VAWA Posts:
Rape as "commerce' constitutes a reach
Tampa Tribune, The (FL)
January 1, 1997
https://infoweb.newsbank.com/
This was the allegation, and an ugly one it was: On the night of Sept. 21, 1994, two football players at Virginia Polytechnic Institute repeatedly raped young Christy Brzonkala. They had met her less than half an hour earlier. It was a degrading attack
In February 1995 she recognized Antonio J. Morrison and James Crawford as her assailants. Because the crime had occurred in a student dormitory, she complained to the VPI judicial committee. The committee acquitted Crawford but suspended Morrison for two semesters. On appeal, VPI found Morrison guilty only of "abusive conduct" and reinstated him for the fall semester. Because she feared for her lsafety if Morrison would be on the campus, Brzonkala withdrew from the university.
Question: Was this brutal incident an act substantially affecting interstate commerce?
The question arises under the Violence Against Women Act of 1994. This is not a criminal statute. The act is predicated on the power delegated to Congress to regulate commerce among the states. Its purpose is to protect the civil rights of women who are victims of gender-motivated violence. Under the act, women may sue their assailants for both compensatory and punitive damages.
That is what Brzonkala did in the VPI case. Last March she sued Morrison, Crawford and VPI in U.S. District Court in Roanoke. The defendants filed a motion to dismiss. They argued that the congressional act goes beyond the power vested in Congress by the commerce clause.
On July 26, Chief Judge Jackson L. Kiser granted the motion and held the act unconstitutional. He dismissed the suit. The government has appealed to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit, where the case is now pending for oral argument.
While all this was going on in Virginia, Jane Doe in Connecticut sued her anonymous husband, John Doe. She alleged that over a period of 17 years, he had systematically inflicted upon her "a violent pattern of physical and moral abuse and cruelty." He had compelled her even to lay out his clothes "for his numerous dates with his many girlfriends and mistresses."
The husband moved to dismiss on the same grounds advanced in Virginia -- that the act of Congress violates the Constitution. This time the outcome was dramatically different: U.S. District Judge Janet Arterton, a newcomer to the federal bench, held June 19 that the act is constitutional.
"A rational basis exists for concluding that gender-based violence is a national problem with substantial impact on interstate commerce," Judge Arterton said. She quoted congressional findings that such violence restricts travel and employment opportunities for women, increases health expenditures, reduces consumer spending, diminishes national productivity and bars women from full participation in the national economy.
Every week, Judge Arterton noted, 2,000 women are raped; every year 4 million women are battered by husbands or partners. An individual act may not affect interstate commerce; cumulatively the assaults create a national problem subject to federal legislation.
Before Jane Doe's suit could go to trial, the case was settled out of court.
What about it? Both Judge Kiser in Virginia and Judge Arterton in Connecticut worked from the same materials. Both judges studied the congressional reports. Both judges reviewed the Supreme Court's opinion in the landmark Lopez case of 1995, in which the high court ruled that the Gun-Free Zone Act of 1990 carried the commerce clause out of bounds and was hence unconstitutional.
Both judges went back to the 1942 case of an Ohio farmer, Roscoe Filburn, who raised 23 acres of wheat on his own land, using his own seed, and consumed all but a small part of the harvest at home. The Supreme Court held that his operation was a part of interstate commerce.
Judge Arterton thought the Filburn case bolstered her reasoning. Judge Kiser had the better view. Wheat is a commodity. Violence is not. The impact of 100,000 Roscoe Filburns could have a measurable effect on the wheat market. The rape of Christy Brzonkala was a terrible thing, but the economic consequences of even 100,000 such assaults are wholly conjectural. The relationship between gender-motivated violence and interstate commerce, said Judge Kiser, is "too tenuous" to pass the constitutional test.
The Virginia jurist advanced the better reasoning. As the Lopez case made clear, the regulation of interstate commerce has its limits. The Violence Against Women Act goes beyond them into a realm beyond the reach of Congress. I hope the 4th Circuit sees it that way.
Police taking new tack on domestic violence
Durham has `no-drop' policy; cases prosecuted even if charges dropped
Herald-Sun, The (Durham, NC)
January 7, 1997
https://infoweb.newsbank.com/
RALEIGH -- Police and prosecutors across the state are taking a new approach to an age-old problem -- domestic violence.
In the past, police responding to a domestic disturbance often left the couple to work things out on their own after getting the parties involved to calm down.
But as public understanding of spousal abuse increases, law enforcement no longer seems willing to look the other way.
In Raleigh, police have created a unit devoted entirely to domestic violence cases. A similar squad is planned by Durham's police department.
Charlotte and Winston-Salem police also have units in place, and other departments are considering them -- particularly now that the federal government is paying for such programs.
Rather than take a brief report or none at all, police officers are now being trained to thoroughly document injuries from beatings and to assess the emotional state of the victims. They are taking photographs of assaulted spouses, interviewing neighbors, securing copies of 911 calls and records of previous police reports and tracking down restraining orders -- all for the purpose of prosecuting cases even when a victim has second thoughts.
Raleigh's domestic violence investigations are now handed to an assistant district attorney assigned solely to those cases. The cases will be channeled to the same judge once they go to court.
The approach is meant to ensure that the histories of repeat wife-beaters and other offenders are well-known and to remove from the victims the pressure to pursue the case.
``All of these pieces of evidence can really make a difference when it comes to getting a conviction,'' said Elizabeth Froehling, a Durham prosecutor who also works only on domestic violence cases.
Durham's prosecutors now operate under a ``no-drop'' policy, meaning spousal abuse cases are prosecuted even if the victim changes his or her mind and wants to drop the charges.
In 1995, Durham implemented its ``pro-arrest'' policy, in which officers are expected to make an arrest if they have sufficient reason to think an assault has occurred or the spouse has violated a court order.
Raleigh police have also been given more discretion, but are encouraged to make arrests in specific circumstances and are required to arrest if a trespassing or harassment court order has been violated.
The pro-arrest protocol has been on the books in Chapel Hill since 1989.
``Before that, we were following what was popular at the time, which was to mediate and not make an arrest,'' said Jane Cousins, a police spokeswoman. ``Then we realized that assaulting somebody is a crime. It doesn't matter if it's your wife, your girlfriend or a stranger.''
Studies estimate that one-third of all women treated in emergency rooms are domestic-violence victims and that the leading cause of workplace death for women is domestic homicide.
Congress appropriated $28 million for this fiscal year to develop police programs that address domestic violence as part of a coordinated approach through the criminal justice system. The goal is to have police, prosecutors and judges work with probation officials and other community resources to punish batterers and keep repeat offenders behind bars longer.
Much of the federal money comes from the Violence Against Women Act, passed in 1994. To use that money, the Governor's Crime Commission surveyed North Carolina's problem in 1995 and found that women frequently reported bad experiences with police and the courts. The commission placed the blame squarely on the lack of specialized training.
Another problem the commission discovered was the shortage of shelters for abused women and other services in the most populated parts of the state.
This week, thanks to an $18,000 federal grant, Chapel Hill officers and civilian employees will begin training in domestic violence issues.
Cousins said police officers often have not done a good job mediating domestic disputes.
``It really puts officers in a horrible situation,'' she said. ``They're not family counselors.''
Capt. M.R. Kielty, who leads Raleigh's domestic-violence unit, said society has been slow to recognize that wife-beating, stalking and intimidating are crimes.
``A lot of people want to blame the victim,'' he said. ``It's not against the law to be a bad housekeeper. It's not against the law to be not physically attractive. It's not against the law to not have supper cooked on time. It is against the law to strike someone. It is against the law to harass someone.''
SLAYINGS SUSPECT INDICTED
N.C. MAN MAY FACE FEDERAL DEATH SENTENCE
Roanoke Times, The (VA)
February 5, 1997
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A man accused of firebombing his ex-girlfriend's apartment and later gunning her down on a Roanoke street will be prosecuted in North Carolina - where he could face a federal death sentence for those and related crimes.
Aquilia Marcivicci Barnette, 23, was indicted Tuesday by a grand jury in U.S. District Court in Charlotte on charges of killing Robin Williams last June 22 outside her mother's home on Loudon Avenue Northwest.
