put in a provision that women are eligible for services and benefits [under the Fathers Count measure] . . . but NOW still says it's unconstitutional, which is silly," said the House aide.
Specifically, the fatherhood measure now states that "mothers, expectant mothers, and married mothers are eligible for benefits and services under projects awarded grants under this section, on the same basis as fathers, expectant fathers, and married fathers."
The House aide says he believes Forum for Equity and Fairness in Family Issues has a valid argument when it says a similar nondiscrimination provision for men, as well as women, should be added to the Violence Against Women Act. "If you believe the legislation should be parallel and to do this on a nondiscriminatory basis, the men have a point," the staffer said.
Mr. Burroughs notes that there is a lot more grant money available under VAWA than there is under the Fathers Count bill and that groups serving men are not receiving any of the former. He said a total of $1.5 billion in grants has been awarded during the past five years. "But that total would rise to $4.6 billion over five years if VAWA is reauthorized," he said.
Linda Mansour, a Justice Department spokeswoman, acknowledged that the grants awarded under that program does not go to groups serving male victims of domestic violence. "This is the Violence Against Women Act. . . . We cannot fund the men's groups," she said.
Nevertheless, Ms. Mansour said, "Male victims should be able to receive services" at a shelter funded under VAWA.
Julie Goldscheid, senior staff attorney for the NOW Legal Defense and Education Fund, concurred. "They should be getting services," she said.
But that's not necessarily the case. Ms. Snitker of the Men's Health Network says she often gets calls from shelters for domestic violence victims, asking where they might refer battered men who show up at their doors.
"There are a few shelters out there for battered men, but none are funded with VAWA money," she said.
Ms. Goldscheid says VAWA funding should go to women's groups, since women are "disproportionately victims" of domestic violence and "disproportionately victims of serious" domestic violence. "Funding should go to the problem," she said.
Gore seeks victims' rights amendment
GOP says that's a switch
Associated Press Archive
July 19, 2000
Accused by Republicans of killing a crime victims' bill of rights, Al Gore proposed his own constitutional amendment Tuesday in a campaign appearance centered on the grisly stories of seven victims.
The vice president sat in an intimate Rhodes College library to listen -- nodding and "mmm-hmming" sympathetically -- to the testimonials of women who said they had been brutalized and now are frightened.
Anne White said her rapist watched as she testified at his parole hearing. "It had been eight years and I didn't want him to get an update of what I looked like," she said. "So he could track her down," explained Gore, beside her on a loveseat.
Across the room, Jodie Gaines Johnson, who said she had been held hostage, starved and raped for five days by three men, pleaded for information when attackers are released.
"I have four kids and I don't want to be in the grocery store and run into one of them because I'm not that strong," she said.
Gore promised that under his amendment, Johnson and other victims would be notified if their attackers escaped or were released.
"The accused criminals have all kinds of rights and we all understand why it's part of our system," he said.
"But here's the point: When those rights are enshrined in the Constitution and the rights of victims are not, whenever the two are in conflict, it's not even a close contest. The victims are put in the back seat and sometimes completely ignored."
Saying he has "always been very reluctant" to amend the Constitution, Gore added: "I think that our Founders did a great job, but they anticipated that there would be times when we had to amend their handiwork and this is one such time."
Aides cited the Equal Rights Amendment as the only other proposed amendment that Gore supports. He has opposed efforts to amend the Constitution to outlaw burning the American flag.
Gore did not mention victims' rights at an evening rally in Kansas City, where he also collected $125,000 for the Democratic National Committee over a lobster dinner. He focused instead on the union workers -- sheet metal workers, plumbers, sprinkler fitters, asbestos workers, operating engineers and roofers -- who displayed banners on his stage. Gore promised he would fight for their interests.
The earlier stop in Nashville, in Gore's home state of Tennessee, where he holds only a small lead over Bush, dovetailed with the Democratic National Committee's most recent TV ad featuring Gore pledging to fight for victims' rights.
His proposal borrows heavily from one introduced in the Senate by Jon Kyl, R-Ariz., and Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif.
Kyl, who withdrew it in April, blaming Clinton-Gore administration opposition, called Gore's latest campaign promise "fraudulent."
"He's been AWOL from this fight," Kyl said in a conference call to reporters summoned by the Bush campaign.
Gore framed his support for victims in the same rhetoric he has used in recent days to try and cast himself on the side of average people -- and his Republican presidential opponent, George W. Bush, as siding with the rich and powerful.
"My whole approach is to fight for the people, not the powerful, and what a lot of those who've suffered from crime have found out is that sometimes the most powerless people -- and those who feel the most powerless -- are the victims of crime."
Gore's proposal would give victims the right to be heard on sentencing, have their safety considered in determining probation or parole and be eligible for restitution from a convict.
Gore also called for legislation allowing victims to take time off work to attend legal proceedings. And, he promised to restore the provision of the Violence Against Women Act that was struck down by the Supreme Court earlier this year: the right for sex-crime victims to sue attackers for lost earnings, medical expenses and other damages.
Kyl said his amendment died after the White House insisted it include language that would require judges to rule in favor of defendants over victims in cases of competing constitutional interests.
"They basically said that, in the case of a tie, the defendant always had to win," Kyl said. "It bothers me now that Al Gore is trying to use this politically and in a fraudulent way because he's never been helpful."
"His administration just killed a bipartisan bill two months ago," said Bush spokesman Dan Bartlett.
Thirty-two states have enacted some form of victims' rights.
The Democratic committee ad, which pictures Gore with uniformed police officers, began airing in 17 states last week. Under campaign finance laws, the party, which uses unregulated "soft money" for the ads, is not supposed to coordinate them with Gore's presidential campaign.
Domestic abuse issue may be key in James Sarff trial
Star Tribune: Newspaper of the Twin Cities (MN)
August 21, 2000
https://infoweb.newsbank.com/
James Sarff terrorized his wife for nearly a quarter-century, federal prosecutors say.
In a trial that opens today, they will argue that Sarff assaulted his estranged wife, Connie, in February of this year, choked and dragged her naked to his Jeep, then took her to Mexico, where she dared not escape for fear he'd catch her.
But she was no battered woman, James Sarff's defense attorney will contend. The abuse - if there was any - occurred decades ago and is irrelevant, he will argue. Indeed, according to pretrial documents, the defense will question Connie Sarff's character and will challenge her version of the kidnapping and assault.
How much evidence is admitted for each side will be part of the battle to be waged beginning today in U.S. District Court in Minneapolis, where Sarff is charged with kidnapping and interstate domestic violence.
A flurry of pretrial documents, some filed Friday, foreshadows a courtroom confrontation over domestic abuse that will pit assistant U.S. attorney Margaret Burns Magill against defense attorney Andrew Birrell.
"There is some good talent involved in this case on both sides, so it should be a good one to watch," predicted attorney Fred Bruno, former chairman of the criminal section of the Minnesota State Bar Association and editor of the association's bimonthly newsletter on criminal law.
In a brief interview, Birrell said: "This is going to be a vigorous, hotly contested trial."
U.S. District Judge Ann Montgomery is likely to begin by ruling on some key motions before jury selection begins. The trial is expected to last more than a week.
Sarff has been charged under the Violence Against Women Act, part of the 1994 U.S. crime bill that makes crossing a state line to assault a spouse or domestic partner a federal offense.
"There are a lot of issues under the Violence Against Women Act that remain to be fleshed out, and that means that a creative defense lawyer like Andy Birrell should make this an interesting case," former U.S. Attorney David Lillehaug said.
Connie Sarff's credibility will be pivotal, observers say. "There is no question that in this case the victim is the star witness," Lillehaug said. "So much occurred when no one else was around."
Separated from James Sarff since 1998, she filed for divorce shortly before the alleged abduction. She's living in Long Prairie, Minn., working at a bindery.
Family members are concerned but confident. "She's nervous," said Bruce Oftedahl, a cousin. "I think she'll hold up. . . . Connie is strong. I think she is looking forward to it, as is the rest of the family, to getting it over with."
The accusations
James Sarff, 51, allegedly abducted his 49-year-old estranged wife in the early morning of Feb. 19. Authorities say she was choked, suffering a "semi-acute stroke" caused by lack of oxygen to the brain. She says that she woke up on the floor of her husband's Jeep Grand Cherokee in Albuquerque, N.M., and that he then drove her across the U.S.-Mexico border, where they stayed for nearly two weeks living out of their vehicle and in hotels.
After his Jeep broke down, they crossed the border back into the United States twice, and the second time - on March 4 - a suspicious customs agent took them into custody. James Sarff was indicted by a federal grand jury on July 10.
The case took some strange turns. At the time of the early-morning abduction, Connie Sarff's co-worker David John was staying with her. A few hours later, John, 41, told police he was awakened by sounds of a struggle and a man saying, "No, you are not!" A sister of James Sarff said that at about the same time she got a phone call from him saying he had gone to Connie Sarff's apartment and killed her and was going to kill himself.
Two days later, David John shot and killed himself at his Long Prairie home, leaving a note saying he felt responsible for two deaths. He didn't refer to James or Connie Sarff by name.
The U.S. attorney's office declined to comment on the case before trial, and Birrell spoke only very briefly to a reporter. But court documents hint at some of both sides' strategies.
Prosecutor Magill has asked Montgomery to allow testimony describing previous assaults by Sarff against his wife. She says he repeatedly hit her with his fists, struck her with a board, hit her with a high chair, kicked her in the ribs and threw her against a farmyard stock-watering tank. As a result of one assault, she had one kidney removed.
