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AFTER RAISING A STINK, FETISH PERFUME AD IS SCRAPPED
Times Union, The (Albany, NY)
January 6, 1998
https://infoweb.newsbank.com/
Carmela Gaudio has seen the ad for the new scent, called Fetish, in the pages of Seventeen magazine.
``I never understood the ad,'' said the 14-year-old Schenectady ninth-grader, who was confused whether the ad was selling the fragrance or the body glitter that sparkled on the arms, neck and face of the bikini-clad model.
Gaudio got past the product confusion: On a recent day, she and friends Stephanie Insogna and Margaret Wilber, took a closer look at the ad and began to react with distaste.
``It's like you're supposed to wear perfume to attract guys it's stupid,'' Stephanie said. The model is unrealistically thin. And the ad's advice, to apply the perfume so ``he can smell the scent as you shake your head, `no,' ``looks like `no' means `maybe,' Stephanie said.
The Fetish advertising campaign the product is specifically marketed to teenagers has offended enough women and parents to be scrapped, the manufacturers' spokeswoman said.
Made by New York-based Dana Perfumes Corp., Fetish debuted in September, with ads in Seventeen, Teen and YM, as well as in the weekly youth magazine React, carried by 160 newspapers nationwide. Dana, a division of Renaissance, produces such well known scents as Chantilly, Love's Baby Soft and the men's fragrance English Leather.
The Fetish advertisement features a young woman, clad in a bright orange bikini top, her arms and neck sprinkled with gold body glitter. A tube of Fetish is clipped to the bikini. ``Apply generously to your neck so he can smell the scent as you shake your head `no,' reads tip No. 16, one of a number of the campaign's suggestions.
That wording prompted complaints from parents' groups, the National Organization for Women and the National Rape Crisis Center of Canada, said Margarita Miranda, a Dana spokeswoman.
She contended the intent of the ad copy was ``not at all sexual,'' claiming the product, with its bright, carry-along packaging and complementary line of nail polish in funky colors, is meant to encourage self-expression and individuality.
According to Dana's promotional material, Fetish is carried in a number of stores, including Kmart, Wal-Mart, Sears and Caldor. As of last week, the Caldor at Crossgates Mall in Guilderland was selling Fetish with a display featuring the ad in question.
Miranda said teenagers weren't offended by the ad campaign. Focus groups assembled to test the product ``reacted well to this particular ad,'' designed by the San Diego-based Lamesis, which specializes in youth marketing. ``(But) why upset the parents? Even if teenagers find it cool, adults didn't.''
She did not know the number of complaints, but, ``it was enough to tell us we were obviously offending groups we did not mean to.''
The slogan muddles the message that if a woman says ``no'' to a sexual advance, the refusal is absolute, say rape prevention experts.
``If this is an example of the kind of advertising approach that is supposed to be cute and provocative and to sell a product, it really totally undermines the other message, that when someone says `no' to a sexual advance, they mean `no,' and that's not a negotiable term,'' said Judith V. Condo, director of the Albany County Rape Crisis Center.
Adolescence is a ``very vulnerable age where patterns get established about how to communicate what you want in terms of sexuality,'' said Maud Easter, executive director of the New York State Coalition Against Sexual Assault. ``It is absolutely the worst time for young women to be encouraged to communicate double messages,'' she added.
Protecting youth against violence is a major theme in both federal and proposed state legislation, Condo and Easter said. Portions of the federal Violence Against Women Act identify junior high and high school girls as most vulnerable to violence, Condo said. And a state bill, passed unanimously in the Senate, would facilitate prosecution, based on the victim's verbal refusal of a sexual advance.
Complaints about the Fetish ad began in October and November, and, by last month, Dana had pulled the ad from such young woman's magazines as Seventeen, Teen and YM.
React, a weekly news magazine read by 4.6 million teenagers, canceled the remaining four of 12 full-color ads, a loss of about $100,000 in revenue. Parade Publications publishes React, as well as the Parade Sunday magazine.
``The staff of React is somewhat young and perhaps a little less conservative than the staff of Parade, so at the time the ad came through, I guess you could say there were some raised eyebrows but no real questions,'' said Carlo Vittorini, Parade Publications chairman and publisher.
In all, Parade Publications received about 20 complaints from newspaper publishers and coordinators of Newspapers In Education, which promotes the newspaper as a teaching tool in schools. Also, about 20 parents and teachers complained, Vittorini said.
The publication's staff tried to negotiate with Dana about a substitute ad, and the ad in fact ran twice with the copy stricken.
The ad ran for three weeks before the complaints began. Three more ads were already in production, so nothing could be altered. Two more followed, minus the copy in question.
In the end, Parade Publications decided to cancel the ad.
``My position at the end was apologetic, that we made an error in judgment. It was not our intention to compromise React's wholesome, positive, educational focus,'' Vittorini said.
While the ad copy is a ``bit more blatant'' than other examples in print media, the images in the Fetish ad are consistent with MTV music videos, for example, in which women are ``highly sexualized,'' said Teri Bordenave, executive director of Girls Inc., the Schenectady agency where the teenagers were interviewed. Girls Inc. helps young women to explore career paths, encourages them in science and math and addresses alcohol abuse and teen pregnancy.
Two years ago, advertisements for Calvin Klein jeans dubbed ``heroin chic'' by critics caused a furor because they featured young people, of debatable ages, in suggestive poses. The company eventually dropped the ads.
TRAIL OF TERROR CULMINATES IN UNIQUE TRIAL
AQUILIA BARNETTE ADMITTED TWO MURDERS
Roanoke Times, The (VA)
January 19, 1998
https://infoweb.newsbank.com/
By consolidating a series of crimes into a single prosecution, state and federal authorities were able to seek a death sentence that would not have been possible if Barnette were tried on state charges in Roanoke.
Late into the night of June 21, 1996, Aquilia Barnette stayed up looking at photographs of Robin Williams, reading and re-reading her old love letters, feeding the anger that was growing like cancer inside him.
As he sat in his bedroom in Charlotte, N.C., Barnette became more and more upset with Williams for breaking up with him.
It was on that night, he later told police, that "my anger took over."
Barnette packed a duffel bag, grabbed a sawed-off shotgun with a red flashlight taped to the barrel, and walked out into the summer night.
How Barnette got to Roanoke - where he and Williams had once lived together - and what he did when he got there will be recounted this week when prosecutors begin presenting evidence to a jury in U.S. District Court in Charlotte.
Barnette, 24, is charged with carjacking a motorist in Charlotte, shooting him dead, driving the stolen car to Roanoke, blasting his way into Williams' home, chasing her outside and gunning her down in the street as her mother watched. He is also accused of firebombing Williams' apartment seven weeks earlier.
He has confessed to both murders. If convicted, he could receive the death sentence.
The trial, which began Jan. 5 with jury selection and is scheduled to last another month, is unique in several respects:
* It is a worst-case scenario of domestic violence. Prosecutors have portrayed Barnette in court papers as a jealous boyfriend who watched Williams' every move, then took her life when he lost his power to control her. He was indicted under the Violence Against Women Act, passed by Congress in 1994 to combat gender-based crime.
* It is a frightening case of random killing. Donald Lee Allen died because he was unlucky enough to get stopped by a red light at a Charlotte intersection. A few feet away, Barnette was hiding behind some bushes, waiting in ambush for a car to take him to Williams.
* And it is an unusual example of how state and federal authorities in two states consolidated a series of crimes into a single prosecution, allowing them to seek a death sentence that would not have been possible if Barnette was tried on state charges in Roanoke.
The breakup
Robin Antionette Williams and Aquilia "Mark" Barnette met at a nightclub in 1994, when they were both 21. Friends and family members say the relationship seemed doomed from the start.
Williams was bright and outgoing. Barnette was sullen and reserved.
A graduate of Patrick Henry High School, she worked as a secretary at a Roanoke hospital while earning an associate's degree from ECPI Computer Institute. A high school dropout from Charlotte, he had a past that included criminal charges and turbulent relationships with other women.
Despite their differences, the relationship grew. In the spring of 1996, Barnette moved from Charlotte to Roanoke, where he got a job working the night shift at a motel and moved in with Williams.
It wasn't long before Maude Hubbard, who lived in the adjacent apartment on Keswick Avenue Northeast, learned that the couple was having problems.
"I couldn't see through the walls, but I could hear him fighting and I could hear her screaming and hollering," Hubbard said.
In court papers outlining the evidence they plan to present, prosecutors say Barnette was "extremely jealous" and suspected Williams of seeing other men practically every time she left his sight.
When she visited friends, he would pace outside the house. When they attended a wedding reception together, he angrily confronted her about taking too long in the restroom. When she went shopping alone, he would page her at the store and demand to know what she was doing, according to court records.
"Every step that she made, he had to know where she was at," Hubbard said.
By early April, Williams had finally had enough. "The only person she socialized with away from work was me," her mother, Bertha Williams, said. "She said, 'I can't live the way he wants me to live.'"
So she told Barnette to get out of her life.
Doris Coleman, who lived across the street, remembered that Barnette was laughing and joking the day he loaded his belongings into a U-Haul and drove away.
But he never really left.
"He started calling me all the time and I said, 'Mark, you're going to have to stop calling,'" Williams said in a statement to police less than a month before her death.
The firebombing
At 3 a.m. on April 30, Williams was jolted awake by loud banging on her front door. She knew right away that it was Barnette. They had spoken the night before, and Barnette was angry because Benjamin Greene, Williams' best friend, was staying in the apartment that night.
Looking out the window, Williams saw Barnette smashing the windows of Greene's car with a baseball bat and yelling obscenities, she later told police. She tried to call 911, but the line was dead. Later, police found the phone lines had been cut outside the apartment.
Then, Williams told police, "I heard this woosh sound and I looked at the door and there was fire coming from underneath it." It was a firebomb, she later learned.