Barnette also is accused of killing a man in Charlotte hours earlier and stealing his car so he could drive to Roanoke and kill Williams.
By taking the unusual step of combining two killings in separate states into one case, U.S. prosecutors may be able to do what Roanoke Commonwealth's Attorney Donald Caldwell could not - seek a death sentence.
"As crazy as it may seem in this case, we could not bring a capital murder charge under Virginia law," Caldwell said.
Caldwell has agreed to withdraw murder and arson charges against Barnette in Roanoke so he can face similar charges in Charlotte, where Barnette is accused of killing Donald Lee Allen during a carjacking.
An 11-count indictment returned Tuesday also charges Barnette with violating the federal Violence Against Women Act, which makes crossing a state line to assault a spouse or domestic partner a federal offense.
Robert Conrad, the chief criminal assistant U.S. attorney in Charlotte, declined to say whether prosecutors will seek the death sentence for Barnette. To do so, they would have to get approval from the U.S. Justice Department.
Members of Williams' family have agreed to the federal prosecution, which Caldwell said will expedite a case that would have taken months to prosecute in separate states.
"I think the major advantage to this is that the entire story can be told in one courtroom," he said. "This is as cold and brutal a set of circumstances as I've seen in the time that I've been a prosecutor."
This is what happened, according to the indictment and police accounts:
On the morning of April 30, Williams was awakened by smoke in her Keswick Street Northeast apartment. When she and a friend looked outside, they saw that her friend's car windows had been smashed and the car set on fire.
They told police they saw a man - whom they identified as Barnette - throw an object through the apartment window. It was a firebomb, and it ignited the couch. As fire spread through the apartment, Williams escaped by climbing out of a window. She suffered cuts and burns.
Williams, 23, went to stay with her mother. But she continued to live in fear, friends and relatives have said, because Barnette remained at large on an arson charge.
Barnette went back to Charlotte, where he lived at the time. He is accused of buying a shotgun from a pawn shop May21. Barnette, who was prohibited from owning a gun as a convicted felon, gave a false name to the shop owner and later sawed the barrel off the gun, another violation of federal law, according to the indictment.
Early on the morning of June 22, Donald Allen was waiting for a traffic light to turn green near Charlotte/Douglas International Airport.
A man with a shotgun walked up to Allen's Honda Prelude, ordered him out and shot him to death. That man was Barnette, the indictment alleges.
As Allen lay dead in a ditch, authorities say, Barnette took his car and drove to Roanoke.
Several hours later, about 7 a.m., the lock on the back door of the house where Williams was staying was blown off by a shotgun blast.
Williams fled the house, but Barnette chased her down and caught her near Ninth Street and Loudon Avenue. Barnette is accused of shooting Williams in the chest as he tried to force her back into the home.
Authorities say Barnette fled to Charlotte a second time, where he was arrested June 25 at his mother's home. He has been held since then in the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Jail.
While authorities have not commented on a motive, friends and relatives have said Barnette was angry at Williams for breaking off their relationship. When Williams refused to talk to Barnette about patching things up, he told her to "watch out," police have said.
After her apartment was firebombed, Williams found love letters she previously had written to Barnette taped to her car. Barnette had scrawled messages on the letters, including one that said, "It didn't have to be this way," Williams' mother has said.
The fact that Barnette avoided arrest for nearly two months after Williams' apartment was set on fire raised questions about communications between the Charlotte and Roanoke police. Roanoke police said that immediately after the firebombing, they sent several Teletypes to Charlotte police alerting them to be on the lookout for Barnette.
Charlotte police said they did not receive all of the Teletypes. And when they later checked an address where Barnette was believed to be, Charlotte police were unable to find it and mistakenly told Roanoke authorities that it was invalid.
Barnette's indictments mark the second time that the Violence Against Women Act has been used in Western Virginia since the federal law was passed in 1994.
While some have argued that the act is unconstitutional when used in civil cases - a federal judge in Roanoke dismissed a lawsuit that cited the law in accusing two Virginia Tech football players of rape - it has been used successfully in criminal prosecutions.
The first person prosecuted under the law was a West Virginia man who beat his wife and threw her in the trunk of his car. He drove around two states drunk while she lapsed into a permanent coma. He was sentenced to life in prison.
The verdict arrives
USA TODAY (Arlington, VA)
February 5, 1997
https://infoweb.newsbank.com/
Chapter 2 in the soap opera called the O.J. Simpson case came to a close Tuesday. The civil jury found him liable of the death of Ronald Goldman and the battering of his ex-wife, Nicole Brown.
Those who believe Simpson innocent may feel he's been railroaded. Those who think him guilty of murder may feel at last he's being held accountable.
As for justice? It's a bit tattered, but perhaps more intact than many close followers of the case believe.
True, police were found incompetent, arrogant and willing to lie. Prosecutors, plaintiffs lawyers and defense attorneys all were ready to bend the truth to win a verdict. Race was revealed to be a far more dominant factor throughout the system than justice should demand.
The media spotlight has made all Americans more conscious of those flaws.
But if that exposure weakened confidence in the system, it also made people better able to confront and fix it.
For those who feel Simpson got away too easily, it's useful to recall that if the system erred, it at least erred in the right direction.
The criminal jury's job was to hold the state accountable -- to decide if Simpson was guilty beyond reasonable doubt. A lower standard would have allowed easier conviction. But it would also have exposed defendants of lesser means to the whims of corrupt police and zealous prosecutors.
The civil jury, with less at stake, needed only decide which side was truthful. So Simpson, unless he wins on appeal, will suffer a penalty, and the victims' families will get a measure of compensation.
That's crude justice perhaps, but justice still -- and a mirror of the country's ambivalence about the case.
For all its imperfections, the case's long run on center stage also has inspired real reform far from the courtroom.
Jekyll and Hyde
The public came to see Simpson as something of a Jekyll and Hyde. By day a gracious and graceful athlete, actor and TV pitchman. By night, a serial wife-beater. And that vivid image gave new credibility to longstanding assertions that domestic violence is grossly underestimated.
Each year, women experience more than 1 million acts of violence at the hands of husbands or boyfriends, according to the Justice Department. And 1,500 are killed.
But since the Simpson case broke in 1994 calls to domestic-violence hot lines have surged, along with requests for support services, police intervention and restraining orders to deal with abusive spouses or boyfriends. Some report particularly notable increases in calls from women in the upper middle class and above -- where denial may have been strongest.
Many government and professional organizations, from the military to the medical community, now require personnel training in domestic violence.
And the Violence Against Women Act, which was talked about for years but never enacted, finally passed Congress in '94. Because of the law:
• More than $300 million has been given to states to train police and prosecutors and provide aid to victims of domestic violence and sexual assault.
• Additional dollars are being used to prod states to adopt mandatory arrest policies for the primary aggressor in domestic-abuse cases.
In an ideal world, all this would have happened anyway. But in an ideal world there would be no domestic violence. In that sense, the Simpson case nudged us a little closer to one.
So, too, did it help in one critically flawed area of criminal justice. Police blunders exposed during the Simpson case led many of the nation's crime labs to tighten standards.
A real reform
Lawyers at Simpson's first trial built a successful defense on police incompetence. Flaws in the way evidence was collected, stored and examined undercut links prosecutors used to tie Simpson to the killings.
The San Francisco Forensic Services Division cited what happened in Los Angeles in winning an additional half-million dollars for new equipment -- a 10-fold increase over last year.
Alabama used the Simpson case as a horror story to justify added training for its forensic technicians.
Even the FBI's highly regarded lab, which has solved baffling crimes from a speck of blood or mere strand of hair, came under scrutiny because of the Simpson case and others. Last week the FBI announced an overhaul and removed three supervisors who evaluated evidence from the Oklahoma City bombing. One had been accused by Simpson's lawyers of slanting lab results to favor the prosecution.
And the pressure is on: Labs report defense lawyers are copying the tactics that worked for Simpson, increasingly asking for documentation of lab work and a lab's accreditation status.
The American Society of Crime Laboratory Directors-Lab Accreditation Board reports a sudden stream of applications for accreditation. Only 149 of the nation's 299 police crime labs are accredited. The FBI and San Francisco labs are among those now working toward accreditation.