"Connie Sarff will testify that during the course of her marriage, defendant physically and mentally abused her," much of it in 1976 and 1977, Magill wrote. Later, she wrote, "the physical and mental abuse continued, but the physical assaults lessened over time." Magill said the evidence is needed "to rebut arguments [of] defense counsel that Connie Sarff voluntarily stayed with the defendant in Mexico."
In court documents, defense attorney Birrell said the evidence of abuse should be barred, noting that it occurred 23 years ago and that David John told police that she had told him it was not a current problem. Such abuse, Birrell says, does not prove he committed the crime with which he is charged.
Magill also has asked Montgomery to allow testimony from Karla Fischer, an assistant professor of psychology and law at Duke University.
Magill said in documents that Fischer will "rebut the claim by the defense that Connie Sarff stayed voluntarily with the defendant. She will testify that in a domestic-abuse relationship, the abuser can control the victim through physical, verbal and unexpressed means; and that over the course of a relationship, victims learn to control themselves by anticipating the needs and wants of the abuser."
The defense
Birrell counters that Fischer is being called "to explain away obvious weaknesses in their prosecution theory" and that it will prejudice the jury against James Sarff.
The defense opposes a government motion to prohibit testimony about Connie Sarff's relationships with men before December 1999. Prosecutor Magill says it "serves no purpose other than to re-victimize Connie Sarff."
But Birrell says that to counter the prosecution's "battered woman" theory, the defense needs to show that she "manipulated the truth." He says he expects the government to argue that James Sarff went to her home, found her with David John and "flew into a jealous rage."
The nature of the assault on Connie Sarff also is likely to be contested. The prosecution is likely to offer medical evidence of her injuries, but documents in the case indicate the defense may argue she could have been choked before she was abducted. She is likely to testify, as she told an FBI agent, that during the trip James Sarff would reach over and grab handfuls of hair and shake her head until the hair came out.
The defense contends that James Sarff left her alone to go to the bathroom and shower and went to a store to buy her clothes.
Wife says she tried to fight off James Sarff
Star Tribune: Newspaper of the Twin Cities (MN)
August 24, 2000
https://infoweb.newsbank.com/
Connie Sarff clearly remembers placing her hands on the chest of her estranged husband, James Sarff, and trying to push him out of her Long Prairie apartment as he braced himself against the door.
Much of the rest of her testimony Wednesday in U.S. District Court in Minneapolis was a blur of foggy memories of a trip in which she apparently drifted in and out of consciousness between the central Minnesota town where prosecutors say she was abducted to the border of Mexico.
Those memories include lying in her apartment hall, then much later in the back seat of James Sarff's Jeep, perhaps naked, covered by a Vikings blanket.
James Sarff, 51, has been charged with kidnapping and interstate domestic abuse under the Violence Against Women Act. Prosecutors claim that Sarff abducted his wife just as she was filing for divorce. The defense claims she went willingly with her husband.
During a short session of direct testimony that was vague on specifics, Connie Sarff also recalled being given something bitter with an "odd consistency" to drink, first recognizing where she was after hearing a New Mexico radio station and being "very disoriented, scared and worried."
At least twice during the trip, she testified, Sarff grabbed her by the hair and shook her so hard it came out in clumps.
Connie Sarff also acknowledged having sex with James Sarff, but said it was not out of a desire to rekindle their failing marriage.
"It seemed the one thing to do to keep things more civil, to keep him more relaxed," she testified.
Asked whether she did it because she loved him, Connie Sarff responded: "No."
"Was it because you wanted to survive?" asked U.S. Attorney Margaret Burns Magill.
"Exactly," said Connie Sarff.
During cross-examination, however, defense attorney Andrew Birrell pointed to inconsistencies in Connie Sarff's recollection of events, including how many drinks she'd had the night of the alleged abduction.
She testified Wednesday that she had two drinks containing root-beer schnapps at a wedding reception the night of the incident, then went home, where she later was joined by David John, with whom she had a relationship.
John, who was asleep at the time of the incident, later committed suicide out of remorse.
Birrell reminded Connie Sarff of a previous interview, however, in which she told an FBI agent she'd gone home with John and her sister and had a few drinks.
Birrell also read Connie Sarff's statements to authorities about having sex during the trip to Mexico.
"It [was] not a demand, there was no roughness . . . I mean, he didn't rape me or anything like that," she had said. "It was consensual. It was a very tender time, though, almost like a time that seemed like it was so long ago."
Connie Sarff said those comments were only meant to describe the occasional tenderness James Sarff showed her during her abduction, and did not mean she was with him voluntarily, nor that she wanted to return to him.
She also said she told him that reuniting was possible, "because I thought that was what he wanted to hear."
Prosecutors so far have only hinted at Connie Sarff's life with her husband. Prosecutors say James Sarff badly beat her in the early days of the marriage and that he was mentally cruel thereafter. But there has not yet been a determination whether that information will be allowed in the trial.
The prosecution also called witnesses to discuss photos of the scene that apparently show drag marks in the snow, and a downstairs neighbor who said she heard signs of a scuffle and "dragging sounds" the night of the incident.
A medical doctor also testified Connie Sarff had various scabs and lesions on her body, and that her inability to move one arm may have been the result of a stroke suffered during the alleged abduction.
More medical testimony is expected in coming days.
Could she escape?
The defense, meanwhile, attempted to underscore times when she may have had the opportunity to escape or get help, but didn't.
Sarff said she feared what might happen if she tried to run. "If it was a botched-up attempt and I remained with him in Mexico, I didn't know what would happen," she said. "At least when I was in the car, I knew what I was dealing with."
Asked by Magill if any nice things her husband did for her during the trip changed her attitude about being with him, Sarff replied:
"No. I still didn't want to be in Mexico, nor do I ever want to go back to Mexico."
Former councilman faces prison, fine
Deseret News, The (Salt Lake City, UT)
August 25, 2000
https://infoweb.newsbank.com/
A former Blanding City Council member faces up to 10 years in prison and a $250,000 fine for possession of dozens of firearms.
Randee Lee Bayles, 49, Monticello, is charged with violating the Violence Against Women Act, according to documents released by U.S. District Court. Bayles is accused of possessing these firearms while under a protective order from his ex-wife that began Aug. 10, 1999, court documents state.
Court documents say Bayles was approached by an undercover agent who worked for the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms. Bayles admitted to the agent to owning approximately 100 rifles and between 75 to 80 hand-guns.
Ex-Blanding Official Faces Guns Charge
Salt Lake Tribune, The (UT)
August 25, 2000
https://infoweb.newsbank.com/
A former Blanding City Council member has been charged in U.S. District Court with violating a federal firearms law.
Randee Lee Bayles, a self-described "gun nut," is accused of possessing guns while under a court-issued protection order, a violation of the federal Violence Against Women Act.
Last year, a state judge issued the order, which prohibits Bayles from harassing his ex-wife.
According to court documents, the 49-year-old Bayles spoke to an undercover federal agent on Aug. 9 and said he owned about 100 rifles and between 75 and 85 handguns.
"Bayles also admitted that due to an order that his ex-wife had obtained from the courts, he had moved most of his guns to a location away from his house," the Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco and Firearms agent stated in the complaint against Bayles, which was unsealed Thursday.
Just before the two ended their conversation, Bayles allegedly took two loaded handguns -- a Colt .357 magnum revolver and a Beretta 9mm semi-automatic pistol -- from his Ford pickup and showed them to the agent.
Federal agents searched Bayles' house Wednesday and seized armfuls of weapons, witnesses said.
Bayles' attorney did not return phone calls from The Salt Lake Tribune.
But the attorney representing Bayles' ex-wife, Jeroldene Bailey, said the federal government's action was needed.
"It's a wake-up call to this community that domestic violence has to be taken seriously," said Monticello attorney Rosalie Reilly. "It puts everyone on notice that if you are under a protective order, you can't have a weapon -- not even a hunting rifle."
Bailey has said that she was afraid that Bayles might some day kill her.
Bailey said she had endured Bayles' abuse for years by the time she filed for divorce in 1997. She said she waited until their three daughters were grown before breaking up the 27-year marriage.
But since then, Bayles has tailed Bailey in his truck as she walked to work, sometimes using his hand to make shooting gestures at her and her friends, Bailey alleged in court filings seeking the protection order. She also claimed Bayles has threatened to kill her.
Seventh District Judge Bryce Bryner granted the order, which requires Bayles to stay more than a block away from his ex-wife's home and work. The judge listed several examples of Bayles' stalking, threatening and harassing Bailey.
"[Bayles] called [Bailey] foul and obscene names on many occasions, physically abused her by slapping her, and threatened her with bodily harm by holding a pistol to her neck in 1975, and by telling her in the opening day of deer season in the 1990s that he could kill her any time he wanted," Bryner wrote.
Bayles, a lifelong resident of Blanding, has categorically denied his ex-wife's allegations.
If convicted of the federal firearms charge, Bayles faces a prison sentence of up to 10 years and a $250,000 fine.
Federal law enforcement agencies did not notify local police of the Wednesday raid on Bayles' home, infuriating some southern Utah residents.
Reilly, who filed a lawsuit against Blanding alleging that the local justice system does not protect abuse victims, said she can understand her neighbors' frustration.
Reilly dropped her claims against Blanding police after the formation of a domestic violence task force and the appointment of a victims' advocate. Even so, she believes, the federal officers needed to act alone.