"I was screaming, 'Benny, we've got to get out. Benny we've got to get out.' And this time I can can hear Mark yelling, 'Die, bitch, die.'"
By then, flames had ignited the couch and spread to the curtains on the living room window - blocking any escape through the front door. Greene and Williams retreated to her bedroom, where they jumped from the second story window.
By the time police and firefighters arrived, Barnette was gone. Williams spent the next 12 days in the hospital with burns to her hands and arms. Police issued warrants charging Barnette with arson and attempted murder.
One month later, as Detective R.S. Kahl finished taking a statement from Williams about what had happened the night of the fire, he asked her there was anything she wanted to add.
"No, I just want Mark caught," Williams replied.
But Barnette was never caught, due to miscommunication between Roanoke and Charlotte police. Roanoke police said they sent teletypes to Charlotte, listing the address of Barnette's mother and saying he was wanted on arson charges. Charlotte police could not find the address and let the matter drop.
"Even though the Charlotte Police Department said it wasn't a valid address and Robin said it was, the Roanoke Police Department could have said 'Go back,'" Bertha Williams said. "They could have pursued it."
For the next month, Barnette remained at large.
The first murder
Back at his mother's house in Charlotte, Barnette was finding it impossible to cope with Williams' rejection - and the knowledge that, the last time he had seen her, another man was spending the night in her apartment.
On June 21, Barnette later told police, "I had been sitting in my room all night. I was just sitting there thinking and looking at letters and cards, pictures of her and me and wondering why this had to happen."
"It was like I had to see Robin; I had to get to Robin," he said in a statement that has been introduced as evidence in federal court. "And that's like the only thing that was driving me."
Barnette set out that night with no car and no money. He put a sawed-off shotgun, a crowbar, a pair of bolt cutters and a couple of screwdrivers into a tan duffel bag and walked to a nearby intersection.
Sometime after midnight, Donald Lee Allen, a 22-year-old mechanic from McConnells, S.C., was heading home from a night out in Charlotte. He stopped at the intersection of Billy Graham Parkway and Morris Field Drive, where Barnette was hiding behind some bushes.
Barnette approached the car, brandishing the shotgun. "I just told him to get out of the car," he told police. "When he got to the side of the road, I told him to give me his wallet."
Barnette then led Allen into the darkness of a nearby drainage ditch. He ordered Allen to turn his back. "After I told him to turn around I looked back and I was going to leave, but I didn't, and I shot him I don't remember how close I was to him, but I remember shooting."
An autopsy later determined that Allen was shot three times in the back and torso at close range. His last words, Barnette told police, were "Don't shoot."
Leaving the body where it fell, Barnette ran back to the deserted intersection. Allen's blue Honda Prelude sat idling at the light, which had turned green and then red again. Barnette jumped in the car, made a U-turn, and sped away.
The second murder
Barnette took Interstate 77 north, driving into the mountains of Virginia and then headed east to Roanoke as dawn neared. Along the way, he took the cash from Allen's wallet, inspected it long enough to learn the name of the man he had just shot, and tossed it out the window.
About 5 a.m., Barnette arrived in Roanoke. He drove to a tidy frame house at 911 Loudon Ave. N.W., where Williams had sought refuge by staying with her mother, and parked across the street.
Taking the bolt cutters from his duffel bag, Barnette sliced the telephone lines to the house and returned to his car. He saw Williams take the dog out at 5:30, and waited for her to go back inside.
As he loaded three red shotgun shells into his gun, Barnette told police, he intended to use one of them on himself. "I wanted to kill myself and I wanted her with me," he said.
Barnette walked up to the house, used his shotgun to blast the lock off the side door and pushed his way inside.
Bertha Williams had just put a batch of brownies in the oven when the shots were fired, and at first she thought the stove had exploded. Her daughter ran downstairs in a panic, and they both realized what was happening.
"I said "Run, Robin, run,'" Bertha Williams recalled.
Barnette told police what happened next: "I ran in the house and looked to my left, which was towards the front of the house, and I saw Robin going out the front door and looking up the street She was wondering, I guess, where that noise came from."
Williams ran across the street. Barnette followed. She fell once, got up, and fell again, Barnette told police. By then, he had caught up with her on the grass of a neighbor's yard.
"I got to her and told her to come with meI had her by the armAnd then she would get free and I grabbed her by the hairShe said she wasn't going anymore. I told her, I said: 'Don't worry, cause I got one [shotgun shell] for me and one for you.'"
"I remember telling her to come with me, and asking her, 'Why did she do this? Why did she take everything away from me?'"
"The last thing I remember, I remember was looking at my gun. I was pointing it at her and then she was running to her mom and I shot her."
Bertha Williams had been trying to lead her daughter away from Barnette. They made it as far as the corner of Ninth Street and Loudon Avenue.
"She fell at my feet," Bertha Williams said. "I thought she had been shot in the side. I got down on my knees and I didn't see any wound on her side. I turned her over and there was a hole as big as a quarter under her arm. He had shot her in the back. I grabbed her and said, 'Hold on, baby, hold on.'"
After running to call for help, Williams returned to find Barnette gone and her daughter gasping for air.
"She took her last breath," Williams said, "and she died in my arms."
The arrest
For the next several hours, Barnette drove his stolen car blindly down the interstate. He wound up in Knoxville, Tenn.
Stopping at a mall on the outskirts of town, he bought a garden hose and some duct tape from a Sears. "I was gong to find me a place and use the tape and the hose and poison myself" by attaching the hose to the exhaust pipe and putting the other end inside the car, Barnette said.
Barnette said he tried twice to kill himself while parked on the side of a back road. He failed both times. The second time, he said, a construction worker who passed by pulled him from the car's smoky interior.
"He said 'you're young.' He said 'you've got this nice car.' And I knew then that he didn't know anything about me," Barnette said.
It was Sunday morning by then, and Barnette suddenly felt a strong urge to be inside a church. He spotted an elderly, well-dressed couple and followed them to the First Calvary Baptist Church. He went inside and prayed.
"I knew I had to go to church and pray for them cause it wasn't right," he said. "I couldn't just sit there and kill myself selfishly and not at least pray for them [Williams and Allen] and beg them to forgive me."
After leaving the church, Barnette drove back to Charlotte. He left the car in a shopping center parking lot, dumped the gun in an nearby trash can, and walked home. Police arrested him at his mother's house the next day.
By then, Barnette was wanted for William's murder and suspected in the disappearance of Allen. He led police to Allen's body, then confessed in tears. During two statements, police had to turn the tape recorder off several times while Barnette wept.
"I'm truly sorry," he said. "I can't believe this happened. I'm still not believing that Robin and Donald are dead; I still can't believe it."
The trial
Although Aquilia Barnette has pleaded not guilty to an 11-count indictment, guilt or innocence is not the key question of the trial currently under way in the federal courthouse in downtown Charlotte.
In light of Barnette's confession, the expected testimony of Bertha Williams about how her daughter was killed in front of her, and physical evidence that incriminates their client, defense lawyers acknowledge they will not contest much of the government's evidence.
Charlotte lawyer George Laughrun, who represents Barnette, expects the real battle to come during the trial's sentencing phase.
"We just want to save his life," Laughrun said. "That's all we're trying to do in this case."
Assistant U.S. Attorney Bob Conrad has already announced his intention to seek the death sentence, a move that had to be approved by Attorney General Janet Reno as part of the protocol followed in all federal death cases.
Barnette could become the first person in North Carolina to receive a federal death sentence, and only the 16th nationally since Congress reinstated capital punishment for federal crimes in 1988.
In asking jurors to impose the ultimate punishment, Conrad will not rely just on Barnette's current charges. Drawing from court records in three states, prosecutors have outlined a "pattern of violence" they say existed long before Barnette met Williams.
In 1990, he allegedly slammed a girlfriend onto a concrete surface when she was six months pregnant with their child, prosecutors claim in court papers. And in 1993, he was convicted of felonious cruelty to children for using a coat hanger to beat the infant child of another woman he was dating.
Last Thursday, lawyers completed nearly two weeks of questioning potential jurors. They will select a jury from a pool of 70 on Tuesday, then return to court Wednesday for opening statements and the beginning of the government's case.
Laughrun won't talk about his defense strategy, but he has notified prosecutors in court papers of his intent to present psychiatric testimony. Although mental evaluations have found Barnette was legally sane at the time of the offenses, the evidence could still be used at sentencing in an effort to show "mitigating circumstances."
Among the possible topics: Barnette's "significant mental health problems;" the effects of being raised by a single mother in a home marred by domestic violence, drug abuse, depression and suicidal tendencies.
In his statements to police, Barnette hinted that mental problems may have played a role in his actions.
"I felt like I was just really severely suffering from some kind of depression and I didn't get any help and that was my fault," he said. "I thought I could handle it but I let my error get the best of me. And I did something that I knew wasn't right after I did it."
"I wish I would have had the courage to speak up and say 'somebody help me.'"
But it is too late now to help Barnette or his victims. If the jury convicts, it will have just two options: life in prison with no parole, or death by lethal injection
Laurence Hammack can be reached at 981-3239 or laurenceh@roanoke.comm
ABOUT THE LAW
Here's an explanation of some terms that will come up during the Barnette trial:
VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN ACT: A law passed by Congress in 1994 to protect victims of gender-based crime. Best known locally for a lawsuit filed by a Virginia Tech student who said two football players raped her, the law makes such attacks a civil-rights violation. But it also allows criminal charges when someone crosses a state line to commit domestic abuse. It was instrumental in allowing federal prosecutors to have Barnette tried in North Carolina on charges from Roanoke.
MITIGATING CIRCUMSTANCES: Something that does not justify or excuse a crime but could be used to explain it and thus reduce the punishment. Defense lawyers will use evidence of Barnette's mental problems in an effort to "mitigate" a life sentence.