All of this improves chances that in the future justice will be more frequent. Without endangering liberties. Simply by ensuring competence.
The worst news from the Simpson case may simply be that it's still not over. Simpson will appeal. Stay tuned for Chapter 3
Increased penalties called best way to stop domestic abuse
Lincoln Journal Star (NE)
February 6, 1997
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Beefing up penalties for people who abuse spouses, partners or other household members offers the best hope for stopping domestic violence, members of the Legislature's Judiciary Committee were told Wednesday.
"(Abusers) are going to continue to reoffend unless they are stopped," said Eileen Reilly Buzzello of Omaha. "Our goal is to stop the violence."
Buzzello testified in favor of LB509, a bill that would create a separate crime of domestic violence and increase minimum sentences for people who repeatedly commit misdemeanor acts or threats of violence against their family or household members.
Speaking as a survivor of domestic abuse, as well as an attorney and former director of Omaha's Domestic Violence Coordinating Council, Buzzello said crimes of domestic violence involve an element that other crimes do not.
Such crimes involve intimate relationships, which involve a certain amount of trust and in which victims share a home with their abusers. People who are in intimate relationships put themselves in harm's way, she said.
But other witnesses testified that LB509, introduced by Sen. Kermit Brashear of Omaha with several co-sponsors, needed considerable fixing to work as intended.
"Philosophically, the concept of making domestic violence a crime is appealing," said Bob Moyer, executive director of the Family Violence Council of Lancaster County. But he raised concerns about how the bill would fit with the way Lincoln handles domestic violence cases.
Lancaster County Attorney Gary Lacey and James Martin Davis of Omaha, speaking for the Nebraska Criminal Defense Attorneys Association, said the bill doesn't clearly spell out what constitutes the new domestic violence crime or how the bill would match other criminal laws.
Two other bills affecting victims of domestic violence won stronger support from people who deal with such cases.
LB393, introduced by Sen. Joyce Hillman of Gering, would eliminate filing fees for victims of domestic violence seeking protection orders. The bill also would require courts to use standard application forms.
Nebraska has to eliminate the fees or risk losing federal funds under the Violence Against Women Act, Hillman said.
Another Hillman bill, LB600, would remove language about stalking from the laws governing domestic abuse and would raise the standard under which victims of stalking could be granted protection orders.
Sarah O'Shea, executive director of the Nebraska Domestic Violence Sexual Assault Coalition, said extending protection orders to non-family situations opened the door for people to seek them in any kind of dispute. The greater use of protection orders has led to them being taken less seriously, she said.
"I think LB600 is an attempt to tighten up the laws so the protection orders are enforceable for the people who need them," she said.
But Kathy Stevenson, speaking for the Nebraska Coalition for Victims of Crime, said the proposed change would make it harder for people in nonfamily situations to get protection. She cited examples of people in dating relationships or people who are the target of an obsessed co-worker or classmate.
"We don't feel the state should penalize someone if they chose not to live with a boyfriend," Stevenson said.
Bill altered to retain benefits of legal aliens
Welfare-reform plan now heads to House
Arkansas Democrat-Gazette (Little Rock, AR)
February 7, 1997
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A House committee amended the state's welfare-reform bill Thursday to ensure that legal immigrants now receiving cash assistance continue to temporarily receive it.
The panel declined, however, to let critics of the state's welfare- reform bill have more of a say in rewriting the bill during the next few weeks. Some social service advocates were upset that they weren't included more in the writing of the bill.
After hearing from nine people concerned about the bill, the House Public Health, Welfare and Labor Committee passed it unanimously. The bill now goes to the state House of Representatives for consideration.
State Rep. James Dietz, D-North Little Rock, asked concerned citizens to give the new law a chance to work. The Legislature can amend the bill in coming years to address aspects that aren't working.
"We're getting lots of concern from different providers and citizens before this has actually had a chance to work,'' Dietz said.
A controversial aspect of welfare reform is the segment dealing with legal immigrants.
The federal government gave states authority to extend benefits to qualified legal aliens, including those with registration cards granting them permission to be employed and live in the United States, those granted political asylum, parolees in the country at least one year and people receiving protection under the Violence Against Women Act.
"Immigrants come here because they want to work,'' said Sheila Gomez, director of Catholic Immigration Services for the Diocese of Little Rock. "For some reason or another, they have fallen on hard times, temporarily. We're talking about a small group of people, but it's important.''
Department of Human Services Director Tom Dalton said only about 75 people would be affected by including "qualified legal aliens'' in the group eligible for assistance.
The committee approved an amendment to include them, but it only covers legal aliens now in the state, not those who will move to the state after a welfare law is enacted, Dalton said.
Other audience members voiced concerns about the state's plan to limit cash assistance to two years for able-bodied welfare recipients. Dalton said the two-year clause only deals with cash assistance, but other assistance -- like training, child care and transportation -- could last longer.
"Many of the individuals we have worked with over the last nine years have had limited or no work experience, incredibly low self-esteem, and they could not access transportation or child care on their own,'' said Penny Penrose, executive director of the Good Faith Fund in Pine Bluff. "Many need substance-abuse treatment, and most live in an area with high unemployment.
"The proposed two-year, lifetime limit on benefits is highly unrealistic at best and potentially devastating to thousands of poor, rural women and their children.''
Ban on abusers carrying guns divides coalition
USA TODAY (Arlington, VA)
March 6, 1997
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WASHINGTON, D.C. -- A law that bans anyone with a domestic abuse conviction from carrying a gun threatens to fracture what has been a powerful coalition of gun control advocates, domestic abuse groups and law enforcement
The nation's largest police organizations say the law unfairly punishes officers because they can lose their jobs if they have to give up their weapons, and they want the law changed to let officers keep their guns.
But advocates for domestic abuse victims and some other officers ask why law enforcers should be exempt from a law crafted to protect battered spouses and their families.
The sides were far apart Wednesday as the House subcommittee on crime heard proposed changes to the law, which covers misdemeanor domestic abuse convictions and is retroactive from Sept. 30, 1996.
The Fraternal Order of Police, the nation's largest police organization, wants the law to cover police but doesn't want it to be retroactive.
The National Association of Police Organizations and the International Brotherhood of Police Officers both support giving law enforcement an exemption that would allow officers to carry their weapons on duty.
Advocates for victims and the National Black Police Association say the law should be left alone. Police officers ``ought to be above and beyond the standard we want to set for our society,'' says Ronald Hampton of the National Black Police Association. ``We should hold police to a higher standard, not a different standard.''
Behind the debate is the concern that divisions could endanger the coalition that pushed through the 1994 crime bill that set aside $1.6 billion for the Violence Against Women Act and the assault weapons ban.
But, ``we cannot hold up the weight of the coalition at the expense of women and children's lives,'' said Donna Edwards of the National Network to End Domestic Violence.
Jim Pasco of the Fraternal Order of Police says he does not think the ``point of no return'' has been reached, but, ``I think the potential is certainly there. I'm very concerned about it.''
Ultimately, how much damage is done depends on how many officers are affected. Early indications are that the number won't be astounding. A USA TODAY survey of 25 departments that account for 106,000 officers found that 152 had been affected so far. At that rate, about 860 of the nation's 600,000 sworn police officers would be disarmed. Police organizations have said the number could be much higher.
Concern over the possibility of a breakdown between allies pushed the highest-ranking Democrat on the subcommittee to urge the groups to stick together. ``The law enforcement community and the victim's rights and women's right's groups have worked together in recent years to make real progress on domestic abuse,'' said Rep. Charles Schumer of New York. ``We cannot allow ourselves to be divided.'
Lawmakers can break cycle
San Antonio Express-News (TX)
April 3, 1997
https://infoweb.newsbank.com/
The 1994 Violence Against Women Act was the first step nationally to recognize and help battered women.
It provided funding for programs to help law-enforcement agencies better investigate and prosecute domestic assaults.
But statistics reveal the plague has not quelled. Ten women are killed each day by their intimate male partners, including 154 in Texas in 1994.
A new stalking law approved by the Legislature this year - passed because Texas anti-stalking law was declared unconstitutional - should provide some relief. But advocates for victims of domestic violence rightly want more.