"There is a lot of feeling that it wasn't fair what happened [the raid on Bayles' home] -- that the local police weren't involved," Reilly said. "But because of the history of problems, it was important [federal agents] acted as they did."
Doctor: Choking didn't cause Sarff's stroke
Star Tribune: Newspaper of the Twin Cities (MN)
August 26, 2000
https://infoweb.newsbank.com/
An expert witness for the defense in the James Sarff kidnapping case testified Friday that he believed brain damage suffered by Sarff's estranged wife, Connie, was not caused by choking.
The testimony of Dr. Stevan Zimmer, a cardiologist, contradicted the earlier testimony of a neurologist and internist, who said a brain scan and a partially paralyzed left arm were consistent with a choking injury.
James Sarff has been charged with kidnapping and interstate domestic abuse under the Violence Against Women Act. Prosecutors say Sarff choked his wife into unconsciousness, then abducted her to Mexico, where they later were found by U.S. Customs agents.
The defense claims Connie Sarff at some point decided to go willingly with her husband to Mexico. Evidence of violence at the scene and injuries to her could be important to a jury.
Zimmer said brain scans of Connie Sarff would not reveal when the injuries occurred. Furthermore, the asymmetrical patterns of injury shown in the scan more likely indicated that the damage was caused by a clot, or particles that floated into the brain.
"The sources of damages on the MRI have not been adequately investigated," Zimmer testified. "Choking is not a reasonable explanation."
Zimmer was the defense's first witness in the trial, which is expected to last another week.
The Sarffs disappeared in February, just at the time Connie Sarff was filing for divorce. Neighbors have testified that they heard a struggle in her Long Prairie apartment, where blood was found.
Court records show she was severely beaten by her husband in the late 1970s, and prosecutors say she has been periodically abused in the years since.
Thus far, however, Judge Ann Montgomery has not allowed evidence of past abuse into the trial, saying it occurred too long ago.
Man Under Protection-Order Released on Bail
The constitutionality of a law involving the possession of guns is questioned by judge
Salt Lake Tribune, The (UT)
August 29, 2000
https://infoweb.newsbank.com/
A Blanding man accused of violating the federal Violence Against Women Act by possessing guns while under a protection order was released on a $1,000 bond Monday as a federal magistrate questioned the law's constitutionality.
Former Blanding City Council member Randee Lee Bayles,
a self-described "gun nut," is prohibited from harassing his ex-wife under the protection order, issued last year by a state judge.
According to court documents, the 49-year-old Bayles spoke to an undercover federal agent on Aug. 9 and said he owned about 100 rifles and between 75 and 85 handguns. Federal agents searched Bayles' house last week and seized an armful of weapons, witnesses said.
After Bayles appeared Monday before U.S. District Magistrate Judge Ronald Boyce, Bayles' family said he did not know that he was not allowed to possess hunting rifles under the law.
In court, Boyce wondered aloud whether the gun-possession provisions of the Violence Against Women Act would survive scrutiny by the Supreme Court. Already, Boyce noted, the high court has struck down some civil provisions of the law that allowed victims of sexual assaults to sue their assailants in federal court.
"I have some concerns about the constitutionality of [the law]," he said. "These particular charges are being challenged all over the country right now . . . and we don't know where this is going to go."
Boyce acknowledged he was not in a position to make a decision about the federal law, but told Assistant U.S. Attorney Barbara Bearnson that he would not set a high bail.
"He has no prior [criminal] record; he's lived in the area for 47 years," Boyce said. "Sure he's had some problems -- problems which we can address."
Those problems include allegations of domestic violence and threats against the life of his ex-wife, Jeroldene Bailey.
Since she filed for divorce in 1997, Bayles has tailed Bailey in his truck as she walked to work, sometimes using his hand to make shooting gestures at her and her friends, Bailey alleged in court filings seeking the protection order.
Seventh District Judge Bryce Bryner granted the order, which requires Bayles to stay more than a block away from his ex-wife's home and work. The judge listed several examples of Bayles' stalking, threatening and harassing Bailey.
Boyce observed that the court record indicates Bayles has a problem with anger, and ordered him to seek treatment as a condition of release.
If convicted of the federal firearms charge, Bayles faces a prison sentence of up to 10 years and a $250,000 fine.
Bayles, a lifelong resident of Blanding, has categorically denied his ex-wife's claims of harassment. His oldest daughter questions her mother's allegations. "As children, we lived there and never saw all the things that were supposed to have happened," said 27-year-old Shanni Call.
Call said that the month before her parents divorced, her mother gave Bayles a hunting rifle as a Christmas gift. "If a woman is so afraid of someone [that] she has to go to court," Call asked, "would she give him a rifle?"
Boyce also took note of Utah's love of weapons in refusing to set a high bail.
"There's a reality in this state it's kind of a gun state," Boyce said. "In the area where [Bayles] lives, a rural area, people hunt, people target practice, people kill a lot of signs just to make sure they don't walk away."
Sarff convicted of kidnapping, abusing wife
Star Tribune: Newspaper of the Twin Cities (MN)
August 31, 2000
https://infoweb.newsbank.com/
More than 20 years after the courts stayed the sentence of James Sarff for beating his wife, a U.S. District Court jury in Minneapolis convicted him Wednesday of kidnapping her and taking her to Mexico.
Sarff, 51, was convicted on two counts of kidnapping his estranged wife, Connie Sarff, who was seeking a divorce, from her apartment in Long Prairie, Minn. The farmer from Eagle Bend, Minn., also was convicted on both counts of interstate domestic violence under the Violence Against Women Act.
He faces a maximum of life in prison on the kidnapping charge and up to 20 years on the domestic-violence charge.
U.S. District Judge Ann Montgomery will determine the sentence in about two months, after an assessment is done. Sarff is in the Sherburne County jail. The jury deliberated briefly Monday, all day Tuesday and until 11 a.m. Wednesday.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Margaret Burns Magill said the verdict sends a message to domestic abusers that the government will come after them "no matter where they go."
Connie Sarff made a brief statement following the trial: "We want to thank everybody who helped us through this ordeal . . . and hope that no one ever has to go through this again."
Said Magill: "I think Connie Sarff showed she was a really courageous woman who spoke of things others would prefer to leave secret."
Debbie Anderson, public relations coordinator for the Minnesota Coalition for Battered Women, said a not-guilty verdict in a highly publicized abuse case often causes an increase in domestic violence.
"I absolutely congratulate the jury in sending a message to all abusers," Anderson said. "We always have concerns about how people understand the nature of domestic abuse."
Even though the incident revolved around the issue of domestic abuse, those words never were uttered in court.
Sarff was convicted of abusing his wife so badly in the late 1970s that she had to have a kidney removed. He was convicted of domestic abuse, but his sentence was stayed and he returned to his farm, where prosecutors say he continued to abuse his wife physically and mentally.
Magill tried to enter such testimony several times, but Judge Montgomery wouldn't allow it, arguing that the conviction occurred too long ago to be pertinent.
The reason there wasn't more recent evidence of abuse, Magill said, is that "Connie tried to get help for domestic abuse before, and the system failed her."
That also explains why she hesitated to seek help during the abduction, Magill said.
Jamie Kingston, one of the jurors, said the jury had no idea of Sarff's violent background, "but we came together and there were absolutely no doubts he was guilty by the time we were done."
The Sarff case began with a dramatic assault at Connie Sarff's apartment, followed by a two-week manhunt that ended with capture in Douglas, Ariz., just across from a small Mexican town where the Sarffs' Jeep broke down.
During that time, some family members and friends believed Connie was dead, in part because James Sarff called his sister the day after the couple disappeared to say, "I killed her."
One person who believed she was dead was David John, who was seeing Connie romantically and who was at the apartment sleeping the night she was abducted. John killed himself after she disappeared, and a suicide note indicated he felt responsible for being unable to stop the kidnapping.
During the weeklong trial, Magill presented numerous witnesses, including two neighbors who heard a struggle in Connie Sarff's hall, and three doctors who testified that she had a stroke, most likely caused by being choked almost to death.
Defense attorney Andrew Birrell relied mainly on the testimony of a cardiologist, who said he didn't believe she was choked. Birrell also tried to show inconsistencies in Connie's testimony and in the way the prosecution presented medical evidence.
Without ever saying Connie Sarff could have left her husband, Birrell often underscored opportunities when she might have: while crossing the border, for example, or when the two went out for dinner in Mexico.
Magill, meanwhile, elicited testimony emphasizing Connie Sarff's fear of her husband to try to explain why she didn't call for help - without mentioning that he had beaten her and left her on their farm in Todd County without a phone, and refused to let her speak to her parents in an attempt to control her.
Anderson, of the Battered Women's Coalition, said the outcome of this case was good news for several reasons, the most important of which is "that unlike a lot of these victims, she's still alive."
Ex-Blanding official denies guilt on firearms charge
Deseret News, The (Salt Lake City, UT)
September 22, 2000
https://infoweb.newsbank.com/
A former Blanding City Council member has pleaded not guilty to charges that he possessed numerous firearms while being subject to a protective order.
Randee Lee Bayles, 49, Monticello, appeared before U.S. Magistrate Ronald Boyce Wednesday for arraignment and pleaded not guilty to possession of a firearm while subject to a protective order.
Boyce set a two-day trial date for Nov. 20 before Judge Dee Benson. If convicted, Bayles faces up to 10 years in prison and a $250,000 fine.
According to court documents, Bayles violated the Violence Against Women Act by possessing 19 firearms while under a protective order from his ex-wife that began Aug. 10, 1999.