Jury seated for federal capital trial
Herald-Sun, The (Durham, NC)
January 21, 1998
https://infoweb.newsbank.com/
CHARLOTTE -- A jury was seated Tuesday for the federal capital trial of a Charlotte man accused of killing a motorist, driving to Virginia and then shooting his girlfriend to death.
Opening statements in the trial of Aquilia Barnette will be made today before U.S. District Judge Robert Potter. Jury selection began Jan. 5.
The case has received attention because it's the first time the federal government has sought a death sentence in North Carolina since capital punishment was reinstated at the federal level in 1988.
It also will be the first time the government will seek the death penalty for a defendant charged under provisions of the Violence Against Women Act, said Assistant U.S. Attorney Bob Conrad, the lead prosecutor. The act was part of the 1994 crime bill.
Normally, the maximum sentence for violating the act is life imprisonment, he said. The death penalty can be imposed if a weapon is used to commit the crime, Conrad said.
Barnette, 24, was arrested in June 1996 and charged with killing Donald Lee Allen, 22, of McConnells, S.C. Allen was shot to death along Billy Graham Parkway during a carjacking of his 1994 Honda Prelude.
Barnette then drove the car to Roanoke, Va., where he's accused of killing his girlfriend, Robin Antoinette Williams, 23.
Victim tells of previous murder attempt
Jurors hear tape of woman allegedly killed by ex-boyfriend
Herald-Sun, The (Durham, NC)
January 22, 1998
https://infoweb.newsbank.com/
CHARLOTTE -- Several weeks before Robin Antoinette Williams was murdered in an execution-style shooting, she told police her ex-boyfriend tried to kill her by firebombing her apartment, prosecutors said Wednesday.
Jurors listened to a tape-recorded statement she gave police on May 30, 1996 -- about three weeks before she was shot to death outside her mother's home in Roanoke, Va.
The dramatic evidence was introduced on the opening day of the trial of a Charlotte man facing the federal death penalty for two murders -- including that of Williams.
Aquilia Barnette, 24, is the first defendant in a federal capital murder trial in North Carolina since the federal death penalty was reinstated a decade ago.
In an 11-count federal indictment, Barnette also is charged in the June 21, 1996, carjacking-murder of Donald Lee Allen, 22, of McConnells, S.C., near the Charlotte airport.
The Barnette case marks the first time the government has sought the death penalty for a defendant charged under provisions of the 1994 Violence Against Women Act, prosecutors said before the trial.
Prosecutors allege Barnette carjacked and murdered Allen to steal his car. After he shot him three times in the back, he drove Allen's 1994 Honda Prelude to Roanoke and killed Williams, 23, with two shotgun blasts to the back, they said.
In the 20-minute interview with Roanoke police Detective Rick Kahl, Williams described the earlier firebombing. On Wednesday, jurors listened on headphones and followed along on written transcripts.
As the victim's voice filled the large courtroom, Barnette held his hand over the face. Later he wiped his eyes with a tissue.
Behind the prosecutors' table, members of Williams' family stared ahead as the tape was played. When it was finished, one male member of the group was crying.
``Well, about 3, 3:30 I was awakened by three loud bangs at my front door,'' Williams says on the tape. ``I ran to the front door, raised up my blind in my living room and I seen, I seen Marc Aquilia Barnette and he was out there saying obscenities.''
Williams said she tried to call 911 but her phone line had been cut. She looked outside and saw her former boyfriend, who she calls Marc, smashing the windows of the car of her friend, Benny Greene.
``I heard this whoosh sound and I looked at the door and there was fire coming from underneath it,'' said Williams, who had just been released from the hospital for treatment of burns. ``I tried to get out of my door and I couldn't.''
Williams said she ran to the window in her bedroom and screamed to Greene, who was staying with her at her apartment. ``I was screaming, `Benny, we have got to get out. Benny, we've got to get out. At this time I can hear Marc yelling, `Die, bitch, die.' ''
In the incident that occurred several weeks before her murder, prosecutors told jurors, Barnette had tried to kill Williams by tossing the Molotov cocktail into her apartment.
In his opening statement, Assistant U.S. Attorney Bob Conrad told the seven-woman, five-man jury Barnette's motive for his deadly crime spree was to avenge his ex-girlfriend's breakup with him.
Conrad said Barnette and Williams began dating in March 1995 and Barnette moved in with Williams in Roanoke, but by April 1996 ``the relationship turned sour, and he became demanding and violent.''
DOMESTIC VIOLENCE: 'A CIVIL RIGHTS BATTLE'
Post-Tribune, The (Merrillville, IN)
January 23, 1998
https://infoweb.newsbank.com/
The leader of the Justice Department's push to end domestic violence said the quickest way to save battered women is to stop blaming the victim and reform the justice system.
Bonnie Campbell, director of the Violence Against Women office, and U.S. Rep. Julia Carson, D-Ind., led a domestic violence summit here that focused on ideas to protect abused women and prosecute their attackers.
"The justice system treats these crimes differently and tends to blame the victims," Campbell said. "You wouldn't have that reaction if a bank was robbed. It's like saying: 'Well, you have all this money in place, you should expect to get robbed."'
It's Campbell's job to ensure that local law enforcement agencies, judges and prosecutors are following the Violence Against Women Act, passed by Congress in 1994.
The act states that domestic violence offenders must be arrested, and judges must hand out sentences that correspond with other violent crimes. It also prohibits anyone with a prior domestic violence conviction or anyone named in a restraining order from possessing a gun.
Campbell said that despite the legislation, men who assault their wives often are not disciplined because they claim to love their wives, or the women refuse to prosecute out of fear for their lives.
"You can get away from a stranger," Campbell said. "It's harder to get away from someone who is an integral part of your life."
Campbell, who estimated about five million women in the U.S. are assaulted by loved ones each year, said the question she's most frequently asked is: "Why don't these women leave?" Her response: "And go where?"
That's where the federal act comes in, allocating $271 million dollars in 1998 to establish more shelters for battered women and further education about domestic violence.
"This is a civil rights battle," Campbell said. "Don't we all have the right to live free of violence?"
Carson used the summit to recall the 1989 murder of Lisa Bianco, an Elkhart woman who was killed by her ex-husband while he was on a pass from prison.
Alan Matheney, who was serving an eight-year prison sentence for previously assaulting Bianco, confronted his ex-wife at home and beat her to death with a rifle, Carson said.
Carson showed the crowd of women's advocacy groups and private citizens a videotape in which Bianco described the abuse she suffered during her relationship with Matheney.
"He told me he was doing it because he loved me," said Bianco, choking back tears that ran down her bruised and swollen face.
Bianco, a mother of two, said she volunteered to undergo counseling with Matheney, worried she'd lose her children or be killed.
Matheney was convicted of Bianco's murder in 1990 and sentenced to death. He has appealed his sentence.
"Men batter because they can and we let them," Campbell said. "We have to break the silence. If you don't say anything, you are colluding with the batterer."
The summit in Indianapolis on Wednesday came a day after a 68-year-old man walked into in an in-home day care service and gunned down his common law wife and her friend in front of nine children.
"That underscores the need for Indianapolis to come together in a rampant and urgent way to counteract domestic violence," Carson said. "It's a scar that will never be healed by the children who witnessed it."
Inside the Deposition Game
Titillation aside, the real legal issue is what the two teams can use at trial
Newsweek
January 26, 1998
https://infoweb.newsbank.com/
ONLY PAULA JONE AND a few lawyers know exactly what President Clinton said under oath last Saturday. But it seems likely the lawyers mentioned a few famous names (perhaps Gennifer Flowers) and some obscure ones (like former White House aide Kathleen Willey). Jones's lawyers hope such witnesses will implicate Clinton in what attorneys call a "pattern and practice" of using government power for sexual predation. Jones also faces questions about her past. Spectacle and titillation aside, the real legal issue now is what charges about the alleged sexual histories of both Clinton and Jones will ultimately be allowed to be used in court.
It seems clear that anything as sweeping as "Have you ever committed adultery?" would be ruled out. But chances are that Clinton was - or soon will be - forced to answer intrusive questions about matters like charges that he helped Flowers, with whom he had an alleged affair, get a state job, and reported approaches to Willey and other women. That's because court rules give both sides fairly broad latitude, during this "discovery" phase, to fish not only for evidence that may be admissible at trial but also for any other information that "appears reasonably calculated to lead to the discovery of admissible evidence."
It also seems likely that at any trial more evidence will come in about Clinton's alleged philandering than about Jones's premarital conduct. One reason for this is that evidence that Clinton used the powers and perquisites of office to pursue women (as several Arkansas state troopers and others have claimed) would on its face be more relevant than would any promiscuity on Jones's part. Why? Because the central issue is whether the then governor sent his codefendant, trooper Danny Ferguson, to interrupt the then 23-year-old state worker on the job and deliver her to his hotel suite, where she says he propositioned her while reminding her of his power over her as her boss's boss. There would be a strong case for admitting any testimony by troopers that they were used as procurers in other instances, and a plausible case for admitting any testimony that Clinton rewarded alleged sex partners with jobs or other government benefits.
There's another reason Clinton may be working from a weaker legal position than Jones on this question. The federal rules of evidence were tilted in 1994 to make it harder for sexual-harassment defendants to explore or expose even clearly relevant episodes from their accusers' sexual pasts. A potential irony: Clinton pushed the amended Rule 412 through Congress as part of the Violence Against Women Act.
Ferguson's lawyers will apparently try to convince the judge that they have evidence showing Jones's sexual past to be so lurid as to support Ferguson's suggestion that Jones was the sexual aggressor, if there was one, and that in any event she could not have been very horrified even if Clinton did expose himself to her. But Rule 412 bars evidence "offered to prove the sexual behavior or sexual predisposition" of an alleged victim - plaintiff like Jones, unless "its probative value substantially outweighs the danger of harm [or] unfair prejudice" to her. Judge Susan Webber Wright - who got some of her legal training from onetime professor Bill Clinton - now has some very tough calls to make.