Using rows of red wooden silhouettes of female victims to make their point at the Capitol this week, advocates called for lawmakers to fund family violence prevention programs and legal services.
Their plea makes sense. More and better prevention services would help battered women and, with 85 percent of today's batterers themselves coming from violent homes, could keep children of these broken families from becoming abusers.
Another cost to consider is that of emergency health care and other publicly funded social-services that domestic-violence victims often require.
Lawmakers can and must help break the cycle.
LIFE TERM UPHELD IN BEATING OF WIFE
Lexington Herald-Leader (KY)
May 7, 1997
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CHARLESTON, W.Va. - The first person convicted under a 1994 federal domestic violence act has lost a bid in a federal appeals court to overturn his life sentence in the beating of his wife.
A three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit in Richmond, Va., on Friday rejected Christopher Bailey's appeal.
Bailey carried his wife, Sonya, comatose and near death, into a hospital emergency room in Corbin, Ky., in December 1994, six days after a blood-soaked pillow and mattress were found in the couple's home, police said.
Sonya Bailey remains unable to care for herself.
Christopher Bailey contended he had an alcoholic blackout and woke up in his car to discover his wounded wife in the back seat.
During Bailey's sentencing, U.S. District Court Judge Charles Haden said, "I have rarely seen, if ever, a crime that was more heinous."
In his appeal, Bailey said his trial should have been moved to another location because of news media coverage.
Also, his attorneys said Haden exceeded his authority since Sonya Bailey did not die and because the sentence was not properly tied to Bailey's prior criminal record.
But the appeals judges said Haden did not overstep his authority because the "massive, permanent and life-threatening" injuries to Sonya Bailey are "of a degree not contemplated by (sentencing) guidelines."
The 1994 Violence Against Women Act outlaws crossing state lines to abuse a spouse or domestic partner. It calls for a sentence of up to life in prison if the spouse dies of the abuse.
It also calls for sentences of up to 20 years for "permanent disfigurement or life-threatening bodily injury" to a spouse or domestic partner.
Judge Says Protection Law Flawed
Man Won't Face Harassment Charge
Omaha World-Herald (NE)
May 7, 1997
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A federal judge in Omaha has dismissed a criminal charge against a man who allegedly violated a protection order because, the judge said, the law on which the case was based is unconstitutional.
The law, which is part of the 1994 Violence Against Women Act, was designed to let federal prosecutors charge people who have state protection orders against them but evade those orders when they harass former companions in other states.
The attempt to prosecute the protection - order case under federal law was a first in Nebraska and has rarely if ever been used nationwide.
U.S. District Judge Thomas Shanahan said that Congress exceeded its authority when it passed that portion of the Violence Against Women Act.
"The court recognizes the undeniable gravity of domestic violence as a serious and widespread problem throughout the United States and that Congress, in passing the Violence Against Women Act, attempted to address that problem," Shanahan wrote. Nevertheless, he said, the law fails to fit under the Constitution's commerce clause and amounts to federal prosecution of a matter that should be handled by state laws.
The case involved Larry G. Wright, 48, of Lincoln, who allegedly went to Council Bluffs three times to harass a former girlfriend. By doing so, he allegedly violated a protection order against him in Nebraska. On one of the occasions, he allegedly threw a brick through the window of his ex - girlfriend, Michelle L. Lempka. Ms. Lempka could not be reached. Wright is in Douglas County Jail on separate charges.
"Obviously we're going to appeal," U.S. Attorney Tom Monaghan said.
The government almost always appeals when a judge rules that a law is unconstitutional, Monaghan said.
Monaghan said it was the first time his office has used the federal law to pursue an interstate protection - order case. He said he thought it had rarely been used elsewhere.
The U.S. Attorney's Office in Omaha argued that the violation of the protection order was covered by the Violence Against Women Act because interstate commerce was affected.
Federal authorities for years have used interstate commerce as the means of prosecuting drug cases, gun cases, civil - rights and other matters in federal courts.
But the U.S. Supreme Court two years ago struck down the federal Gun - Free School Zone Act of 1990 after federal prosecutors tried to argue that guns in schools undermine the quality of education and therefore affect the economy.
Magistrate Judge Thomas Thalken, in a recommendation to Shanahan on the Larry Wright case, wrote that the 1995 Supreme Court decision on gun - free zones was the first rejection in 60 years of a federal law for exceeding the scope of interstate commerce.
Thalken, whose recommendation was adopted by Shanahan, said the federal law on crossing state lines to violate a protection order has nothing to do with commerce or the economy.
Thalken wrote, "The court is aware that the horrors of domestic violence are all too prevalent in American society and that the ... decision may be interpreted by some as another indication of indifference to the problems created by such abuse." Still, he wrote, the federal government has limited, specified powers.
Troyce Wheeler, assistant county attorney in Iowa's Pottawattamie County, said a Nebraska restraining order would be honored in Iowa if the person who is protected by the order registers with the court clerk in the Iowa county where she lives.
Douglas County Attorney Jim Jansen said that because the alleged violation occurred in Council Bluffs, potential state prosecution would be in the hands of Iowa prosecutors.
Jansen said Nebraska law does not yet recognize out - of - state protection orders.
"Of course it's troubling," Jansen said of the federal court's ruling in the Wright case. "Domestic violence knows no boundaries, and we shouldn't let artificial jurisdictional boundaries interfere with our ability to prosecute violations of protection orders."
BAKER CITY POLICEMAN ARRESTED IN ATTACK
Oregonian, The (Portland, OR)
May 15, 1997
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Summary: The officer, Bill Steele, faces three misdemeanor counts of menacing and assault in an incident involving his girlfriend
A Baker City police officer was arrested Wednesday and charged with three misdemeanors in connection with a 1995 assault on his girlfriend.
Bill Steele, 35, turned himself in Wednesday to the Oregon State Police in Baker City, said Greg Baxter, Baker County district attorney.
State troopers, who have been investigating criminal and other misconduct by Baker City officers for the past two months, booked him at the Baker County Jail on two counts of menacing and one count of fourth-degree assault, Baxter said.
The state investigation was prompted by a six-month review by The Oregonian that found brutality, sexual misconduct or racism by two-thirds of the department's dozen officers.< A grand jury convened in March is expected to finish hearing evidence against Steele and other Baker City officers by the end of this the month. Indictments could follow.
If convicted, Steele could lose the right to carry a firearm under the recent Violence Against Women Act that President Clinton signed. That could end his police career.
Last In the fall, in an attachment to a huge appropriations bill, Congress made it illegal for anyone convicted of using violence or the threat of violence in a domestic situation to own or possess firearms or ammunition. There are no exceptions for police or the military.
Steele was released Wednesday on his own recognizance. Reached at home later, he said, ``I have nothing to say to you, and please don't call here anymore."
Baker City Police Chief Douglas Humphress refused to comment.
Retrial ordered in wife's harassment suit
Advocate, The (Baton Rouge, LA)
May 23, 1997
https://infoweb.newsbank.com/
LAFAYETTE - A U.S. magistrate has ordered a new trial in the case of a Russian woman who accused her American husband of sexual harassment.
In March, after several days of testimony, a six-person jury rejected Irina Piatnitskaia's claim for $1.3 million from Richard Mitchell, whom she alleged raped, beat and harassed her during their 18-month relationship.
The jury, made up of five women and one man, decided that Mitchell owed his ex-wife a total of $900 in back pay because she was paid $100 less per month than her employment contract stated.
However, jurors unanimously voted "no" to the question of whether Mitchell of Broussard violated the new Violence Against Women's Act, which allows wives to sue their husbands for abuse.
After hearing oral arguments from attorneys in the case Thursday, U.S. Magistrate Mildred Methvin upheld her earlier ruling that the entire case be retried.
Methvin ruled that the jury response form was framed in such a way that prevented the jury from deliberating the sexual harassment issues.
One of the first issues the jury had to decide was if Mitchell's American company, American Well Control, was the same as his Russian company, International Well Control.
Once the jury decided the two companies were separate, because of a legal technicality they skipped the questions on sexual harassment, Methvin said.
"The order for a new trial will stand," Methvin said.
Attorney Michael Hebert, who represented Mitchell, argued that Methvin is substituting her opinion for the jury's.