Bayles was approached by an undercover agent who worked for the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, and Bayles admitted to the agent owning approximately 100 rifles and between 75 to 80 handguns, court documents say.
An indictment handed up by a federal grand jury last week lists 19 firearms allegedly owned by Bayles, including an AD-47 rifle, a 9 mm pistol, and a 12-gauge shotgun.
Domestic violence law at risk
Legislators scramble to extend key source of aid for battered women
Dallas Morning News, The (TX)
September 24, 2000
https://infoweb.newsbank.com/
For the last three years, counselors from the Family Place shelter in Dallas have been working in Fair Park and Oak Cliff housing developments to reach battered women who haven't sought help.
But as Congress struggles to complete its work for this year, additional federal funds are in jeopardy for this Dallas program and thousands of others that fight domestic violence.
The landmark Violence Against Women Act, which became law in 1994, expires on Saturday. And supporters are furious that bills to extend the law for five years, expand its reach and authorize $3.6 billion in new funding are getting lost in the end-of-the-session rush.
"If the clock is ticking, why don't they see this as critical for the United States?" asked Paige Flink, executive director of the Family Place shelter. "It's not just a women's issue. It's about families."
Sen. Joe Biden, D-Del., author of the original law, said the reauthorization bill may get caught up in the political horse-trading that goes on as Congress tries to pass a budget by Oct. 1. He said that ending the law would backfire on Republicans and Democrats in the November elections, especially as both parties court women voters.
"Every single woman understands this issue," Mr. Biden said. "I don't know what political games are being played here. [The bill] would go through like a hot knife through butter."
The law marked the first time Congress made fighting domestic violence a top priority. Its wide-ranging provisions included a national hotline on family violence and tougher penalties for interstate stalking, domestic abuse and repeat sexual offenses.
At its heart were grants for states to expand family violence programs, including funding for shelters, social workers, prosecutors, equipment and training for law enforcement personnel.
Cuts in Dallas County
Since 1995, the first full year of funding, Texas has received $50 million in aid. Dallas County had received about $1 million annually but saw its grant cut by about half this year because of uncertainty about future federal assistance.
Dallas County has used the federal funds for social workers who work one on one with victims, lawyers who deal only in securing protective orders for women, a camera to document injuries and to hire lawyers to make sure children aren't taken from their mothers.
"The grant has been such a benefit," said Cindy Dyer, chief prosecutor in the Dallas County district attorney's family violence division. "We weren't relying solely on the feds to fund us, but the grant supplemented us and allowed us to serve more people and give higher quality service. It's going to be hard to scale back."
The national hotline, which is based in Austin, was launched with a $1 million grant and has been sustained through annual $400,000 stipends. Since February 1996, counselors in Austin have received more than 500,000 calls - or an average of 11,000 to 13,000 a month.
Supporters of the law say it has also helped erase some of the stigma associated with family violence and has educated battered women about seeking help and cooperating with the police.
According to the state's annual crime report, 161 women were killed by their husband or boyfriend in 1993, the year before the federal law was enacted. The law's advocates say it helped reduce that number to 99 last year.
"We've learned a lot about what is needed to take a battered woman out of a violent situation," said Bree Buchanan, public policy director of the Texas Council of Family Violence. "She doesn't have to go back. She can stand on her own two feet and make it."
The House bill to reauthorize the law is supported by more than 200 Democrats and Republicans. It was approved by voice vote in the Judiciary Committee in June but is stuck in two other panels.
A spokesman for House Majority Leader Dick Armey, R-Irving, who oversees the House schedule, said leaders are sounding out lawmakers to see if the bill can be scheduled for floor debate next week under expedited rules.
Budget competition
The House bill would include authorization for new programs, including visitation centers for children of battered women, legal assistance for women to seek civil remedies, funding for transitional housing and programs targeted to older and disabled women.
The Senate Judiciary Committee has approved Mr. Biden's bill, which would include tougher penalties on interstate crimes against women. But lawmakers said they are having a tough time getting the chamber to focus on anything besides budget bills for next year.
Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, R-Texas, a co-sponsor of Mr. Biden's bill, is waiting for the floor debate to add her legislation that would make stalking on the Internet a federal crime.
But attempts in recent days to link the domestic violence bill with other measures that may not enjoy similar support have upset women's' advocates.
"We want to avoid being attached to a bill that is bad for women," said Juley Fulcher, public policy director for the National Coalition Against Domestic Violence. "We've got extraordinary little time to make this happen. We'll believe it when we see a bill on the president's desk for his signature."
Clinton Supports Anti Violence Act
Associated Press News Service, The
September 25, 2000
https://infoweb.newsbank.com/
SANTA FE, N.M. (AP) - The Clinton administration pressed Congress on Monday to renew a law intended to reduce domestic violence against women. The landmark 1994 Violence Against Women Act is due to expire Sept. 30.
President Clinton was winding up three days of fund-raising in the West with an appearance alongside advocates for battered women in New Mexico.
Legislation to reauthorize the law for another six years has broad bipartisan support, but it is held up in the last-minute crush of bills as Congress tries to meet an Oct. 6 adjournment date.
If the law is extended, it will be without a key provision allowing rape victims to sue their attackers in federal court. The Supreme Court said it is up to states, not Congress, to choose whether to protect women in that way.
Congressional Democrats tried unsuccessfully to reinstate the provision this year.
As left by the Supreme Court, the law now essentially provides a federal dispensary for a variety of grants and programs aimed at preventing family violence and helping women flee it.
So far, the federal government has spent $1.6 billion under the law, including $173 million being distributed this year. Clinton was announcing New Mexico's last batch of $1.7 million on Monday, money the White House said will go to partly to strengthen domestic violence enforcement and prosecution efforts on American Indian lands.
The administration credits the law with helping produce a 21 percent decline in domestic violence between 1993 and 1998, although violent crime in general has declined over the same period.
A government report released in July found that nearly 25 percent of women, and about seven percent of men, say they have been raped or assaulted by a current or former partner.
The survey, from a Justice Department agency and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, also shows that spousal stalking is more widespread than thought, with almost five percent of women saying they've been stalked by a partner.
The survey also found differences among racial backgrounds. African-American, American Indian and native Alaskan women and men reported higher rates of partner violence than people from other backgrounds. Asians reported lower rates.
The survey found 1.5 percent of women and 0.9 percent of men said they were raped or physically assaulted by their partner in the last 12 months. According to the estimates, approximately 1.5 million American women and more than 800,000 men are raped or assaulted by an intimate partner annually.
PROGRAMS RENEWED FOR VIOLENCE VICTIMS
Akron Beacon Journal (OH)
September 27, 2000
https://infoweb.newsbank.com/
A long-stalled bill renewing landmark federal programs for victims of domestic violence passed the House, 415-3, yesterday. The renewal of the Violence Against Women Act authorizes $3.6 billion over five years for programs that include law enforcement and judicial training, grants for domestic violence shelters, child abuse prevention programs and a national hot line.
Groups pressure Senate to renew anti-violence act
Deseret News, The (Salt Lake City, UT)
September 27, 2000
https://infoweb.newsbank.com/
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Women's rights groups and President Clinton began heaping pressure on the Republican-controlled Senate to renew the Violence Against Women Act that is to expire Saturday.
"It is now time for the Senate to act," Clinton said. "With over 70 sponsors in the Senate, there is no reason for delay."
Passage of the act is at "the top" of Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott's list and could come up for a vote this week, his spokesman said.
The act's renewal passed the House, 415-3 on Tuesday. It authorizes $3.6 billion over five years for programs that include law enforcement and judicial training, grants for domestic violence shelters, child abuse prevention programs and a national domestic violence hot line.
LETTER Feminists' distorted view
Recorder, The (Greenfield, MA)
September 29, 2000
https://infoweb.newsbank.com/
The purpose of this letter is to respond to Rosalind Torrey's account of the need for passage of the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) that was published on recently. Yes, technically time is running out on millions of women. However, Torrey's true concern is for the funding of millions of federally funded positions for countless career women that share her victim feminist view of society.
It is interesting to point out the contradictions in Torrey's letter. She first cites the effectiveness of the VAWA in dramatically reducing domestic violence murder rates since its passage. Then, in typical feminist fashion, she creates more victims, citing the need to protect immigrant women and dating youth, who are at the greatest risk for assaults! I would like to ask her where are the statistics regarding these new at risk groups and, more importantly, have they been verified by independent, non-feminist scholars.
Unfortunately, feminists scholars have been less than honest (putting it mildly) in the past regarding partial birth abortion (caught with their pants down on this one), the percentage of women in emergency rooms due to domestic violence (the only place where women lie, especially if they don't answer DV questions in the manner prescribed by the feminists), and the effects of divorce on a woman's financial status. Of course, the greatest myth perpetrated by the feminists is that men commit the majority of child abuse in this country, which is a complete falsehood.
The facts are that women kill more children in this country, commit the vast majority of child abuse, and are equally as abusive to the men in their lives. Why then does the media allow such myths to continue, especially, given the effects on children. When will the media be held accountable for their involvement in these lies and on whose hands is the blood of children returned to their abusive mother and subsequently found murdered or physically assaulted?
Yes, Congress, act now! It is obvious from Torrey's reference that the men and women that make up our Congress and local and state governments do fear NOW and women voters so much that they would turn their back on abused children and continue the myths.
PATRICIA FRIEDMAN South Deerfield
Supreme Court rejects gunmakers' appeal on assault weapons
Associated Press Archive
October 2, 2000
https://infoweb.newsbank.com/
Two gunmakers who challenged Congress' authority to ban the manufacture, sale and possession of semiautomatic assault weapons lost a Supreme Court appeal Monday.