FOR ABUSED NON-CITIZENS, RECENT LAW MAY OFFER REFUGE
STATUTE SEVERS TIES TO ABUSERS, LETS VICTIMS GET RESIDENCY ON OWN
St. Paul Pioneer Press (MN)
January 26, 1998
https://infoweb.newsbank.com/
Lucinda had two choices: suffer more black eyes and bruises in silence, or risk deportation by reporting the abuse.
The 23-year-old undocumented immigrant and mother of three probably would have tolerated more punishment had it not been for her husband's escalating violence against their 2-year-old daughter. The father, an alcoholic, had turned his back on the girl at birth after learning she was a girl instead of a boy.
Lucinda (not her real name) made up her mind to act the day she discovered welts on the toddler's buttocks. Police were called. Cops may protect and serve, but they don't usually snitch on abuse victims like Lucinda. Her husband was prosecuted and locked up. It seemed to Lucinda she had no chance to raise her U.S.-born children here.
Only one person was legally qualified to serve as a sponsor in her quest for permanent residency - her husband, a legal U.S. resident. But the man had repeatedly used the threat of deportation to keep her in line, a common ploy in such abusive relationships.
But Lucinda may get a chance after all because of a little-known provision included in the Violence Against Women Act of 1994.
Described as ``self-petitioning,'' the law allows immigrant spouses of abusive U.S. citizens or legal residents to file for residency status on their own behalf. Although Congress passed the act in 1994, the special relief wasn't implemented until March 1996, after the Justice Department issued guidelines on its application.
It could take up to five years before Lucinda's request is resolved. In the meantime, the provision has allowed her to obtain a work permit and prevents her deportation while the review process is under way.
Battered women's advocates in Minnesota and elsewhere describe the 1994 immigration-relief provision as an incredibly important tool that encourages abused illegal immigrant spouses and children to report abuse. It also restores the first crucial step in seeking citizenship without having to depend on the abuser. The law could apply to an abused man, but all the applications filed so far have involved female victims.
``These women face more obstacles in addition to those faced by abused women who are U.S. residents,'' said Mary Schouveiller, a staff attorney at Centro Legal, a St. Paul-based agency that provides bilingual help and representation in general immigration and family law matters.
``Often, they are subjected to tremendous emotional and mental abuse, threatened with having their birth certificates, visas or other documents destroyed, prevented from learning English and cut off from other people. There was one man who kept such tight control over the finances that he shopped and bought bras for his wife to keep her from having any money.''
Tim Counts, spokesman for the regional office of the Immigration and Naturalization Service in Bloomington, said about 2,500 self-petition applications were filed nationally with the federal agency between October 1996 and September 1997. Local numbers could not be provided because all applications are forwarded to a central INS processing center in Burlington, Vt.
Leslye Orloff, founder of AYUDA, a Washington-based law referral and advocacy group for battered women, conducted initial research about the plight of abused immigrant women that helped push forward the legislation. Orloff said a substantial number of the applicants include immigrant wives of current and former U.S. servicemen. Mail-order brides are another large category.
``The applications are coming from everywhere across the country,'' said Orloff. ``They are coming from Iowa, Louisiana, Minnesota. ... You wouldn't think you'd find any in places like Wyoming, but we've had them from there.''
Maria Baldini, a staff attorney at the Immigrant Law Center in St. Paul, said her office has processed applications from women of Hmong, German as well as Sierra Leone descent.
Schouveiller has reviewed 25 cases and helped process about eight applications since September. She assisted Lucinda after the woman relocated to Minnesota from Southern California with her three children. She also helped the woman obtain an order of protection after her husband traveled to the Twin Cities following his release from prison and showed up at a place where she was staying.
Not all battered immigrant women are eligible, and there are pages of regulations and requirements. Among them are stipulations that applicants have to be married to the abuser at the time of filing, must have good moral character, must document the abuse through police reports, medical records or other methods, and also demonstrate that they would suffer extreme hardship if returned to their native land.
``The law does not give these women any special treatment or privilege,'' Schouveiller said. ``But what it does do is restore a first step denied them by the abuser. In some cases, this law can be a lifesaver.''
POWER AND CONTROL
Ways battered immigrant women can be abused.
Physical Abuse
Pushing, shoving, hitting, slapping, choking, pulling hair, punching, kicking, grabbing, using a weapon against her, beating, throwing her down, twisting arms, tripping, biting. Isolation
Isolating her from friends, family, or anyone who speaks her language. Not allowing her to elarn English.
Emotional Abuse
Lying about her immigration status. Writing her family lies about her. Calling her racist names.
Economic Abuse
Threatening to report her if she works "under the table." Not letting her get job training or schooling.
Sexual Abuse
Calling her a prostitute of "mail-order bride." Alleging she has a history of prostitution on legal papers.
Using Children
Threatening to take her children away from the U.S. Threatening to report her children to the INS.
Threats
Threatening to report her to the INS to get her deported. Threatening to withdraw the petition to legalize her immigration status.
Using citizenship or residency privilege
Fail to file papers to legalize her immigration status, withdraw or threaten to withdraw papers filed for her residency.
Intimidation
Hiding or destroying important papers (i.e. passport, ID cards, health care card, etc.) Destroying her only property from her country of origin.
DETAILS
For more information about the self-petition process under the Violence Against Women Act, call Centro Legal at (612) 642-1890 or (800) 245-5753, or the Immigrant Law Center at (612) 291-0110.
Ruben Rosario's public safety column appears Mondays. He can be reached at 228-5454 or by e-mail: rrosario@pioneerpress.com
BARNETTE CONVICTED OF KILLING TO KILL AGAIN
JURY TO DECIDE ON LIFE OR DEATH
Roanoke Times, The (VA)
January 28, 1998
https://infoweb.newsbank.com/
He may become the first to receive a death sentence in a case involving the Violence Against Women Act.
Aquilia Barnette killed so he could kill again, a jury decided Tuesday in convicting him of murdering a motorist and driving the car to Roanoke, where he shot his ex-girlfriend in the back for breaking up with him.
The jury will return to federal court Thursday to hear additional evidence before making a life-or-death decision in the trial's sentencing phase.
After deliberating about two hours, jurors convicted Barnette, 24, of all charges in an 11-count indictment that interwove a fatal domestic dispute in Roanoke with the random killing of an unsuspecting motorist in Charlotte.
Angry with Robin Williams for breaking off their relationship, Barnette armed himself with a sawed-off shotgun and waited at an intersection near his Charlotte home in the early hours of June 22, 1996.
When Donald Lee Allen, a 22-year-old mechanic on his way home from a night out in Charlotte happened by, he was ordered out of his car and shot three times by Barnette, the jury found.
Barnette then drove Allen's car to Roanoke, where he shot his way into Williams' mother's house, where Williams was staying. He chased Williams into the street and gunned her down. Williams had been living with her mother since Barnette firebombed her apartment the month before.
Tuesday's conviction hardly came as a surprise. Barnette had confessed twice to police and did not challenge damaging eyewitness testimony and physical evidence linking him to the stolen car and murder weapon.
Members of the Williams and Allen families, who filled the first two rows of the courtroom as they sat behind the prosecutor's table, sat quietly and showed little reaction as the verdicts were read - as did Barnette.
Bertha Williams, who had earlier given an emotional account of seeing Barnette kill her daughter - declined to comment as she left the court room.
After the government spent three days last week recounting Barnette's crime spree through 42 witnesses, the defense presented a case that lasted about one minute.
Defense attorney George Laughrun called no witnesses, but told the jury that the deaths of Allen and Williams could have been prevented.
As evidence of that, Laughrun submitted copies of Teletype communications between Roanoke and Charlotte police that documented a bungled attempt to find Barnette after he was charged with firebombing Williams' Roanoke apartment nearly two months before the killings.
Charlotte police have said they sent an officer to look for Barnette at his mother's home and could not find the address - even though records presented during the trial showed that they had responded to calls at the same address more than 20 times in the past. After the murders, Barnette was arrested at the home.
"This tragedy was compounded by the negligence of my and your police department," Laughrun told the jury in U.S. District Court in Charlotte.
But if there was one person who could have prevented the killings and chose not to, the government countered, it was Barnette himself.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Thomas Walker told the jury that the case boiled down to a man who was willing to kill when he didn't get his way.
Already angry that Williams had broken up with him, Barnette became incensed when he learned that a friend was staying with her at her Keswick Avenue apartment the night of April 30, 1996.
In a statement that was tape-recorded before her death and played to the jury, Williams described how Barnette smashed her apartment windows with a baseball bat, then yelled "die, bdie" after tossing a Molotov cocktail through the front door. Williams was badly burned and had to escape by leaping through a second-story window.
But that incident "only whetted the defendant's appetite for blood," Walker told the jury in his closing arguments. "It only increased his intent to cause the death of Robin Williams." In addition to charges of arson, carjacking and murder, Barnette was also convicted of violating the Violence Against Women Act. The law, passed by Congress in 1994 to make crossing state lines to commit domestic abuse a federal offense, was instrumental in having Barnette tried in Charlotte for offenses that happened in Roanoke. Had Barnette been tried on state charges in Roanoke, he would not have faced a death sentence that federal prosecutors are seeking.
As the trial now enters the sentencing phase, Barnette stands the chance of becoming the first person in the nation to receive a death sentence in a prosecution involving the Violence Against Women Act, according to Assistant U.S. Attorney Bob Conrad.
Laughrun and co-counsel Paul Williams, who have said their only goal is to get the jury to spare Barnette's life, plan to present evidence of his mental problems and troubled background. The government has called witnesses to testify about Barnette's previous criminal record in a sentencing phase that is expected to continue into next week.