"We're disappointed with the ruling," Hebert said in an interview after the hearing. "We believe the court has substituted its view of the facts for that of the jury."
Hebert said the jury did consider Piatnitskaia's harassment claims when it rendered a decision on the Violence Against Women Act.
"Because there was a specific finding on that law, the jury's ruling ought to stand.
Piatnitskaia's attorney, Victor Farrugia of New Orleans said he believes the judge's ruling was fair.
"The jury never really got to the sexual harassment issue," Farrugia said. "Hopefully, we can now get the jury to consider that question."
The new trial will be held sometime next year.
In her original petition, Piatnitskaia claimed Mitchell is guilty of years of brutal sexual harassment while he was her supervisor, before and after they were married.
Hebert and Mitchell's other attorney, Richard Montgomery, denied all of her claims, describing Piatnitskaia as a "gold-digger" and her petition as a "shake-down."
Piatnitskaia of Moscow filed the lawsuit in Lafayette because some of the alleged incidents of harassment occurred here.
Piatnitskaia met Mitchell in Moscow in 1993, when she applied for a secretary/interpreter job with his company, American Well Control Inc.
Piatnitskaia claims that the harassment started the day they met, with Mitchell telling her she would not be hired unless she had sex with him.
Piatnitskaia's petition alleges the abuse escalated until she was fired in 1994. The abuse included his cursing her, beating her, humiliating her in public and raping her on several occasions.
BID MADE TO REINSTATE SUIT IN TECH CASE
Richmond Times-Dispatch (VA)
June 5, 1997
https://infoweb.newsbank.com/
Lawyers for a former Virginia Tech student who said she was raped by two football players asked a federal appeals court in Richmond yesterday to reinstate her lawsuit against the players and the school.
Christy Brzonkala is the first alleged sexual assault victim to sue under the Violence Against Women Act, which Congress passed in 1994. The law allows victims of gender-based crimes to sue their attackers in federal court.
U.S. District Judge Jackson Kiser of Roanoke last year dismissed Brzonkala's lawsuit. He ruled Congress exceeded its authority in passing the civil rights provision of the 1994 law.
But Julie Goldscheid, a lawyer with the NOW Legal Defense and Education Fund, told a three-judge panel of the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals that Congress passed the law under its authority to protect commerce. "Batterers harass women at work, stalk women at work, attack women at work. Congress carefully considered these factors," she said.
Brzonkala, now enrolled at George Mason, claims James Crawford and Antonio Morrison raped her in her dorm suite in 1994, a few months after the Violence Against Women Act became law. She did not report the incident for several months, and no criminal charges were ever filed.
In her lawsuit, Brzonkala -- who has asked that her name be used in articles about the case -- is seeking unspecified damages from Morrison, Crawford and Virginia Tech.
Lawyers for Virginia Tech and the two alleged attackers argued that Kiser's ruling was correct. Michael Rosman, a lawyer for the men, said "there are limits to the remedies Congress can impose." He suggested that if the law stands, Congress could pass laws subjecting any criminal suspect to lawsuits in federal court.
Brady Law ruling could threaten anti-abuse law
USA TODAY (Arlington, VA)
June 30, 1997
https://infoweb.newsbank.com/
WASHINGTON -- A Supreme Court decision last week against a key provision of the 1994 Brady gun control law could have its greatest impact on another law, designed to disarm people convicted of domestic violence
In a 5-4 decision Friday justices said the federal gun law violated the 10th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution by ordering local law enforcement officers to check the backgrounds of prospective gun purchasers.
The 10th Amendment gives states all powers that are not specifically given to the federal government by the Constitution. The court ruled that Congress went too far in passing a law that required local law enforcement to carry out a federal mandate.
Experts say that's the same argument law enforcement groups are using to challenge a 1996 law that says anyone convicted of domestic abuse cannot legally own a handgun.
Police say that unfairly punishes officers convicted of abuse by endangering their jobs, which usually require them to be armed.
``While we regret the Supreme Court action on the Brady Law, we think that if that ruling applies to Brady,'' it applies to the domestic abuse law as well, said Jim Pasco, executive director of the Fraternal Order of Police. Court challenges have already been filed.
Jesse Choper, a constitutional law expert at the University of California at Berkeley Law School, says Friday's ruling marks yet another case where law enforcement has been viewed by the court as more of a state and local function and the domestic abuse gun ban is especially vulnerable to a court challenge.
Robert Pugsley, law professor at the Southwestern University School of Law in Los Angeles, says the greater issue is whether lower courts will use Friday's ruling as guidance on the domestic abuse law.
The continuing debate over the domestic abuse gun law threatens a coalition of victims' advocates and law enforcement that has been instrumental in pushing anti-crime legislation, including the 1994 Violence Against Women Act. The act set aside $1.6 billion for programs to fight domestic abuse.
Friday's decision is not expected to change the way most background checks are conducted. Twenty-seven states require their own background checks, and the federal government is developing a computerized, instant check system that must be in place by November 1998.
Brady law advocates say background checks stopped 250,000 ineligible gun purchasers. ``Nationwide, law enforcement fought for this piece of legislation,'' Sarah Brady, chair of Handgun Control, said Sunday on ABC's This Week. ``They are going to continue for the most part to run background checks.'
Man is first in Minnesota to be convicted under abuse law
Star Tribune: Newspaper of the Twin Cities (MN)
July 29, 1997
https://infoweb.newsbank.com/
The former owner of a downtown Minneapolis women's clothing store pleaded guilty Monday to a federal charge of possessing a gun while under a domestic-violence restraining order.
Massoud Goharbarwang, 40, of Minnetonka, is the first person in Minnesota - and one of just a few in the nation - to be convicted of the charge under the 1994 Violence Against Women Act. He also pleaded guilty to being a felon in possession of a firearm.
"It's important because it is one of a very few ways the federal government can take an active role in domestic abuse cases," said Beth Golden, the assistant U.S. attorney who prosecuted the former owner of Parmees Boutique. "There is a great interest in this office in being able to prosecute more of these cases."
The section of the law under which Goharbarwang was charged makes it a federal crime for anyone under a restraining order to possess a gun or ammunition.
The person need not be convicted of domestic abuse to face the charge, only to have had a court hearing that resulted in a restraining order.
Goharbarwang was charged in Hennepin County in January 1996 with assaulting his wife and threatening to kill her, her parents, her brother and a friend.
In February, she sought a court order to prohibit him from going near her. Goharbarwang waived his right to a hearing on the matter, and the order was granted.
Authorities received a tip from an informant that Goharbarwang had weapons in his home. When they searched it, they found several handguns, rifles, shotguns and hand grenades.
He was convicted in Hennepin County District Court of making terrorist threats against his wife in the earlier case. Now he faces a maximum of five years in prison and a $250,000 fine on the federal charge.
Goharbarwang's lawyer, Earl Gray, could not be reached for comment Monday.
Some sections of the Violence Against Women Act, which made crimes motivated by gender a civil-rights violation, have been criticized by defense attorneys and civil libertarians.
Earlier this month, a federal judge in Tennessee reluctantly upheld the constitutionality of the act.
"The court must note its extreme discomfort with the sweeping nature" of the act, wrote U.S. District Judge James Jarvis in a case involving a Knoxville woman who sued her husband for damages, alleging that he beat and raped her during their marriage. "While there is no doubt that violence against women is a serious matter in our society, this particular remedy created by Congress, because of its extreme overbreadth, opens the doors of the federal courts to parties seeking leverage in settlements rather than true justice."
That federal judge said the act "will effectively allow domestic-relations litigation to permeate the federal courts."
Golden said she can't see any constitutional violation in the restraining-order section of the law.
But she added that the public and law-enforcement agencies must be made aware of the law if it's going to be used: "We need family and friends with knowledge to come forward and help us out."
U.S. Attorney David Lillehaug has said that the lack of a computerized registry of restraining orders is part of the problem. His office is working with the state Bureau of Criminal Apprehension to establish one for the metro area.