The court, without comment, rejected an appeal that said Congress exceeded its power to regulate interstate commerce when it outlawed such weapons in 1994.
The 1994 law, an amendment to the Gun Control Act of 1968, defines semiautomatic assault weapons to include a list of specified firearms and "copies or duplicates of the firearms in any caliber."
Navegar Inc. and Penn Arms Inc. challenged the federal ban in 1995.
Florida-based Navegar, doing business as Intratec, manufactures two semiautomatic pistols, the TEC-DC9 and TEC-22, which are among the specifically banned weapons.
Pennsylvania-based Penn Arms makes the Strike 12, a 12-gauge revolving cylinder shotgun. All such shotguns are treated as semiautomatic assault weapons under the 1994 law.
A federal trial judge and the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia upheld the ban. In its ruling last year, the appeals court called the law a permissible "regulation of activities having a substantial effect on interstate commerce."
The appeals court cited Congress' "intent to control the flow through interstate commerce of semiautomatic assault weapons bought or manufactured in one state and subsequently transported into other states."
In the appeal acted on Monday, the gunmakers argued that the appeals court ruling conflicts with recent Supreme Court decisions that pared congressional power by narrowing the definition of interstate commerce.
In one, the Supreme Court said Congress exceeded its authority in banning possession of guns within 1,000 feet of schools. In another, the court struck down a key provision of the Violence Against Women Act.
The gunmakers' appeal said the appeals court wrongly presumed that "the manufacture and transfer of semiautomatic assault weapons was for a national market."
They said the appeals court "had no basis for concluding ... that the intrastate manufacture, transfer or possession of semiautomatic assault weapons had a substantial effect on interstate commerce."
Justice Department lawyers urged the court to reject the appeal. "Federal regulation of firearms and assault weapons is based in large part on evidence that the nationwide market for firearms renders purely local prohibitions ineffective," they said.
The case is Navegar v. U.S., 99-1874.
$3 BILLION IN CRIME BILL PROTECTS WOMEN
Charlotte Observer, The (NC)
October 7, 2000
https://infoweb.newsbank.com/
The House approved a sweeping anti-crime bill Friday that includes more than $3 billion to fight violence against women and seeks to protect foreign women brought into the country by the international illegal sex trade.
The catchall legislation also has provisions that would make it easier for victims to collect compensation from terrorist states and would force states to pay costs when a criminal is released from prison and commits a crime in another state.
It passed 371-1 and is expected to be approved by the Senate early next week.
Reauthorizing the Violence Against Women Act has been a top priority of the Clinton administration, which estimates violence against women has decreased 21 percent since the law was first passed in 1994.
The bill more than doubles funding allowed in the previous act, which expired with the start of the new fiscal year Oct. 1.
It provides nearly $1 billion over five years to help prosecutors track down domestic abusers, $875 million to expand shelters for battered women and $140 million for grants to stop violent crimes against women on college campuses. Domestic violence is the No. 1 health risk for women between 15 and 44.
The sex trafficking legislation, sponsored by Rep. Chris Smith, R-N.J., provides $95 million over two years to combat trafficking in women and children, what has become the third largest source of income for international organized crime, after drugs and guns. More than 1 million women and children are victims of trafficking every year, with an estimated 50,000 entering the United States.
House OKs catchall legislation aimed at violence against women
Bill also targets illegal sex trade
Florida Times-Union, The (Jacksonville, FL)
October 7, 2000
https://infoweb.newsbank.com/
WASHINGTON -- The House approved a sweeping anti-crime bill yesterday that includes more than $3 billion to fight violence against women and seeks to protect foreign women brought into the country by international illegal sex trade.
The legislation also has provisions that would make it easier for victims to collect compensation from terrorist states and would force states to pay costs when a criminal is released from prison and commits a crime in another state.
It passed 371-1 and is expected to be approved by the Senate early next week.
Reauthorizing the Violence Against Women Act has been a top priority of the Clinton administration, which estimates violence against women has decreased 21 percent since the law was first passed in 1994.
The bill more than doubles funding allowed in the previous act, which expired with the start of the new fiscal year Oct. 1. It provides nearly $1 billion over five years to help prosecutors track down domestic abusers, $875 million to expand shelters for battered women and $140 million for grants to stop violent crimes against women on college campuses.
The act "has been and must remain a powerful tool in the fight against domestic violence, stalking and sexual assault," said Rep. Carolyn Maloney, D-N.Y., noting that domestic violence is the No. 1 health risk for women between the ages of 15 and 44.
The measure is also expanded to include programs to prevent dating violence. With that inclusion, said Rep. Constance Morella, R-Md., a chief sponsor, "I hope we can begin to recognize that young women are falling prey to violent relationships in their earliest dating experiences."
The sex trafficking legislation, sponsored by Rep. Chris Smith, R-N.J., provides $95 million over two years to combat trafficking in women and children, what has become the third largest source of income for international organized crime after drugs and guns. More than 1 million women and children are victims of trafficking every year, with an estimated 50,000 entering the United States.
The legislation, said Smith, "throws the book at those who would commit these heinous crimes and would make money off of the exploitation of women and children."
The measure increases the punishment, up to life imprisonment, for those convicted of running trafficking operations; authorizes grants for rehabilitation and shelter programs for victims; gives relief from deportation for victims facing retribution if they returned home; helps foreign governments trying to stop sex trade activities; and sets up a process for cutting off non-humanitarian aid to governments that tolerate or condone trafficking.
Sen. Sam Brownback, R-Kan., author of the Senate bill with Sen. Paul Wellstone, D-Minn., said it would be "a model piece of legislation around the world, to begin to deal with some of the darker parts of the global economy."
Also included in the package is a measure making it easier for terrorist victims to collect damages from nations that foster that terrorism.
American courts have awarded former hostages and families of terrorist victims multimillion-dollar judgments against Iran and Cuba, but the administration has so far blocked assets to those who won the suits.
Renewed Violence Against Women Act now only awaits president's signature
Anniston Star, The (AL)
October 12, 2000
https://infoweb.newsbank.com/
WASHINGTON - A bill that is the lifeblood of several local domestic violence facilities finally passed the Senate on Wednesday and is awaiting the expected approval of the president.
The latest version of the Violence Against Women Act passed unanimously and appropriates $3.6 billion to domestic violence shelters and prevention programs across the country.
The Senate had failed in September to act on a bill reauthorizing the Violence Against Women Act, which needed to be renewed by Oct. 1. Without renewal, the five-year-old act, which had provided $12.6 million in funding for the state of Alabama for shelters and violence prevention programs over its five years, seemed to be dead.
However, the act was was quickly revised and re-introduced. That re-introduced act is what passed Wednesday.
The original 1995 law provided $1.6 billion over five years, including $12.6 million to programs in Birmingham, Atmore, Mobile and at the University of Alabama.
"We've been hoping the Senate would approve this," said Carol Gundlach, the executive director of the Alabama Coalition Against Domestic Violence. "This is very good news."
The federal funds from this act support the only domestic violence facilities in De Kalb and Cherokee counties. The offices are not shelters, but places abused women can go for legal services, such as how to apply for a restraining order, how to file a divorce papers and how to get an arrest warrant.
The resource centers were opened last year through a $200,000 federal grant. The De Kalb and Cherokee offices have the only Spanish translator available to domestic violence workers. That salary is also paid from grant money.
In Anniston, the Daybreak Crisis Recovery Center could not be reached for comment Wednesday. The center had said it would have to call on on volunteers to replace paid staff due to the funding loss. The staff during the fiscal year that ended Oct. 1 had been paid with the $140,000 in grants the center received last year.
"We fund our entire center with that money," director Carrie Halladay said after the funding seemed lost Sept. 29.
Sponsors on the House side revised the law so it could be renewed after the Oct. 1 expiration date.
It was sent as an attachment to the Trafficking Victims Protection Act.
The legislation also establishes Aimee's Law, which would financially penalize any state that paroles a criminal who subsequently commits a rape, murder or molests a child in another state.
The law was named after Aimee Willard, a 22-year-old college student from Pennsylvania murdered by a man who was on parole in Nevada for killing another man.
OFFICERS OUT OF LINE
LOCAL POLICE AGENCIES NO LONGER TOLERATING DOMESTIC VIOLENCE WITHIN THEIR RANKS
Buffalo News, The (NY)
October 17, 2000
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Duane Luchey, Gerald T. Skinner and Joseph P. Weber all have landed on the wrong side of the law. Each was accused of striking or harassing his wife or another family member.
All three were charged with misdemeanor crimes in domestic incidents. They also have something else in common.
They're all police officers. Luchey and Skinner wear Buffalo blue. Weber works for the Erie County Sheriff's Department.
At least four other Buffalo officers have been suspended from duty without pay in the last three years following domestic incidents, according to Buffalo Police Department records.
That's at least seven local police officers arrested or disciplined by their departments in domestic incidents.
"We're doing a better job than ever of holding police officers to the same standard as the rest of society," said Lt. David F. Mann Jr., commander of the Buffalo Sex Offense Squad.
Police across Erie County investigated at least 15,000 domestic complaints last year; those include assaults, threats, interference with a spouse's movement, trespassing and violations of court orders of protection. That's 41 complaints per day in the county.
Several national studies claim domestic violence occurs in up to 40 percent of police families, compared with only about 10 percent of all U.S. households, according to the National Center for Women & Policing in Los Angeles. Other experts believe the gap is much smaller.