So far, prosecutors have focused their case on what Barnette did to Williams and Allen.
"This is the defendant who reduced Donald Allen to this," Walker told jurors as he showed them two photographs - one a smiling portrait taken of the 22-year-old before his death, the second a gruesome autopsy photograph.
"This is the defendant who reduced Robin Williams to this," he said, doing the same thing with two photographs of her.
"He is guilty as the day is long of each and every count in the indictment."
KIDNAP SUSPECT IS CAPTURED
BABY, MOTHER RESCUED AFTER STANDOFF
Worcester Telegram & Gazette (MA)
January 30, 1998
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FITCHBURG - A man who allegedly kidnapped his 8-week-old son and the boy's teen-age mother in Fitchburg Wednesday night was arrested yesterday afternoon in Manchester, N.H., after a two-hour standoff with police.
The mother and child were released unharmed.
Fitchburg Police Capt. Charles M. Tasca said David Castellanos, 22, of Fitchburg, was arrested without incident about 3 p.m. yesterday in an apartment at 180 Beach St., Manchester, by Manchester police. He said the mother, 17-year-old Madeline Mendoza, and her son, Isaiah Mendoza, were with Castellanos.
"The mother and child were taken to an area hospital and examined, to be on the safe side. There were no signs of injury," Tasca said.
Castellanos is facing federal charges of kidnapping and violating the violence against women act. He was being held last night at Manchester police headquarters. He is scheduled to appear in U.S. District Court in Concord, N.H., today.
LICENSE PLATE
Police got a break in the case when Fitchburg detectives Peter A. Kymalainen and Kenneth B. Maynard traced the license plate number of a minivan used in the alleged kidnapping to Efrain Sierra of Plymouth Street, Fitchburg, Tasca said.
Sierra, owner of the Plymouth Voyager van, was found by Kymalainen and Maynard yesterday at his workplace in the Fitchburg area, Tasca said. Tasca said Sierra told police he drove Castellanos, Mendoza and their son in the van to a motel in Manchester Wednesday night.
Tasca said Sierra was not arrested because he claimed he knew nothing about the alleged abduction.
"He maintained to our detectives that he saw nothing to cause him concern," Tasca said. "Admittedly, as hard as that is to believe, we have nothing right now to dispute what he's saying."
Fitchburg police contacted Manchester police, who went to the motel, but Castellanos, Mendoza and the boy were gone, Tasca said. Investigators later determined the three were at the Beach Street apartment, and Castellanos was arrested after a standoff that lasted more than two hours, according to Manchester police.
Manchester Police Chief Mark Driscoll said Castellanos was armed with a shotgun and pistol, but no shots were fired.
KIDNAP REPORT
The investigation, with help from the FBI, began Wednesday night when relatives of Mendoza reported she and her son had been kidnapped.
Mendoza broke up with Castellanos soon after she became pregnant and has an active restraining order against Castellanos, through July 13, from Fitchburg District Court. He has been charged with violating the order at least three times, including on Jan. 8, when he allegedly hassled Mendoza during school. She is a senior at Fitchburg High School.
Mendoza and Isaiah live with her mother, Mendoza's three siblings and Mendoza's grandmother in a cramped apartment on the edge of downtown. The family is planning to move in the coming weeks, mainly to get away from Castellanos, said Mayra L. Castro, 36, Mendoza's mother.
Castellanos' motive appeared to be anger over not being allowed to see his child. His anger erupted at 10:30 Wednesday night as Mendoza and some of her family watched the Spanish channel.
Castro, her youngest daughter, Miosoty Mendoza, 13, were interviewed yesterday before Castellanos' arrest. They and police gave the following account of what occurred at the apartment:
Castellanos kicked in the windowless door to the kitchen and stormed into the apartment, brandishing what appeared to be a 9 mm handgun. Madeline Mendoza, who was holding Isaiah, ran to a back bedroom, where there is a door leading outside. Castellanos followed, yelling at the other family members.
As Madeline Mendoza ran outside, Castro tried to tackle Castellanos. "I tried to fight with him so my daughter could run," she said.
Castellanos struck Castro with the butt of the gun. She was hit in the upper lip and fell onto the bed of the back bedroom. Four of Castro's teeth were loosened. Yesterday afternoon, more than 12 hours after the attack, her lip was swollen and her face bruised.
Miosoty Mendoza said: "When she fell on the bed, he said, "You move, I'll kill you.' "
After the confrontation with Castro, Castellanos ran outside, where Madeline Mendoza was holding Isaiah.
"My daughter was screaming, "Let me go, let me go,' " Castro said. "He pushed her to the ground, with the baby. She fell on top of him. I don't know if he's (Isaiah) dead or what."
During the confrontation outside, Tasca said, Sierra drove up in the minivan.
Castellanos then forced Mendoza into the minivan with the baby. "He put the gun to her head and made her get in," Castro said.
WITHOUT DIAPERS
Authorities and the family feared the baby was hurt. The baby was wearing only a jumper when taken, and was without diapers and formula. Miosoty Mendoza clutched a diaper bag yesterday as she worried about her nephew.
Tasca said police do not believe Castellanos has relatives in Manchester, but said he possibly has friends in the city, which is about 30 miles northeast of Fitchburg.
Manchester Police Chief Driscoll said his officers did not know specifically where to look for Castellanos after checking the motel.
"Our officers checked a number of places and found him there (the Beach Street apartment)," he said. "We realized he had a firearm and backed off, called out the appropriate people - both state, federal and municipal - and all worked out well. We're very pleased."
Residents of the apartment building were evacuated and police closed off a two-block area and delayed dismissal at a nearby elementary school until the standoff was over. Several police officers, including one who spoke Spanish, were sent into the building and persuaded Castellanos to surrender, police said.
Castellanos, whose last known address is 47 Pacific St., Fitchburg, has a history of arrests, including on May 5, after a friend fired a gun from a car in which Castellanos was a passenger. Castellanos was convicted of assault and battery with a dangerous weapon.
After a two-month stay in jail, Castellanos made repeated attempts to talk with Mendoza, in violation of a restraining order, according to court records. Mendoza obtained the order after she broke up with Castellanos and he became abusive, her family said.
BROKE INTO APARTMENT
On July 10, days before the current order was extended, he broke into Mendoza's apartment on Goodwin Street and tried to drag her away, according to records. Mendoza was four months pregnant at the time. She had broken up with Castellanos a month earlier, according to her sister.
When Mendoza wouldn't go with him, Castellanos took the Mendozas' cat. Police later found the cat at Castellanos' apartment on Pacific Street, but Castellanos was nowhere to be found. He was picked up days later and returned to jail.
On Jan. 8, out of jail, Castellanos hassled Mendoza while she was at the Montachusett YMCA on Wallace Avenue. Mendoza was at the Y as part of a children's literature class at Fitchburg High School, according to Principal Bernard J. Welch. The students read books to children, Welch said.
The police were called, but Castellanos was gone when they arrived. A day later, he confronted Madeline Mendoza and her mother on Mount Vernon Street, near their apartment, court records show. He demanded to see his child and threatened to kill Mendoza, according to the records.
Police, armed with an arrest warrant, caught up with Castellanos Jan. 12. He was arraigned the next day, on the two restraining order violations and on a motor vehicle warrant out of Wrentham District Court. Castellanos pleaded not guilty to the charges, and was free hours later when a friend posted $500 cash bail.
Tasca said Castellanos will be brought back to Massachusetts to face possible charges of kidnapping, home invasion, assault and battery, illegal possession of a firearm, and violation of a restraining order. He said Castellanos' return could be delayed if he decides to fight rendition.
Accused Kidnapper Could Get 40 Years
Fitchburg, Mass., Man Charged Under Federal Violence Act
New Hampshire Union Leader / New Hampshire Sunday News
January 31, 1998
https://infoweb.newsbank.com/
CONCORD - David Castellanos, 22, of Fitchburg, Mass., told a U.S. District Court judge yesterday he had no money to defend himself against federal charges arising from the gunpoint kidnapping of his ex-girlfriend and their baby son.
Castellanos was arrested Thursday in Manchester when a police special reaction team and federal officers surrounded the Beech Street tenement where he was holding 17-year-old Madeline Mendoza of Fitchburg and her son Isaiah, 8 weeks.
Castellanos, in court for a first appearance yesterday, faces charges of kidnapping, illegal use of a firearm and violating the Violence Against Women Act, federal officials said.
As a federal detainee for a federal crime, Castellanos can be held up to three business days without bail.
Judge Stephen McAuliffe ordered him to return Wednesday for a detention hearing. On Feb. 9, the government will have to show at an evidentiary hearing that there is cause to hold him.
Assistant U.S. Attorney David Vicinanzo, who heads the criminal division, said Castellanos' actions meet the two criteria for domestic violence under the Violence Against Women Act because it involves a family relationship he is the father of the child and the incident was a violent one.
The federal prosecutor said both the kidnapping charge and federal domestic violence count carry possible prison terms of 20 years. Thus, Castellanos, if convicted, could get a 40-year sentence, depending on whether he has a criminal record and other factors.
Castellanos was represented in court yesterday by Assistant Federal Defender Bjorn Lange.
The judge observed that Castellanos reported having no assets and considerable expenses, but his wages, earned chroming automobiles, "seem quite high."
Through his Spanish interpreter, Castellanos said, "What I do have I give to her ... my wife," meaning Mendoza. The interpreter, Frank Geoffrion, said afterwards the Spanish word "mujer" can mean woman or wife, and Castellanos views the victim as his wife.
In Fitchburg, police allege Castellanos pistol-whipped Mendoza's mother, Mayra Castro, 36, in her apartment, then forced the teenager and the baby to leave with him.
Police reports said Castellanos gave Castro a blow on the mouth with a gun, causing heavy bleeding, according to Vicinanzo.