FEMINISTS' VIEW OF ABUSE IS VIOLENCE AGAINST SANITY
Augusta Chronicle, The (GA)
August 11, 1997
https://infoweb.newsbank.com/
THE TROUBLE with ideologues is their simple-mindedness. Communists saw a world full of evil: conniving capitalists arrayed against virtuous, long-suffering proletarians. Fascists saw the world divided between master and inferior races. Modern feminists see violent, aggressive, uncivilized men victimizing helpless, innocent, peace-loving women. It is the mark of small minds that they seek to eradicate nuance and complexity.
The fact that an idea is foolish, however, is no guarantee against its general approbation.
Writing in the summer issue of the Virginia-based Women's Quarterly, Dr. Sally Satel assays the current state of domestic-violence treatment and finds that the feminist understanding of the phenomenon has triumphed.
The feminist view of domestic violence, Dr. Satel explains, is akin to the feminist view of rape -- namely, that all men are potential batterers and that battery is an expression of patriarchal control. In a dozen states, including Massachusetts, Colorado, Florida, Washington and Texas (with a dozen more coming down the pike), state guidelines for handling domestic-abuse cases specifically forbid couples' counseling until and unless the man has undergone feminist indoctrination first.
THE MAN IS seen by feminists as the problem in all domestic-violence situations. It is natural, if you already know who's at fault, to leave the woman out of counseling. To include her would amount to blaming the victim. Some of these therapies, by the way, are funded by the federal government under the Violence Against Women Act.
Like all ideologues, feminists are casual about mere facts. When you think you have a monopoly on Truth, why trifle about small matters like facts? And they don't trifle. Feminists have floated one falsehood after another in service of their vision of domestic violence, and, as Dr. Satel notes, they create ``new bogus statistics faster than the experts ... can shoot them down.'' Some have become legendary, like the claims that ``more women have been killed by family members in the past five years than Americans were killed in Vietnam'' and ``the leading cause of birth defects is battery of the mother during pregnancy.''
This is not to suggest that domestic violence is an invention. Alas, it is not. But there is absolutely no reason to believe that feminist approaches to the problem do any good. In fact, they may do real harm.
Take ``must arrest'' laws. Many jurisdictions now require police to arrest one member of the couple (almost always the man) whenever there is a complaint of domestic abuse.
In light of a history of police reluctance to make arrests in such situations, these laws are understandable. Who will ever forget the hysterical Nicole Brown Simpson begging the police for help that never came?
BUT WHILE arresting the man may be the right thing in some cases, others are less clear. Arrest can inflame a situation that might not otherwise have escalated. And women themselves are sometimes the initiators of violence. Indeed, according to several studies, women are as likely as men to resort to violence.
Is it more often self-defense in the case of women? Yes. But not always. About 1.8 million females are victims of severe domestic violence each year. But so are 2.1 million men (men sometimes hurt other men in the home). Most violent situations involve both parties. Researcher Murray Straus, analyzing several studies, concludes that 25 to 30 percent of violent clashes between partners are the result only of attacks by women.
The feminist assumption in cases of marital abuse is that all men are violent, and irredeemably so. The advice of leading ``experts'' is always the same: leave.
But many women don't leave, and they are not, Dr. Satel argues, all pathetic Hedda Nussbaums, caught in destructive chains they cannot escape. Many recognize their own contributions to the problem. Others weigh the costs of denying their children a father.
The problem is always a complex one. If it were purely a matter of patriarchal arrogance, why is domestic abuse a problem even among lesbians?
ABUSIVE HUSBANDS and wives need to learn how to control their behavior, how to communicate better with one another and how to protect their children. It doesn't help to tell them that men are violent out of hatred for all women. It's impossible to design sound laws based on tripe.
Feminism's monopoly on truth
August 22, 1997
Sun, The (Baltimore, MD)
https://infoweb.newsbank.com/
WASHINGTON -- It is the mark of small minds that they seek to eradicate nuance and complexity. Communists saw a world of conniving capitalists arrayed against virtuous proletarians. Fascists saw master and inferior races. Modern feminists see violent, aggressive, uncivilized men victimizing helpless, innocent, peace-loving women. The fact that an idea is foolish, however, is no guarantee against its widespread acceptance.
Writing in the summer issue of the Virginia-based Women's Quarterly, Dr. Sally Satel assays the current state of domestic-violence treatment and finds that the feminist understanding of the phenomenon has triumphed.
The feminist view of domestic violence, she explains, is akin to the feminist view of rape -- namely, that all men are potential batterers and that battery is an expression of patriarchal control. In a dozen states (with a dozen more coming down the pike), state guidelines for handling domestic-abuse cases specifically forbid couples' counseling unless the man has undergone feminist indoctrination first.
The man is seen by feminists as the problem in all domestic-violence situations. That being so, it is natural to leave the woman out of counseling. To include her would amount to blaming the victim. Some of these therapies, by the way, are funded by the federal government under the Violence Against Women Act.
Like all ideologues who believe they have a monopoly on Truth, feminists are casual about mere facts. They have floated one falsehood after another in service of their vision of domestic violence, and, as Dr. Satel notes, they create ''new bogus statistics faster than the experts . . . can shoot them down.'' Some have become legendary, like the claims that ''more women have been killed by family members in the past five years than Americans were killed in Vietnam'' and ''the leading cause of birth defects is battery of the mother during pregnancy.''
This is not to suggest that domestic violence is an invention. Alas, it is not. But there is absolutely no reason to believe that feminist approaches to the problem do any good. In fact, they may do real harm.
``Must-arrest'' laws
Take ''must-arrest'' laws. Many jurisdictions now require police to arrest one member of the couple (almost always the man) whenever there is a complaint of domestic abuse. In light of a history of police reluctance to make arrests in such situations, these laws are understandable. Who will ever forget the hysterical Nicole Brown Simpson begging the police for help that never came?
But while arresting the man may be the right thing in some cases, others are less clear. Arrest can inflame a situation that might not otherwise have escalated. And women themselves are sometimes the initiators of violence. Indeed, according to several studies, women are as likely as men to resort to violence.
Is it more often self-defense in the case of women? Yes. But not always. About 1.8 million females are victims of severe domestic violence each year. But so are 2.1 million men (men sometimes hurt other men in the home). Most violent situations involve both parties. Researcher Murray Straus, analyzing several studies, concludes that 25 to 30 percent of violent clashes between partners are the result only of attacks by women.
The feminist assumption in cases of marital abuse is that all men are violent, and irredeemably so. The advice of leading ''experts'' is always the same: leave.
But many women don't leave, and they are not, Dr. Satel argues, all pathetic Hedda Nussbaums, caught in destructive chains they cannot escape. Many recognize their own contributions to the problem. Others weigh the costs of denying their children a father.
The problem is always a complex one. If it were purely a matter of patriarchal arrogance, why is domestic abuse a problem even among lesbians?
Abusive husbands and wives need to learn how to control their behavior, how to communicate better with one another and how to protect their children. It doesn't help to tell them that men are violent out of hatred for all women. It's impossible to design sound laws based on tripe.
Life still hard for beating victim
Charleston Daily Mail (WV)
October 20, 1997
https://infoweb.newsbank.com/
Three years ago, Christopher Bailey beat his wife into a coma.
Sonya Bailey is still in a vegetative state. He is in prison, the first person convicted under a 1994 federal domestic violence act. And the Kanawha County couple is still married.
Sonya Bailey's mother, Elena Campbell, said she has been trying to get a divorce for her daughter finalized, but has run into legal loopholes and mounting hospital bills.
"There was a time six months ago I wouldn't even answer the phone because people were hounding me," Campbell said.
Sonya Bailey spent at least part of six days stuffed in the trunk of her husband's car before he brought her to a Kentucky hospital in November 1994.
Christopher Bailey, now 37, of St. Albans was sentenced to life in prison on a federal kidnapping charge and another 20 years for taking his wife to Kentucky in violation of the Violence Against Women Act.
The legislation makes it illegal for someone to cross a state line to abuse a domestic partner.
Sonya Bailey, now 36, has been unable to walk or talk since the attack in November 1994. She lives at the Riverside Nursing Home in St. Albans.
Earlier this month, the U.S. Supreme Court rejected Bailey's final appeal.
But federal judges around the country are still debating the law's validity. A judge in Nebraska threw out an indictment there in May, saying Congress overstepped its bounds in passing the act.