Why is there a disparity? Experts say officers probably have society's most stressful job; they may be prone to bring home some of the violence they see on the streets; and officers operate from a position of control on the streets, something they also may bring home with them.
Police agencies have become much tougher on domestic violence, so tough that even their own officers don't get a break when they're accused in any kind of domestic dispute.
Fellow police officers no longer can look the other way.
"The wink-wink, nod-nod of years past is gone," said Lisa Bloch Rodwin, who heads the Erie County district attorney's Sex Crimes Bureau. "Police departments realize they have the responsibility to police their own."
That's not just a local problem.
Nationwide, police agencies are forced to deal with the issue, said Penny Harrington, former police chief in Portland, Ore., and now director of the National Center for Women & Policing.
"It's a real thorny problem that we're just beginning to address," Harrington said.
"I think some police agencies are dealing with it in a very responsible manner, but I think a majority of them put a policy in effect and say, 'I'm done.' They're not doing anything more than that."
Local law enforcement officials say that's not the case here.
"I would say there has been a dramatic change in the past five years in how police departments respond to this problem," Rodwin said, citing new policies implemented by Erie County District Attorney Frank J. Clark and most local police agencies.
That wasn't always the case.
Two incidents show how differently Buffalo police brass would react now to a domestic assault by one of their own officers.
In April 1981, a now-retired Buffalo police captain attacked his former wife with a vodka bottle and his fists, leaving her with a concussion, a broken nose, the loss of a tooth and two black eyes.
The captain -- a top supervisor responsible for disciplining police officers and lieutenants -- remained in his job for nine months before being suspended for 30 days. The suspension came almost five months after he was convicted of misdemeanor assault.
"Apparently, he has violated one of the state laws, so we will have to take some form of action," the then-police commissioner said.
What would happen to that police captain in the year 2000?
"No way he could keep his job now," one local law enforcement official said.
Contrast that with the case of Officer Luchey, accused of slapping and striking his wife, leaving her with bruises and swelling, on Aug. 29.
Luchey, 34, was suspended the next morning -- half an hour before he was placed under arrest on a third-degree assault charge. He was suspended for five days, pending the outcome of his court case, police records show. If convicted, he could face further disciplinary action by the department.
In other cases involving local police officers:
Detective Skinner, now 40, pleaded guilty to a violation harassment charge after his November 1997 arrest on a third-degree assault charge in Amherst. He remains on duty in the Buffalo Narcotics Bureau.
Deputy Weber, 48, is accused of striking a family member in the head in April in Buffalo and violating an order of protection against him in Hamburg last month, according to sheriff's and district attorney's office records. The sheriff's Professional Standards Division is conducting an internal investigation.
For police officers, slapping a spouse isn't like getting caught speeding.
"This is where the line is drawn," said Lt. Larry J. Baehre, Buffalo's public information officer. "There are no courtesies granted for this kind of behavior."
Experts say there's nothing shocking about domestic violence seeping into police families.
"They're human," said James P. Giammaresi, chief of staff for the Buffalo Police Department. "They make mistakes, even though we hold them to a higher standard."
The most violent local case occurred in May 1998, when Sheriff's Deputy Juan Roman shot his estranged wife, Norma, to death after chasing her into a West Side school. Roman is serving a 20-year-to-life prison term.
Both here and across the nation, tougher state and federal laws have been accompanied by much more stringent police department policies when it comes to domestic incidents.
Under the federal Violence Against Women Act, any person convicted of a misdemeanor or felony crime against a family member or partner is not allowed to possess a firearm. There's no exception for police officers, even on duty.
While various police departments have different procedures and union rules for firing convicted officers, an officer without his service revolver can't return to the streets.
Buffalo, unlike some other police departments across the country, seems to be reacting appropriately to domestic violence within its ranks.
"If they're taking their guns away, arresting them or suspending them, it sounds like they're doing the right thing," said Harrington, from the center on women and policing.
Harrington explained why she thinks police officers are more prone to domestic violence.
"Domestic violence is about control," she said. "Those are the type of men drawn to the police force. They're drawn to a job where they're given a badge, a gun and put in control. And we train them to use physical force."
Authorities suspect that many cases go unreported, because officers' wives fear that their husbands will lose their jobs. And prosecutors face another obstacle when wives won't aid in prosecuting their husbands. In that case, prosecutors here proceed without the victim's help, Rodwin said.
Furthermore, there's a nationwide concern that some patrol officers ignore departmental policy and cover for each other.
"It's still going on, even though the policies are very specific," Harrington said. "We still hear cases of the officer that comes to the scene trying to talk the woman out of it and telling her, 'If you report this, your husband is going to lose his job.' "
That's not the message that Amherst police convey to their officers, according to Police Chief John J. Moslow Jr. and Assistant Chief Ronald H. Hagelberger.
"It's very clear in our training, and it's very clear in our policy," Hagelberger said. "It's going to be handled the same way, regardless of whether the guy is a bricklayer, a bank president or a police officer. It's mandated by the law."
Some police officials complain privately that officers are held to a higher standard when accused of domestic violence.
Bricklayers and construction workers normally wouldn't be suspended from their jobs or fear losing their jobs if convicted.
October is Domestic Violence Awareness Month. Advocates often complain that the issue is highlighted only when there's a sensational case.
"We had over 8,000 cases of confirmed domestic violence in the City of Buffalo last year," said Mann of the Buffalo Sex Offense Squad. "Of those cases, only the homicides received any extensive press coverage. My concern is that unless there's a news angle -- a death, a cop or an elected official involved -- no one wants to talk about it."
Constitutional test awaits crime bill
Gazette, The (Cedar Rapids-Iowa City, IA)
October 26, 2000
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THE 106th CONGRESS' final weeks saw passage of a generally sound crime bill. It reauthorizes the 1994 Violence Against Women Act and authorizes various grant programs directed at addressing domestic violence. But one provision is so constitutionally shaky that it's a shame hardly anyone objected. It is "Aimee's law," named after Aimee Willard, a 22-year-old George Mason University (Virginia) student who was raped and killed by a convicted murderer who had previously served 12 yearsof a life sentence before being released from a jail in Nevada.
At first glance, Aimee's law seems to fit right in with the anti-crime package. It pressures states to impose sufficiently stiff sentences in "dangerous sexual offenses" or risk loss of federal grants. Here's the flawed part: It punishes retroactively. That is, any state that ever gave premature release to a prisoner ("premature" in the eyes of the Justice Department) can be penalized. That flies in the face of the U.S. Constitution's prohibition on retroactive punishment.
Sen. Fred Thompson, R-Tenn., tried to strip Aimee's law from the conference report, but his amendment was defeated 90-5 (source: Congressional Quarterly's CQ Weekly). States' rights groups backed off on their protest because the provision is headed for rejection in the courts.
Why would an otherwise conscientious lawmaker let such a provision slip through? Because in some future campaign for re-election, an opponent could buy a 15-second TV spot blaring, "He voted against protecting women from habitual predators!"
Susan Parnas Frederick of the National Conference of State Legislatures called Aimee's law "feel-good, bad legislation." That aptly sums it up.
Clinton Signs Law Against Violence
Associated Press News Service, The
October 28, 2000
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WASHINGTON (AP) - President Clinton, noting that a woman is beaten in America every 12 seconds, signed legislation reinforcing the Violence Against Women Act by covering women abused by their boyfriends, helping battered immigrant women and attacking international traffic in human beings.
The new law, he said in his weekly radio address on Saturday, is ''the most significant step we've ever taken to secure the health and safety of women at home and around the world.''
Domestic violence is the No. 1 health risk for women between the ages of 15 and 44, Clinton said. Almost one-third of women killed in the United States are victims of husbands, ex-husbands or boyfriends.
''Every 12 seconds, another woman is beaten,'' he said. ''That's nearly 900,000 victims every year.''
Presenting the Victims of Trafficking and Violence Protection Act as an example of congressional bipartisanship in action, Clinton also urged Congress to complete its work on the federal budget.
''It's time for Congress to set partisanship aside on the last two unfinished bills, and complete a budget with smaller class sizes, modern classrooms, family tax cuts and a higher minimum wage,'' Clinton said, itemizing his budget priorities.
The anti-violence bill Clinton signed also contains a provision to help stop what the president called the ''insidious global practice'' of trafficking in human beings.
''Every year, 1 million or more women, children and men are forced or tricked into lives of utter misery - into prostitution, sweatshop work, domestic or farm labor or debt bondage,'' he said. ''This is slavery, plain and simple.''
It's not just a problem in foreign countries, he said. ''Each year, as many as 50,000 people are brought to the United States for this cruel purpose,'' he said.
The legislation sets harsh penalties for those who trade in human beings. It requires convicted traffickers to forfeit assets and make restitution to those they have exploited. And it gives victims better access to shelters, counseling and medical care.
It also increases U.S. assistance to other countries to help them track down and punish offenders and provides sanctions for nations that refuse to act against the practice.
The law reauthorizes and strengthens the Violence Against Women Act, passed in 1994.
The new law continues providing money for grant programs to help police investigate violence against women and provide victims' services. It expands the investigation and prosecution of crimes of violence against women and continues to fund the National Domestic Violence hot line. It also provides new protections for mistreated immigrants; expands assistance to programs targeting dating violence; and gives more money to American Indians who are victims of domestic violence.
''Domestic violence is a criminal activity,'' Clinton said. ''It devastates its victims and affects us all. It increases health costs, keeps people from showing up to work, prevents them from performing at their best.''