Castellanos allegedly took Mendoza and the baby from Fitchburg to a Manchester hotel and then to the third-floor apartment at 180 Beech St. He was on the run from authorities with the mother and child for nearly 18 hours.
After a two-hour police standoff at the Manchester apartment, Castellanos was coaxed out by a Spanish-speaking officer.
Mendoza and the baby were not visibly harmed during their hours of captivity, authorities said.
KIDNAP SUSPECT HELD WITHOUT BAIL
Worcester Telegram & Gazette (MA)
February 5, 1998
https://infoweb.newsbank.com/
CONCORD, N.H. - Kidnapping suspect David Castellanos of Fitchburg waived his right yesterday to a detention hearing in U.S. District Court.
As a result, he will continue to be held without bail in Hillsboro County Jail pending a probable cause hearing scheduled for Monday, according to Assistant U.S. Attorney Jennifer Cole.
Castellanos is accused of kidnapping his ex-girlfriend and their 8-week-old son at gunpoint last week in Fitchburg. Police said Castellanos took 17-year-old Madeline Mendoza and the baby, Isaiah Mendoza, to Manchester, where he was captured after a two-hour standoff with police.
The FBI, which was brought into the investigation because Mendoza and her son were allegedly taken across a state line unwillingly, has filed a complaint against Castellanos charging him with kidnapping. The charge carries a sentence of 20 years to life imprisonment.
Castellanos has not been formally charged in the case. He will likely be arraigned on Monday.
In addition to kidnapping, federal authorities have said they plan to charge Castellanos with violation of the 1994 Violence Against Women Act, which carries a maximum penalty of 20 years in prison.
According to the FBI and Fitchburg police, Castellanos broke through the door of Mendoza's Fitchburg apartment the night of Jan. 28 and forced her and the baby into a waiting minivan. The van was driven by a friend of Castellanos, Efrin Sierra, 21, of Plymouth Street, Fitchburg, who has not been charged in the case, authorities said.
With help from Sierra, police found Castellanos, Mendoza and the child in a Manchester apartment. The woman and baby were not harmed.
Federal appeals court to consider Virginia Tech rape lawsuit
Associated Press Archive
February 7, 1998
https://infoweb.newsbank.com/
A federal appeals court has agreed to consider the case of a woman who said she was raped by two Virginia Tech football players.
In December, a panel of the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled 2-1 that Christy Brzonkala should get a trial on her claims against the university and the two men. The panel also upheld the constitutionality of the law on which the lawsuit was based, the 1994 Violence Against Women Act.
The Virginia attorney general, representing the school, asked the full appellate court to hear the case. The court agreed on Thursday, setting oral arguments for March 3.
The law allows victims of gender-based crimes to sue their attackers in federal court for civil rights violations. Brzonkala was the first to sue under the law. An Iowa woman later filed a similar lawsuit, which is pending in another federal appeals court.
Many observers expect the U.S. Supreme Court to take a case involving the law to decide its constitutionality.
"We're regarding this as a dress rehearsal for our arguments in Washington," said Eileen Wagner, an attorney for Brzonkala, who has asked that her name be used in stories about the case.
U.S. District Judge Jackson Kiser of Roanoke threw out Brzonkala's lawsuit last year, ruling that Congress exceeded its authority in passing the civil rights provision of the law.
Brzonkala accuses Antonio Morrison and James Crawford of raping her in a dorm in 1994, a few months after the law took effect. She didn't report it for several months and no criminal charges were filed. Morrison and Crawford later left the football team.
The lawsuit said the school protected the two because they were members of the football team.
SOLDIER IS INDICTED IN WOMAN'S SLAYING
Lexington Herald-Leader (KY)
February 7, 1998
https://infoweb.newsbank.com/
PADUCAH - A federal grand jury indicted a Fort Campbell soldier on charges of violating federal domestic violence laws in the shooting death of his former girlfriend.
The U.S. attorney's office in Louisville said the case would be the first prosecution of the 1994 Violence Against Women Act in the Western District of Kentucky.
The grand jury indicted William Albert Coffin, 30, on charges of interstate domestic violence, interstate violation of a protective order, and carrying or using a firearm to commit the crimes.
If convicted, Coffin could face the death penalty.
Coffin, of Clarksville, Tenn., is scheduled to be arraigned Feb. 20 in Paducah before a U.S. magistrate.
The indictment returned Thursday alleges that on or about Dec. 3, Coffin traveled from Montgomery County, Tenn., to Christian County, Ky., and committed an act of domestic violence against Laronda Marie Spence.
Coffin allegedly went to Spence's residence in Oak Grove and shot her several times with a .45-caliber handgun, killing her. Prior to the shooting, Coffin had been directed by Christian County District Court not to have any contact with Spence.
Coffin reportedly had a copy of the order in his pocket when he was arrested on a state murder charge just after the shooting.
Spence was on the phone with a state social services representative at the time of the shooting, discussing an upcoming court hearing.
Authorities said Coffin's and Spence's 17-month-old daughter was in the mobile home at the time of the shooting but was unharmed.
Grand Jury Indicts Man for Kidnapping
New Hampshire Union Leader / New Hampshire Sunday News (Manchester, NH)
February 7, 1998
https://infoweb.newsbank.com/
CONCORD - A federal grand jury has returned a six-count indictment against David Castellanos, the Massachusetts man who allegedly kidnapped his ex-girlfriend and baby son last month for 17 hours.
Castellanos yesterday pleaded not guilty to all charges in U.S. District Court.
The 22-year-old man from Fitchburg, Mass., gave up to authorities Jan. 29 after they surrounded the 180 Beech St. apartment in Manchester where he was hiding.
His ex-girlfriend, Madeline Mendoza, 17, and 8-week-old son, Isaiah were released unharmed.
He was indicted on charges of kidnapping, being a felon in possession of a firearm, and unlawful use of a firearm during a crime of violence, the U.S. Attorney's Office said.
Castellanos was also indicted with three charges under the federal 1996 Violence Against Women Act: unlawful possession of a firearm after being convicted of domestic violence; interstate travel to avoid a protection order; and interstate domestic violence.
Under the 1996 law, people convicted of even misdemeanor assault charges against a family member or intimate are barred from ever owning a firearm. Castellanos is being held without bail pending his April 7 trial appearance before U.S. Magistrate Judge James C. Muirhead.
TECH PLAYERS FINALLY WILL FACE ACCUSER
CASE HAS CONSTITUTIONAL IMPLICATIONS
Roanoke Times, The (VA)
February 7, 1998
https://infoweb.newsbank.com/
A three-judge panel's ruling that reinstated Christy Brzonkala's lawsuit against Virginia Tech and two football players has been set aside, as the entire 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals agreed to hear her appeal.
A three-judge panel from the 4th Circuit ruled 2-1 in December that Brzonkala should get a trial on her claims against Tech and two football players she says raped her. The three-judge panel also ruled that the Violence Against Women Act that she sued the players under was constitutional, overturning U.S. District Judge Jackson Kiser's decision.
The Virginia attorney general's office, representing Tech, asked the full appellate court to hear the case again after the December ruling. The court agreed on Thursday, setting oral arguments for March 3 in Richmond.
"The majority of the court thinks the issue needs to be addressed by the full panel," said David Paxton, a Roanoke attorney representing football player Tony Morrison. "I really think we're going to win."
The Violence Against Women Act, which makes gender-motivated crimes a civil rights issue, has been attacked by critics as going beyond Congress' authority to pass federal laws. Many observers expect the U.S. Supreme Court to take a case involving the law at some point to decide its constitutionality.
"We're regarding this as a dress rehearsal for our arguments in Washington," said Brzonkala's attorney, Eileen Wagner.
The appellate court agreed to hear both claims in Brzonkala's appeal - the Violence Against Women Act against the players and Title IX discrimination by Tech.
Her lawsuit claims that Tech mishandled the campus judicial proceedings against the players and protected them because they were members of the winning football team, thereby discriminating against her because she was a woman. Schools that receive federal funds are forbidden from discriminating on the basis of sex.
JURY SAYS BARNETTE SHOULD DIE
IT'S THE FIRST DEATH SENTENCE INVOLVING THE VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN ACT
Roanoke Times, The (VA)
February 11, 1998
https://infoweb.newsbank.com/
Aquilia Barnette turned and told the families of his victims: ``I've stared in your eyes and I've felt your pain.'' Prosecutors questioned the sincerity of his apology.
Aquilia Barnette must die, a jury decided Tuesday as it imposed the nation's first death sentence in a case involving the Violence Against Women Act.
The verdict ended a month-long trial that recounted how Barnette killed so he could kill again - ambushing and murdering an unsuspecting motorist at a Charlotte intersection, driving the stolen car to Roanoke and shooting his ex-girlfriend in the back for breaking up with him.
Barnette took the news of his impending execution calmly, almost eagerly.
"If they want my life, that's fine," he said, gesturing to federal prosecutors. "Because I don't know if I want to keep my life, because it shouldn't have happened." Barnette has never denied killing Donald Lee Allen, 22, of South Carolina and Robin Williams, 23, of Roanoke during a two-month crime spree that ended June 22, 1996.
The only question for a jury in U.S. District Court in Charlotte was whether "mitigating circumstances" in his life - including a history of abuse and exposure to domestic violence - outweighed the random, brutal and calculated way the killings were committed.
The theory that Barnette's mental problems played a role in his crimes was soundly rejected; only one juror indicated on the verdict form that the defendant's upbringing and resulting problems should mitigate against a death verdict.
Barnette is the 17th person to receive a federal death sentence since Congress reinstated capital punishment for federal crimes in 1988. And he is the first person sentenced to death in a case arising from the Violence Against Women Act, a 1994 federal law that has received considerable attention in Roanoke.
Those distinctions seemed to be of secondary importance to the families of Allen and Williams, who sat through the trial in a vigil for justice.