Officer charged with domestic assault
News & Observer, The (Raleigh, NC)
November 14, 1997
https://infoweb.newsbank.com/
RALEIGH -- A member of an elite unit of the Raleigh Police Department was charged Monday with assaulting his live-in girlfriend and spent only 14 minutes in the Wake County jail before being released, jail records showed. An arrest warrant has been issued for the woman, who fled the area Saturday.
The charge against the officer was acknowledged Thursday by Police Chief Mitch Brown, who said that Officer C.E. Stanley has been placed on administrative duty in a nonenforcement position.
Stanley, 32, is a member of the department's Selective Enforcement Unit or SEU. He has been in the department since May 1989.
Stanley was charged with misdemeanor assault on a female after an incident that was reported late Friday or early Saturday from an apartment in West Raleigh he shared with Julie Morhidge.
According to the arrest warrant, Stanley was charged with assaulting Morhidge by "grabbing her around the neck and lifted her up against the bathroom wall, throwing her in the direction of the bed, causing her head to hit the wooden headboard." The warrant also accuses Stanley of "twisting her arm behind her back."
Jail records show that Stanley was charged with misdemeanor assault on a female at 11:18 a.m. Monday and released at 11:32 a.m. under a pre-trial arrangement approved by a District Court judge.
Chief Magistrate Gary Wills said it is not unheard of for someone to be released from jail so quickly, although it is somewhat unusual.
"He'd been seen by a judge who had had input in the program," Wills said. "All the magistrate did was comply with the orders.
"It happens once in a while where someone gets a judge and gets conditions of release," he said. "It's not because he's an officer. It's definitely not because he's an officer. We've had it happen in the middle of the night with other people."
District Court was in session Monday at the time of Stanley's arrest.
Brown said that the warrant for Morhidge's arrest is for a charge of simple assault. "We anticipate her coming back to be served," Brown said, but did not know when she is expected. The warrant for her arrest will not become a public record until it is served.
The decision to charge both parties in the incident was made in consultation with the department's new Family Violence Intervention Unit and an assistant district attorney who specializes in domestic violence cases, Brown said. The department's internal affairs office also was involved.
The charges come at a time when the Raleigh Police Department has spent a year training officers and hiring specialists in recent changes to laws regarding domestic violence.
When asked about Stanley's being charged amid the department's high-profile emphasis on domestic violence, Brown said that the specific charge against the officer doesn't matter.
"Whenever a police officer is arrested, it is always bad publicity," Brown said. "Any time an officer gets arrested, we're prompt in investigating it," he added.
But, although Raleigh officers charged Stanley on Monday, Brown did not return repeated calls from reporters to his office and home for confirmation of the arrest until Thursday morning.
When asked about the delay, he said that he was busy with the department's investigation and other matters. "I have been predisposed by other matters," he said.
Stanley, contacted by phone Wednesday night, at first acknowledged that he was an SEU officer, but denied that he had been arrested. A call to his apartment Thursday night was not returned.
Although no one in the department except Brown would discuss Stanley's status, the commander of the domestic violence unit, Capt. Mark Kielty, said that all of the department's officers have had at least eight hours of training in the new laws and most officers have had at least 16 hours.
The domestic violence unit includes three officers who have had weeks of specialized training, a supervisor, a victims' advocate and a full-time psychologist. Much of the funding to start the program came from federal funds from the Violence Against Women Act and the Victims of Crimes Act, Kielty said.
The most visible sign of the department's commitment to the program can be seen on bumper stickers on the back of many blue-and-white patrol cars. "There is no excuse for domestic violence," the stickers say.
MAN CHARGED UNDER NEW FEDERAL ANTI-STALKING LAW
St. Paul Pioneer Press (MN)
November 22, 1997
https://infoweb.newsbank.com/
Authorities in Minnesota announced Friday that they have used a new federal anti-stalking law for the first time to charge an Illinois man with abducting a woman in Minnesota and taking her to Arkansas.
Combined with kidnapping, the charges carry a maximum penalty of life in prison without the possibility of parole.
Charged Friday in an Arkansas federal court was John L. Pruitt, 47, of Rockford, Ill. He will be transported to Minnesota for a preliminary hearing next week.
According to a criminal complaint filed by the U.S. Attorney's Office in Minneapolis, Pruitt came to Minnesota earlier this month to look for an ex-girlfriend who had left their Illinois residence and was living in a women's shelter in Red Wing. While here, the woman had obtained a protection order against Pruitt.
After searching six days at locations in Minnesota and Wisconsin, Pruitt and a friend spotted the ex-girlfriend as she was leaving her job at a temporary employment agency in Red Wing.
According to the complaint, Pruitt forced the woman to drive the two of them to Arkansas, where he was arrested and charged. During the trip, according to an FBI affidavit, Pruitt threatened the woman and her family and also coerced her to have sexual relations with him.
U.S. Attorney David Lillehaug said the federal anti-stalking law was enacted in 1996 as part of the Violence Against Women Act. It prohibits interstate travel to commit domestic violence or violate a protection order.
In addition to fines, the anti-stalking act carries a prison sentence of up to five years. However, Pruitt also was charged with kidnapping, which carries a sentence of up to life without parole.
FEDERAL STALKING TRIAL STARTS MONDAY
Lexington Herald-Leader (KY)
November 29, 1997
https://infoweb.newsbank.com/
ASHLAND - An Ohio man charged with violating the federal stalking law goes on trial Monday.
Leslie Ruggles, 49, a Portsmouth, Ohio, native, is accused of taking his wife, Angela, to Florida against her will in April and abusing her while there.
Angela Ruggles, who is from South Shore in Greenup County, said her husband tricked her into going to Florida by telling her the family was going on an outing to Carter Caves State Resort Park.
In an interview last week at the Boyd County Detention Center, where Ruggles has spent most of the past four months awaiting trial, he said his wife is using the charges and the judicial system to gain custody of their three young sons.
His wife and prosecutors, however, say Ruggles is the manipulator. For years, they say, he has abused and bullied his wife and threatened to take the children if she didn't follow his wishes.
The penalties for the crimes of which Ruggles is accused - one count of interstate travel to commit domestic violence and two counts of interstate stalking - were increased as part of the Violence Against Women Act, enacted along with the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994.
The law targets abusers who travel state-to-state with the intent to injure, harass or intimidate a domestic partner or violate a protective order.
Ruggles' trial in U.S. District Court will feature a witness from Florida who was jailed for 10 days last month and then ordered to stay on house arrest to guarantee his appearance.
Earl Logue, 72, is a material witness in the prosecution's case. It was at Logue's mobile home in DeLand, Fla., authorities allege, that Ruggles committed the abuse.
A hearing on Logue was held Oct. 31 in Lexington. After chastising Logue for his attitude, U.S. District Judge Henry R. Wilhoit Jr. ordered him released from jail. As a condition, though, Wilhoit required Logue to wear an electronic ankle bracelet that transmits a signal if he leaves his home without permission. He also has to phone court officials twice a day.
The ankle device was scheduled to be removed today so he can travel to Ashland for the trial.
AN UPHILL BATTLE
DOMESTIC VIOLENCE ACT LIKELY WILL BE FOUND UNCONSTITUTIONAL
Richmond Times-Dispatch (VA)
December 7, 1997
https://infoweb.newsbank.com/
The Violence Against Women Act seemed to have everything going for it when it passed three years ago: bipartisan sponsors, heavy public support for creation of the National Domestic Violence Hotline and funneling millions of dollars to combat violent crimes against women.
Now it is headed for the Supreme Court and widely expected to be found unconstitutional.
"I don't want to predict doom for the act but it wouldn't surprise me to see it declared unconstitutional," said Norman A. Pattis, a New Haven, Conn., lawyer who has worked on both sides of lawsuits filed under the act. "It's a very vulnerable statute."
Chief Justice William Rehnquist already has issued a rare curbstone opinion against the statute. With Rehnquist at the helm, the Supreme Court has tried to redefine the federal government's relationship with the states by forcing the states to deal with difficult issues, such as physician-assisted suicide, instead of always seeking federal intervention.
Under this philosophy of guarding against what the court sees as excessive federal power, the justices during the past two years have struck down several federal laws, such as the Brady gun control law.