Judge Weighing Gun Rights in Domestic Violence Case
Salt Lake Tribune, The (UT)
November 28, 2000
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A federal judge is weighing a Utah man's constitutional right to bear arms against a federal law that prohibits the possession of firearms by those under domestic-violence protection orders.
Former Blanding City Council member Randee Lee Bayles,
a self-described "gun nut," was prohibited from harassing his ex-wife under a protection order, issued last year by a state judge.
And while under the protection order, the federal Violence Against Women Act prohibited him from carrying guns.
But according to court documents, the 49-year-old Bayles spoke to an undercover federal agent in August, claiming he owned about 100 rifles and between 75 and 85 handguns. He allegedly told the agent that he had to hide some of them because of an "order that his ex-wife had obtained from the courts." Federal agents searched Bayles' house and seized an armful of weapons.
But Bayles' attorney, Brad Rich, argued that his client is entitled to have guns.
"He has a right under the 2nd Amendment to bear arms," Rich told U.S. District Judge Dale Kimball at a Monday hearing.
Kimball then asked Rich if the constitutionality of the federal law that provided the legal basis for Bayles' arrest should be a question for his court or the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals in Denver.
"I acknowledge it is an argument that is going to be an issue they are going to have to deal with," Rich replied.
But federal prosecutor Brett Tolman countered that the judge could make a determination without waiting for the appeals court.
Tolman said Bayles was not an "ordinary citizen" who has a right to bear arms, citing a finding by a state court judge that Bayles had threatened his former wife with a gun.
In his finding, 7th District Judge Bryce Bryner also listed several examples of Bayles' stalking, threatening and harassing his ex-wife, Jeroldene Bailey.
Kimball took the issue under advisement.
If convicted of the federal firearms charge, Bayles faces a prison sentence of up to 10 years and a $250,000 fine.
Still looking for a refuge
Barriers face immigrant domestic abuse victims, but new laws offer help
Fort Worth Star-Telegram (TX)
December 3, 2000
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Maria knew the sting of her husband's slaps before she and her family made the trek to Fort Worth from Mexico six years ago.
Maria put up with the blows early in their marriage because she loved her husband. She was optimistic about moving to North Texas, believing that sacrifice and work would usher in a new beginning.
But Maria's husband had difficulty finding work without having immigration papers. Money woes took a toll on the couple and their four children. As the stress escalated, so did the abuse.
"He always worried about not having papers," said Maria, who spoke on the condition that her real name not be used. "He started paying less attention to us. He got violent. He would hit me in Mexico, but here it got worse."
The 34-year-old woman is among what immigration and legal advocates say are thousands of immigrants in the United States who silently endure a problem they believe is inescapable: domestic violence.
Compounding their suffering are language barriers, fear of deportation and cultural pressures.
Many victims of abuse keep their bruised bodies and emotional scars a secret because their spouses threaten to have them deported. Many worry that their children will be taken away.
Fear and feelings of isolation can be intensified for victims who do not speak English, experts say. Religion and culture might make it difficult for others to walk away from violent relationships.
"In the Asian community, it is frowned upon to come here," said Antonia Smith, minority services coordinator for Women's Haven of Tarrant County, which offers shelter to battered women. "Some of them haven't let me get translators so I can understand them better.
"For some of the women, it is not right to divorce your husband," she said. "You are supposed to hang in there even if you are suffering."
The problem transcends country, class and culture, said Lucy Cotto, immigration coordinator at San Miguel Lutheran Church in Fort Worth.
"It's not only the Hispanic and the poor," she said. "There are American spouses who abuse their immigrant spouses. It happens among professionals and the rich. It just doesn't get aired out."
Domestic violence workers and immigration advocates struggle to empower the victims through counseling. Their efforts got a boost in October when President Clinton signed legislation reinforcing the Violence Against Women Act, which helps fund programs and services for victims of abuse. The 2000 legislation includes protections for immigrants.
Experts say domestic violence in the immigrant community needs attention because record numbers of documented and undocumented foreign-born workers are coming to this country in search of economic opportunities.
In 1997, the foreign-born population - including legal immigrants, undocumented immigrants and temporary residents - in the United States was an estimated 25.8 million. It was the highest in U.S. history, according to an August 2000 U.S. Census Bureau brief. The number had climbed by 30 percent since the 1990 Census, and by 168 percent since 1970.
Unlike previous waves of foreign-born workers, these immigrants are settling beyond established immigrant communities in states such as California, Florida and Texas. They are changing the demographics of states such as Maine and Nebraska.
Domestic violence counselors say informing the victims about available support is more difficult even though counseling groups offer outreach programs in Spanish or other languages.
Typically, immigrants have a difficult time finding someone to listen to their problems in their language, especially in regions that are experiencing an influx of foreign-born workers.
"For the battered immigrant woman, there's a lot more distrust and fear in everyone she talks to. She's alienated until she's able to talk to someone in her language," said Smith of Women's Haven.
Mari, a 52-year-old legal permanent resident and a victim of domestic violence, knows that sense of alienation.
"You worry about everything," said Mari, whose real name is not being used. "How you are being humiliated. How you are being taken for granted. The worst worry is that you will be reported to immigration."
Mari obtained residency through amnesty laws in the 1980s. Still, she said, her husband tried to intimidate her with threats about calling the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service.
"One time he told me he could get the law after me, take my daughter away and get my papers taken away," she said.
While Mari has legal status, many other abused immigrant women do not.
The Rev. Antonio Cotto of San Miguel Lutheran Church said that in many cases, abusers do not complete their spouse's immigration paperwork because they use it as a weapon.
"It's a power game," he said.
It is a threat repeated nationwide, said Leslye E. Orloff, director of the Immigrant Women Program at the NOW Legal Defense and Education Fund in Washington, D.C.
A report of immigrant women's experience with domestic violence, published during the summer in the Georgetown Law Review, states that 49.8 percent of 279 Latina immigrants questioned had suffered domestic abuse during their lives. The numbers increased to 59.5 percent for women who were either married or formerly married. Of that group, about half were married to a U.S. citizen or a legal permanent resident.
"That means that 50.8 percent of them could have legal immigration status through their spouses," Orloff said. Of that group, she said, only 27.7 percent had immigration cases filed for them by their spouses, and those cases took a long time to be filed.
There were cases where a battered immigrant could have had papers filed, but the spouse did not take the initiative.
"Abusers use this as a very potent tool to control the immigrant spouses, to keep them from seeking help, calling the police, getting a protection order," Orloff said.
The new federal domestic violence law offers more legal recourse to these women. Previously, battered immigrant children and women married to U.S. citizens or permanent legal residents were allowed to petition for permanent residency without the cooperation of their abusers.
The provision remains in the renewed Violence Against Women Act. But now, these women also can file for residency within two years of divorce.
The law is not a shortcut through the immigration process, and it is used only in special cases, said Lynn Ligon, spokesman for the Dallas INS district.
"They are not that common, but they are looked at and a good number are approved," he said.
The INS scrutinizes these petitions to weed out fraudulent ones, Ligon said. Petitioners must provide proof of abuse, such as a report from a hospital or police. Their identities are protected.
Most victims learn about the petition process through legal advocates who work with abuse shelters and community-based organizations such as Catholic Charities and San Miguel Lutheran Church.
The new law also offers a crime-victim visa to immigrants who help authorities pursue a case against an abuser. For example, a battered immigrant woman whose visa is connected to her husband's visa can obtain a crime-victim visa if she helps prosecute him. The law also helps diplomats' wives, nannies from foreign countries and sex trafficking victims, Orloff said.
According to the law, battered immigrant women no longer have to prove that deportation would cause them extreme hardship. Advocates said that was difficult to do without the help of a lawyer, which often was too costly.
In another new provision, the victim does not have to be in the United States to obtain papers.
"If he committed crimes against her in the United States, but at the moment she's living abroad, she can file from abroad," Orloff said.
While many immigrants have some legal recourse, undocumented women married to undocumented men cannot petition via the Violence Against Women Act.
Sandra, a 29-year-old undocumented battered immigrant from Mexico, left her undocumented husband. She is staying at a women's shelter with her children.
"I don't have papers," she said. "Sometimes, I get desperate, and I want to leave [the United States]. I don't have anywhere to go right now. I have three kids I have to feed. I have faith God will give me a job, but I don't know when."
Sandra speculates that a relative with legal permanent status will be able to help her obtain documentation. In the meantime, she wants lawmakers to pass an amnesty program that would help all undocumented immigrants.
Sometimes abused women find the safety of a shelter through police or by calling a hot line. During the week of Thanksgiving, Smith of Women's Haven received a plea for help.
"?Se siente segura alli o quieres salir de la casa? (Do you feel safe there, or do you want to leave the house?)," she asked a woman on the the telephone.
"Did he threaten you?" Smith continued. The caller said she was scared of her abusive husband, who had been deported but came back to find her.
A 24-year-old woman, who asked to be identified as Senora Dominguez, said she and her 3-year-old daughter made a similar telephone call to police. She said she left her husband Nov. 16, months after coming illegally to North Texas.
Dominguez said she grew tired of her husband's marijuana use and assaults. Living with 10 immigrants and family members in one apartment made matters worse, she said.
"The day we left, we stayed at a Laundromat. We didn't have a place to go. We didn't take anything. It was cold," said Dominguez, who is five months pregnant.
She said that finding refuge in a battered women's shelter was like a miracle. She touched the St. Anthony picture and Virgin Mary medallion that hang from her neck as she expressed hope.