"I felt like the system wasn't going to work for me," said Bertha Williams, who has questioned why police were unable to arrest Barnette in the month between the night he firebombed her daughter's Roanoke apartment and the day he gunned her down on Loudon Avenue Northwest.
"But now it looks like the system has worked," she said. "Now my baby can rest."
When the jury completed seven hours of deliberations over two days late Tuesday afternoon, Judge Robert Potter prolonged the suspense by asking to see the jurors in his chambers, where they reviewed the 48-page verdict form.
When lawyers returned to the courtroom, the verdict was displayed on the face of defense attorney Paul Williams as clearly as it was on paper. A grim-faced Williams looked directly at Barnette and his family members who sat in the front row behind him and shook his head "no."
While Barnette took the news with little emotion, several members of Allen's family jolted in their seats as the first death sentence - for Allen's murder - was announced. One man pumped his fist as two other death sentences - for the carjacking of Allen and the murder of Williams - were then read.
Before Potter imposed the death sentence, he asked if Barnette cared to break the silence he had maintained throughout the case.
Barnette rose, turned to face the families of his victims, and told them: "I've stared in your eyes and I've felt your pain I hurt. This shouldn't have happened; none of it should have happened. I'm ashamed of myself."
Turning to Williams, he told her: "Bertha, I loved your daughter more than anything in this world, and it hurts me that she is not here. It hurts."
"They sentenced me to death; that's fine," he continued. "The worst thing they could have done is sentence me to life, because I live every day in a little block and think about what I did.
"I can't and will never ask you to forgive me, because I don't deserve to be forgiven. I would never ask you for mercy, because I don't deserve it. Regardless of what my attorneys have tried to do, I've agreed with the prosecution on a lot of stuff, because I was wrong."
Testimony during the trial showed that Barnette's rage at Robin Williams for breaking up with him fueled an interstate crime spree. He was convicted of firebombing her apartment in April 1996, forcing her to leap from a second-story window after she had been severely burned.
Then, on the night of June 22, 1996, Barnette felt "his anger take over," he later said in a confession to police. Dressed in black and gripping a sawed-off shotgun with a flashlight taped to the barrel, he walked to an intersection near his Charlotte home in search of a way to get to Williams.
When Allen stopped at the intersection, Barnette ordered him out of the car at gunpoint, led him to a drainage ditch and shot him three times in the back as the 22-year-old begged for his life.
Barnette then drove Allen's car to Roanoke, where he used the same shotgun to blast through Williams' London Avenue home, chase her into the street and shoot her in the back as her mother watched in horror.
Federal prosecutors questioned the sincerity of Barnette's apologies, suggesting that he had not been entirely truthful in his confessions and that his only remorse was for his own fate. The government last week called a psychologist who characterized Barnette as a psychopath who had killed with no feeling and was capable of killing again.
Scott Duncan, a psychologist for the federal Bureau of Prisons, testified that he was particularly struck by something that happened during his evaluation of Barnette. Just as Barnette was beginning to describe his crimes, prison officials delivered his lunch to him.
Barnette continued to describe the killings in great detail, Duncan said, "and at the same time he was not missing a bite on his bologna and cheese sandwich."
Throughout the interview, Duncan said, "if you were not careful, you would walk away from the conversation thinking that you had just had a conversation about a football game."
That testimony was in direct contradiction to the opinions of psychologists called by the defense. They said Barnette was not a future danger, but someone whose ability to reason at the time of the killings had been impaired by mental problems stemming from his abusive upbringing.
Barnette "saw domestic violence live and in person," defense attorney George Laughrun told the jury in his closing arguments.
"Is that an excuse for what happened? Absolutely not. But it's a reason for what happened."
MAN ACCUSED OF KILLING GIRLFRIEND TO BE TRIED ON FEDERAL CHARGES
Lexington Herald-Leader (KY)
February 13, 1998
https://infoweb.newsbank.com/
HOPKINSVILLE - William Albert Coffin, indicted by a Christian County grand jury for allegedly killing his former girlfriend, will be tried in federal court on other charges.
By shifting the case to the federal system, officials said Coffin faces a longer sentence.
Last week, Coffin became one of the first defendants in the U.S. District Court at Paducah to be charged under the Violence Against Women Act that Congress adopted in 1994 as part of the Crime Bill.
A federal grand jury indicted Coffin on charges of interstate domestic violence, interstate violation of a protective order and carrying or using a firearm to commit the crimes.
If convicted in federal court, Coffin could face life in prison.
The charges stem from the Dec. 3, 1997, shooting of Laronda Spence, 24.
Coffin, 30, a Fort Campbell soldier who lived in Clarksville, Tenn., is accused of crossing the state line with a .45-caliber pistol and then going to Spence's mobile home in Oak Grove.
Spence was shot several times through the doorway. She was the mother of Coffin's 17-month-old child, who was in the mobile home at the time of the shooting.
Commonwealth's Attorney John Atkins said the victim's family supports his decision to turn the case over to the federal court.
He said, "We are going to wait and see what happens, but I expect I will dismiss the murder charge."
SEQUENCE OF EVENTS VOIDS VIOLENCE CONVICTION
Plain Dealer, The (Cleveland, OH)
February 14, 1998
https://infoweb.newsbank.com/
If a man beats his girlfriend before they begin a trip across state lines he cannot be prosecuted under a 4-year-old federal domestic violence law, a federal appeals court ruled this week.
The 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals decided Thursday, by a 2-1 vote, to send the case of Derek Page back to U.S. District Court in Columbus for retrial.
A jury found Page guilty of the federal domestic violence charge in the beating of his live-in girlfriend, Carla Scrivens, in his Columbus condominium in 1995. He then drove her to Pennsylvania and dropped her off at a hospital for treatment.
He was prosecuted under the Violence Against Women Act of 1994, which forbids interstate travel for the purpose of committing domestic violence or committing domestic violence during such travel.
The appeals court said the law did not apply to domestic violence that occurred before interstate travel.
A jury acquitted Page of kidnapping but found him guilty of domestic violence. He was sentenced to four years and nine months in prison.
Page appealed, saying that even though he took Scrivens to Pennsylvania, he should not have been convicted of domestic violence under federal law because the alleged beating took place entirely in Ohio.
Page contended that prosecutors had to prove that a separate act of violence occurred during or as a result of interstate travel.
The appeals court agreed.
"We must enforce the statute according to the words that Congress actually adopted and not according to our own view of what might be a better or more comprehensive statutory policy on domestic violence against women," wrote Judge Gilbert Merritt. "This narrowing means that domestic violence occurring before such travel ... must be excluded."
Prosecutors said that after the couple argued, Page sprayed Scrivens with pepper spray and beat her with his fists, a claw hammer and a pipe wrench.
About two hours later, Page carried Scrivens to his car and drove her to Washington, Pa., where he left her in the emergency room of a hospital, they said.
Prosecutors said Page forced Scrivens to go with him by threatening her with further violence and with a stun gun. They also said that during the drive, Page made additional threats and that her injuries worsened through bleeding and swelling.
Page's lawyer, Thomas Tyack of Columbus, did not return a call to his office seeking comment. U.S. Attorney Sharon J. Zealey said through a spokesman that she had not decided whether to appeal the decision.
FEDERAL LAW IS ON TRIAL IN VA. TECH RAPE LAWSUIT
Daily Press (Newport News, VA)
March 4, 1998
https://infoweb.newsbank.com/
A lawyer for two former Virginia Tech football players sued by a woman who claims they raped her told a federal appeals court Tuesday that Congress exceeded its authority in passing the Violence Against Women Act.
Lawyers for Christy Brzonkala, however, argued that Congress passed the law to protect the civil rights of women. Congress' constitutional ability to pass such legislation is based on the clause that gives Congress powers over interstate commerce.
``Congress ... found that such violence is a direct, substantial obstacle to women participating in the economy. ... It is an obstacle between women and the workplace,'' said Mark Stern of the U.S. Department of Justice, which is defending the law.
Michael E. Rosman of the National Center for Individual Rights, attorney for the former players, said the Constitution does not allow Congress to regulate activity that is clearly not commercial.
``This conduct does not have a substantive link to interstate commerce,'' he said.
Brzonkala alleges that Antonio Morrison and James Crawford raped her in a dorm in 1994, a few months after passage of the Violence Against Women Act that allows women to sue their alleged attackers. She did not report the alleged attack for several months, and no criminal charges were filed. Morrison and Crawford later left the team.
Brzonkala's lawsuit also claims that Virginia Tech mishandled the campus judicial proceedings against the players and protected them because they were members of the football team, thereby discriminating against her because she was a woman. Schools that receive federal funds are forbidden from discriminating on the basis of sex.
A lower court threw out the lawsuit, ruling the law unconstitutional. A three-judge panel of the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals reinstated the suit, upholding the validity of the law. The state attorney general's office, which is representing Virginia Tech, asked for Tuesday's hearing before the full court.
The judges asked Brzonkala's lawyers whether Congress was usurping the states' role under the guise of interstate commerce.
Using the same logic, Congress could pass a national divorce or child-support law arguing the same impact on interstate commerce, Judge J. Harvie Wilkinson III asked.
Julie Goldscheid of the National Organization for Women's Legal Defense and Education Fund said the law was to protect the civil rights of women and offers a limited and specific remedy as opposed to broad, general police powers.
William H. Hurd of the state attorney general's office said Virginia Tech could not be held liable for the actions of students against other students. ``The sexual discrimination had no connection with any program of Virginia Tech's. There is no liability for her dissatisfaction with Virginia Tech's handling of the matter.''
Brzonkala was the first alleged sexual assault victim to sue under the law. An Iowa woman later filed a similar lawsuit that is pending in another federal appeals court.
The 4th Circuit could take months to decide the matter.