The Violence Against Women Act "really has an excellent chance that it will be" next, said Michael Gerhardt, a Case Western University law professor and consultant to the Clinton White House.
The 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond, Va., is expected to issue a ruling any day on the first appeal under the act, a lawsuit filed by a Virginia Tech student who alleges that two university football players raped her. A federal judge in Roanoke, Va., dismissed the suit, ruling the act unconstitutional. Federal judges in five other cases have upheld it.
What has stirred controversy and court challenges is not the act's funding of anti-violence programs but a portion of the law that permits federal civil rights lawsuits for sexual assault and domestic violence cases.
The National Organization for Women's Legal Defense and Education Fund has tracked more than 20 cases filed under the violence act.
Those lawsuits include:
* a wealthy Tennessee woman who, in the midst of divorce proceedings, sued her husband for years of alleged abuse and humiliation;
* a Carroll, Iowa, woman who sued her parish priest for allegedly groping and kissing her. The priest later resigned; and
* a suit by a Connecticut woman, also in the midst of divorce proceedings, against her husband for allegedly beating her, threatening to kill her, throwing objects at her and forcing her "to be a `slave.'"
State courts historically have handled these kinds of cases, either through criminal prosecution or civil lawsuits. Congress opened the federal courts to such cases by invoking the "commerce clause" in the Violence Against Women Act.
The Constitution gives Congress authority over interstate commerce, and legislators have stretched that authority to intervene in a variety of historically local issues by contending that they affect interstate commerce.
"What [the Violence Against Women Act] is really sort of federalizing is interacting with women, obviously in some violent way," said Gerhardt, a constitutional scholar. "The question becomes how does that relate to interstate commerce?"
Bonnie Campbell, director of the Justice Department's office on violence against women, said the stacks of documentation used in drafting the act show domestic violence and sex crimes cause women to lose their jobs, terrify them into staying at home and never traveling or shopping.
"The record made by Congress was so clear . . . that women as a group are targeted for violence because of a gender bias," Campbell said. "That impact on women is profound. It literally determines how they live each day."
The law's supporters argue that it provides a civil remedy to a history of state law-enforcement systems underprosecuting or failing to prosecute rape, domestic violence or sexual assault cases.
The Supreme Court, though, has begun curtailing the federal government's use of the commerce clause to create new federal laws and regulations. Most notably, the justices struck down the "Gun-free School Zone Act" in 1995, which made a federal violation out of possessing a firearm in or around a school.
As senators were drafting the law in 1993, Rehnquist, in a rare public comment on pending legislation, expressed the concerns of the nation's federal judges that the Violence Against Women Act was too broad for an already-overburdened court system.
"The judiciary is concerned that the bill's proposed private right of action is so sweeping that it could involve the federal courts in a whole host of domestic relations disputes," Rehnquist said.
Eventually the judges, through the national Judicial Conference, made the unusual move of taking no position on the law. Their concerns, however, did not halt its passage.
Both sides in the Virginia Tech lawsuit expect their case to wind up at the Supreme Court. In fact, Eileen Wagner, lawyer for the young woman plaintiff, said she filed suit planning to reach the high court in order to settle the Violence Against Women Act as the law of the land.
"The law will be worthless until we get a decision," Wagner said. For now, she'll settle for a win at the 4th Circuit Court.
Prosecutor challenges ax murderer's appeal
Times, The (Trenton, NJ)
December 8, 1997
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WHITE PLAINS, N.Y. (AP) _ The federal domestic violence law that sent a New Jersey woman to prison for life in the ax-murder of her scientist husband is a ''quintessential exercise'' of congressional power, a prosecutor says.
Arguing against an appeal by Rita Gluzman, who said she should have been tried in state court, Assistant U.S. Attorney Cathy Seibel said Gluzman ''crossed state lines to commit a heinous crime that could not have been fully addressed by the local jurisdictions involved.''
''Violent criminals cannot take advantage'' of overlapping jurisdictions, she said in a written argument to the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals submitted this week. Gluzman, 48, was convicted in January of crossing state lines to commit domestic abuse. She lived in Upper Saddle River, N.J., and her husband, cancer researcher Yakov Gluzman, was killed in Pearl River, N.Y. Because the ''abuse'' was murder, federal guidelines prescribed a sentence of life without parole.
According to trial testimony, Gluzman killed her husband because he was about to divorce her and she feared for her comfortable lifestyle. She recruited a cousin, joined him in the ax attack and directed him to butcher the body.
BUT THE cousin, Vladimir Zelenin, was caught as he dumped the body parts in a New Jersey river, pleaded guilty and was the key witness against Gluzman in federal court in White Plains. Because the case was in federal court, the accomplice's testimony did not have to be corroborated.
Gluzman's lawyer, Judd Burstein, argued that the case should have been in the state courts. The 1994 Violence Against Women Act '' far exceeds Congress' powers under the Constitution's commerce clause,'' he said, because Gluzman's travels between New Jersey and New York had nothing to do with economic activity.
But the prosecutor said past court decisions make clear that ''interstate commerce need not be economic.''
The appeal from Gluzman also claimed that the domestic violence law was designed to protect women from men, not vice versa. Gluzman was the first woman prosecuted under the law.
But the federal response says, ''The fact that Congress may have been motivated by male-on-female violence does not require that its prohibition be limited to such activity.'' Accepting Gluzman's argument, the prosecutor said, would lead to an ''absurd result.''
The appeal also claimed that Mrs. Gluzman's right to a fair trial was violated because New York City's ''racially diverse'' population is excluded from the suburban jury pool. Manhattan and the Bronx are in the same federal judicial district as White Plains.
Seibel responded that ''Courts in districts with more than one courthouse have broad discretion to create jury selection divisions for reasons of convenience and efficiency.'' The White Plains jury pool ''represents a fair cross-section of the community,'' she wrote.
Arguments on the appeal are expected before the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals next year.
COURT UPHOLDS VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN ACT
Contra Costa Times (Walnut Creek, CA)
December 24, 1997
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RICHMOND, Va. - A federal appeals panel overturned a lower court Tuesday, reinstating the first lawsuit filed under the federal Violence Against Women Act.
The divided ruling by three members of the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals revived the case of Christy Brzonkala, a former Virginia Tech student who says two football players raped her. "It looks as if we are on our way back to have a trial," said Eileen Wagner, Brzonkala's lawyer. "What this means for us is a vindication of sorts. She ought to have her day in court."
Two judges supported the constitutionality of the law that allows people to sue for gender-based crimes in federal court. Judge Michael Luttig dissented, agreeing with a lower court that Congress overstepped its authority in creating the 1994 law.
State Attorney General Richard Cullen said he may ask the full appeals court to review the decision.
Brzonkala was unavailable for comment, said her mother, Mary Ellen Brzonkala, who added that her daughter's reaction to the decision was "tears of relief."
Man gets nearly 3 years on federal charge
He is the first in the state to be convicted under the Violence Against Women Act.
Star Tribune: Newspaper of the Twin Cities (MN)
December 24, 1997
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The first person in Minnesota convicted of the federal charge of possessing a gun while under a domestic-violence restraining order was sentenced Tuesday to nearly three years in prison.
When Massoud Goharbarwang, 40, of Minnetonka, was convicted in July, he also was one of just a few people in the nation to be convicted of the charge under the 1994 Violence Against Women Act. He had pleaded guilty to being a felon in possession of a firearm.
The section of the law under which Goharbarwang was charged makes it a federal crime for anyone under a restraining order to possess a gun or ammunition. The person need not be convicted of domestic abuse to face the charge, only to have had a court hearing that resulted in a restraining order.
Goharbarwang was charged in Hennepin County District Court in January 1996 with assaulting his wife and threatening to kill her, her parents, her brother and a friend. In February, she sought a court order to prohibit him from coming near her. Goharbarwang waived his right to a hearing, and the order was granted.
Authorities received a tip that Goharbarwang had weapons in his home. When they searched it, they found several handguns, rifles, shotguns and hand grenades.
Goharbarwang, who owned Parmees Boutique in downtown Minneapolis, was sentenced to two years and nine months by Judge Ann Montgomery in Minneapolis. He also received three years supervised release and a $5,000 fine.
He was convicted in Hennepin County District Court of making terroristic threats against his wife in the earlier case.
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