"I think if I start to work, I can try to forget," she said.
What it means to you
Signs and symptoms of abuse:
You are ridiculed, put down, made fun of or belittled. You are not free to come and go as you please. Your possessions are damaged. You are verbally attacked or accused. You are followed, harassed or spied on. You are emotionally deprived. You are isolated. You are pushed, shoved, pounded, slapped, bruised, kicked, choked or threatened with a weapon.
James Sarff sentenced to extended term
The Minnesota farmer gets 15 years in his wife's kidnapping
Star Tribune: Newspaper of the Twin Cities (MN)
December 9, 2000
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James Sarff, the Eagle Bend, Minn., farmer who kidnapped his estranged wife and brutalized her during a two-week, 1,600-mile escape to Mexico in February, was sentenced Friday to 15 years in prison.
U.S. District Judge Ann Montgomery, who presided over Sarff's kidnapping and domestic-abuse trial in August, said the sentence was longer than recommended by state guidelines because of the "violent and rageful behavior" Sarff showed toward his wife, Connie, 49, during their 30-year marriage and because of the way he treated her after the abduction.
"On a certain level, I can understand the violence and rage on the night of the abduction," Montgomery said in addressing Sarff, 51, at the U.S. Courthouse in Minneapolis. "But it's much harder for me to fathom the . . . prolonging of the pain and humiliation that took place" during the abduction.
Montgomery compared the videotaped interview of Connie Sarff the day after her husband was caught to "tapes of prisoners of war when they come out of [captivity]. Her physical injuries clearly called for medical attention," the judge said.
State guidelines called for a sentence of 7 1/4 to 9 years.
A tearful Connie Sarff, sitting in a corner of the courtroom and surrounded by her sister and other relatives, left the courthouse without commenting. The Sarffs are in the midst of a divorce.
However, she wept openly when James Sarff read a statement apologizing for what he had done.
"I have learned that I can't make her love me," he said, his voice breaking. "All I can do is be someone she can love. The rest is up to her. It doesn't matter how much I care for her. . . . Some people don't come back."
An atypical case
Several of the Sarff children, sitting on the opposite side of the courtroom from their mother, cried and cursed when Montgomery read the sentence.
"Life," uttered one of their daughters, clearly stunned by what she heard.
Andrew Birrell, who represented Sarff at the trial, said that his client is considering an appeal.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Margaret Burns Magill, who had argued for the stronger sentence, said that she did not consider the case to be "a typical kidnapping case" because of Sarff's ability to manipulate and control his wife for so many years.
In the late 1970s, Sarff was convicted of abusing his wife so badly that she had to have a kidney removed. He was convicted of domestic abuse, but his sentence was stayed and he returned to his farm, where prosecutors said he continued to abuse his wife physically and mentally.
Over the years, he had also forbidden her from seeing her parents and sister.
Magill tried to enter such details into testimony several times during the trial, but Montgomery wouldn't allow it, arguing that the conviction occurred too long ago to be pertinent.
That his past behavior influenced the judge's sentence pleased advocates for battered and abused women.
"Given the seriousness of what went on and the trauma to the victim and other people involved, to me, it seems very appropriate," said Cathy Hartle, executive director for the Hands of Hope Resource Center, which provides services for battered women in Morrison and Todd counties in central Minnesota.
"Had Jim Sarff been held accountable at an earlier stage of violence, it may be that none of this would be necessary right now, and the family wouldn't be going through all of this."
The kidnapping
The case against James Sarff began about 4 a.m. Feb. 19 when Connie Sarff, who was in the process of divorcing her husband, was awakened by a flash of lights outside her bedroom. When she investigated, she found her husband in the kitchen of her apartment.
Authorities who spoke with her later said she told them that she asked him to leave and tried to shove him away. The next thing she remembered, she was lying on a small landing outside her apartment door, where she tried to alert neighbors by knocking on their door.
In a statement Montgomery didn't allow at trial, James Sarff told authorities that after getting to the apartment, he saw Connie "standing there naked, and I asked her what she was doing and she said that she was sleeping with this guy."
Sarff told investigators that the man was David John, Connie Sarff's coworker and friend, who had gone out with her several times. According to police, John, 41, notified authorities of what happened after he was awakened by a man saying `No, you are not,' and the sounds of a struggle and a groaning noise from Connie Sarff.
Two days later, John shot and killed himself at his Long Prairie home. He left a note saying he felt responsible for two deaths, but made no reference to the Sarffs by name.
In the days immediately following the abduction, some family members and friends believed Connie Sarff was dead, in part because James Sarff called his sister the day after the couple disappeared and said, "I killed her."
It wasn't until the morning of March 4, when Sarff's Jeep broke down at the United States-Mexico border, that authorities knew Connie Sarff was alive.
In the statement Montgomery kept from jurors, Sarff told authorities several days after his arrest that he thought his wife was dead after he put her in the car. He said that it wasn't until later that day, after putting her in his Jeep and driving south, did he realize that wasn't the case.
"She started to move," he told investigators in a March 5 interview from a jail in Arizona.
At that point, he said, he "pulled off to the side of the road" and "held her."
Connie Sarff told authorities that she remembered nothing about the trip until waking up in the Jeep while in Albuquerque, N.M. Law enforcement officials later testified that she suffered a stroke, apparently from being choked while being taken from the apartment.
James Sarff was later charged with kidnapping and three counts of interstate domestic violence under the Violence Against Women Act.
During his weeklong trial in August, Magill presented numerous witnesses, including two neighbors who heard the struggle in Connie Sarff's hall, and three doctors who testified that she had a stroke.
Asks forgiveness
Several minutes before being sentenced, James Sarff rose and read a statement that he said he wrote Friday morning. Speaking slowly and taking time to wipe his nose and drink water, he apologized first to his grandchildren, "who are the most innocent and who will be hurt the longest time for the mistake that I have made."
He then spoke of his father, who died this summer during the trial.
"The trial, the media, the loss of his family farm, that all impacted his life," he said. "It is a loss I do feel responsible for."
He said his heart ached for his children, and that he feels badly for "the comments they hear about what I have done."
An active member of the National Farmers Organization, he also apologized to fellow farmers, saying he betrayed their trust.
Finally, he addressed his wife.
"Connie is my first love and my only love," he said. "She bore the children. She is my lifetime companion. She's my friend, my wife . . . and I'm going to ask for her forgiveness."
After the hearing ended, Sarff walked over to Magill and shook her hand. When asked about Sarff's comments in court, Magill said, "I did not see any remorse in what he said. I thought what he said in court indicated he was still trying to manipulate her."
Hartle, meanwhile, said the case has made an impact in the cities of Long Prairie and Eagle Bend, located in central Minnesota about 125 miles from the Twin Cities.
"It's forced people to say, up here, `this is happening in our communities,' " she said. "And maybe it will have some family members taking a look at what they have experienced. We can no longer deny it's going on all around us."
Timeline:
The Sarff case
- 1977: James Sarff is convicted of domestic assault after beating Connie Sarff so severely she loses a kidney. His sentence is stayed.
- Feb. 19: Connie Sarff, who is seeking a divorce, is kidnapped at 4 a.m. from her apartment in Long Prairie, Minn.
- Feb. 21: David John, 41, a coworker of Connie's who had been at her apartment when she was taken and who had notified authorities, kills himself. Authorities say John apologized to family and friends in a suicide note because he felt responsible for two deaths.
- Feb. 22: Sarff is charged with kidnapping. Authorities later add charges of interstate domestic violence under the Violence Against Women Act.
- March 4: Sarff is arrested at the Mexican border with Arizona. Connie Sarff is with him.
- Aug. 30: A U.S. District Court jury in Minneapolis convicts him of two counts of kidnapping and two counts of interstate domestic violence.
- Dec. 8: Sarff is sentenced to 15 years in prison. He is sentenced on each of the four counts against him, with terms running concurrently.
Prosecutors: Man beat, burned, prostituted wife on cross-country trek
Associated Press Archive
December 13, 2000
https://infoweb.newsbank.com/
An Arizona man forced his new wife on a cross-country trek during which he beat, stabbed, burned, raped and prostituted her, according to federal prosecutors.
Kevin Fraze, 29, entered no plea at a court appearance Tuesday on charges that he violated the federal Violence Against Women Act. He was held without bond pending a Thursday hearing. The charges carry a maximum sentence of life in prison.
Public defender David Markus said Fraze has told him he is innocent.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Lilly Ann Sanchez said Fraze also faces charges of kidnapping and violating the Mann Act, which prohibits interstate transportation for prostitution.
The victim, whose name was not released, is recovering at an undisclosed location, Sanchez said.
An affidavit filed in U.S. District Court in Miami gives this account:
Fraze met a woman in March and married her in Peoria, Ariz., on July 21.
At their Sun City, Ariz., home in August, Fraze beat and stabbed the woman repeatedly and choked her into unconsciousness. He refused to let the woman get medical attention, threatening to harm her 5-year-old daughter and other relatives if she left.
Abandoning the child, Fraze then took the woman to Colorado, Las Vegas, Texas, Mississippi, Louisiana, Georgia and Florida, where he beat, burned, raped and prostituted her, the affidavit continues. In one incident, he restrained her while another man raped her.
In Miami-Dade County on Nov. 15, the woman asked someone to call police and Fraze was arrested.
Prosecutors say consolidating charges against Fraze in a federal trial, rather than prosecuting him state by state, protects the victim.
"This way, she only has to testify once," Sanchez said.