Feminists shouldn't be standing by Clinton
Daily Gazette, The (Schenectady, NY)
Author/Byline: BRENDAN J. BROWN
April 1, 1998
https://infoweb.newsbank.com/
What is happening to the feminists and women's organizations in this country? All of a sudden, they have this phantom laryngitis. Why are they not standing by their sisters when they really need them?
When Anita Hill made her accusations against Clarence Thomas, the news media were saturated with their slanted views against him. The Violence Against Women Act was signed into law in 1994 by President Clinton himself; what it does is protect women victims against sexual misconduct by men.
Patricia Ireland, is it not convenient for your organization, the National Organization for Women, to stand by these women who have been sexually harassed at their workplace by Mr. Clinton?
It's very hard for your average citizen to have an objective view of the women's movements in this county when you get such lopsided views by their leaders. As far as I am concerned, their organizations remind me of the rattlesnake that bit its own tail.
It's true that the majority of the people have no problem with morality problems the president is having, as long as the economy is good. What I say is, of course the economy is good; if you and your spouse don't mind working two jobs each. If you're lucky, you may get to see your children on weekends.
BRENDAN J. BROWN, Schenectady
Immigrant seeks legal residency to get away from violent husband
Arlington Morning News (TX)
May 5, 1998
https://infoweb.newsbank.com/
Idolina Chavez said all she wants to do is protect herself and her young daughter from the violent estranged husband who has been stalking her for more than a year and a half.
Last week, Ms. Chavez, a 28-year-old undocumented immigrant from Mexico, appeared before a Dallas immigration judge to start the process she hopes eventually will allow her to remain in this country legally - apart from her husband.
Earlier this year, when Ms. Chavez appeared in court to testify that her husband had threatened her with a gun, it was she who ended up behind bars.
"Two immigration officers came up and told me I couldn't go into the courtroom. They put handcuffs on me and didn't let me tell my story to the judge," Ms. Chavez said. "Instead, they led me away as my husband remained free, laughing at me. He had always told me he would call immigration on me if I tried to get away from him."
Neither her husband, Aldo Rodriguez - who has been indicted on charges of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon in connection with an attack on Ms. Chavez - nor his court-appointed attorney could be reached for comment.
Ms. Chavez's attorney, Fernando Dubove, denounced the "cowboy tactics" of the immigration officers.
"You don't make the country safer by arresting the person who is without papers but allow the criminal to go free," Mr. Dubove said.
Lynn Ligon, spokesman for the Immigration and Naturalization Service in Dallas, said the officers did nothing wrong.
"We did what we were supposed to do, and that is, we apprehended an undocumented alien and we tried to ensure justice would be served," he said. He noted that Ms. Chavez was allowed to post bail so she could continue the criminal complaint against her husband.
Prosecutors with the Dallas County district attorney's office declined to discuss the case.
On Tuesday, Ms. Chavez appeared before Immigration Judge Edwin Hughes and filed a request under the federal Violence Against Women Act of 1994 asking that she be allowed to become a legal resident so she can be with her 8-year-old daughter, who is a U.S. citizen.
The request will be considered by INS officials. Ms. Chavez's full deportation hearing has been set for October.
Under the law, immigrants who are married to U.S. citizens or legal residents can "self-petition" for permanent residency if they can prove that they are the victims of domestic abuse and that their deportation would create a hardship for themselves or an immediate relative.
"This situation is exactly the kind of case the law was written for," Mr. Dubove said. "Part of the abuse that happens is that a spouse, usually the husband, will threaten to turn the wife in to the INS unless she does exactly as he says."
Ms. Chavez said her husband is a legal permanent resident. She says the only time she asked him about applying for her legal papers, he accused her of marrying him only for immigration purposes.
"So I just dropped it because that wasn't why I married him. I thought since I had lived here this long without papers, I could continue to do so," she said.
Ms. Chavez said she has been in the United States since 1989 and that she married Mr. Rodriguez in March 1996.
Her husband moved out in October of 1996, Ms. Chavez said, but attempted to return a couple of months later.
Ms. Chavez said that when she refused, he became violent.
She said that he has tried to force his way into her apartment numerous times since then. Mr. Dubove, her attorney, presented Carrollton police reports to back up her story.
In May 1997, Ms. Chavez said, Mr. Rodriguez tried to beat her when she arrived home late one night from a party. A male friend of hers intervened, but Ms. Chavez said her husband returned with a gun and threatened to kill her.
She reported the incident to police, and he was indicted on charges of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon.
Woman seeks residency to protect daughter, self
INS arrested her before spousal abuse testimony
Dallas Morning News, The (TX)
May 5, 1998
https://infoweb.newsbank.com/
Idolina Chavez said all she wants to do is protect herself and her young daughter from the violent estranged husband who has been stalking her for more than a year and a half.
Last week, Ms. Chavez, a 28-year-old undocumented immigrant from Mexico, appeared before a Dallas immigration judge to start the process she hopes eventually will allow her to remain in this country legally - apart from her husband.
Earlier this year, when Ms. Chavez appeared in court to testify that her husband had threatened her with a gun, it was she who ended up behind bars.
"Two immigration officers came up and told me I couldn't go into the courtroom. They put handcuffs on me and didn't let me tell my story to the judge," Ms. Chavez said. "Instead, they led me away as my husband remained free, laughing at me. He had always told me he would call immigration on me if I tried to get away from him."
Neither her husband, Aldo Rodriguez - who has been indicted on charges of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon in connection with an attack on Ms. Chavez - nor his court-appointed attorney could be reached for comment.
Ms. Chavez's attorney, Fernando Dubove, denounced the "cowboy tactics" of the immigration officers.
"You don't make the country safer by arresting the person who is without papers but allow the criminal to go free," Mr. Dubove said.
Lynn Ligon, spokesman for the Immigration and Naturalization Service in Dallas, said the officers did nothing wrong.
"We did what we were supposed to do, and that is, we apprehended an undocumented alien and we tried to ensure justice would be served," he said. He noted that Ms. Chavez was allowed to post bond so she could continue the criminal complaint against her husband.
Prosecutors with the Dallas County district attorney's office declined to discuss the case.
On Tuesday, Ms. Chavez appeared before Immigration Judge Edwin Hughes and filed a request under the federal Violence Against Women Act of 1994 asking that she be allowed to become a legal resident so she can be with her 8-year-old daughter, who is a U.S. citizen.
The request will be considered by INS officials. Ms. Chavez's full deportation hearing has been set for October.
Under the law, immigrants who are married to U.S. citizens or legal residents can "self-petition" for permanent residency if they can prove that they are the victims of domestic abuse and that their deportation would create a hardship for themselves or an immediate relative.
"This situation is exactly the kind of case the law was written for," Mr. Dubove said. "Part of the abuse that happens is that a spouse, usually the husband, will threaten to turn the wife in to the INS unless she does exactly as he says."
Ms. Chavez said her husband is a legal permanent resident. She says that the only time she asked him about applying for her legal papers, he accused her of marrying him only for immigration purposes.
"So I just dropped it because that wasn't why I married him. I thought since I had lived here this long without papers, I could continue to do so," she said.
Ms. Chavez said she has been in the United States since 1989 and that she married Mr. Rodriguez in March 1996.
Her husband moved out in October 1996, Ms. Chavez said, but attempted to return a couple of months later.
Ms. Chavez said that when she refused, he became violent.
She said that he has tried to force his way into her apartment numerous times since then. Mr. Dubove, her attorney, presented Carrollton police reports to back up her story.
In May 1997, Ms. Chavez said, Mr. Rodriguez tried to beat her when she arrived home late one night from a party. A male friend of hers intervened, but Ms. Chavez said her husband returned with a gun and threatened to kill her.
She reported the incident to police, and he was indicted on charges of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon.
When she arrived at the Frank Crowley Courts Building for a Jan. 8 hearing, she said, her husband notified INS officers that she was in the building.
Ms. Chavez said she spent several hours in INS custody before being released on a $2,500 bond posted by her sister.
Mr. Rodriguez's trial is set for June.
Mr. Dubove said the INS agents who arrested Ms. Chavez at the courthouse sent a dangerous message.
"It's tough enough for the D.A.'s office to have women, especially Hispanic women because of the cultural situation, who are willing to come forward to testify against abusive husbands," Mr. Dubove said. "It [the INS action] undermines all the efforts of prosecutors and women's rights groups."
Biden introduces bill to extend protection for battered women
USA TODAY (Arlington, VA)
May 21, 1998
https://infoweb.newsbank.com/
In a move aimed at providing every battered woman in the country a shelter bed and a free lawyer if they need one, Sens. Joseph R. Biden Jr., D-Del., and Arlen Specter, R-Pa., Thursday introduced the $1.6 billion Violence Against Women Act II.
It is a follow-up to the first such bill, passed as part of the 1994 crime law, which set aside $1.6 billion for fighting violence against women through 2000.
The biggest chunk of spending in the new bill, $470 million, would go toward adding additional beds at women's shelters across the country. About 300,000 battered women were turned away from full shelters last year, Biden said.
"This funds that gap. Once this is passed, there will be no women in America seeking shelter from battering who is turned away," he said in an interview. The funding would pay for shelter space for 1.5 million battered women.
Another $80 million would be set aside for setting up a national hotline of volunteer lawyers who would be on call to help battered women. The lawyers, who would not be paid, "would guide this woman through the labyrinth she has to go through," Biden said.
Kim Gandy, executive vice president of the National Organization for Women, said the bill would help women but does not have as much money as the House version, which Rep. John Conyers, D-Mich., introduced in March. That bill sets aside $3.9 billion over five years.
She called the free lawyer hotline "a great idea," and said the shelter beds were sorely needed.
The bill also would:
-- Strengthen the interstate enforcement of protection orders.
-- Extend the Family and Medical Leave Act to victims of domestic violence who need time off for court appearances.
-- Bolster anti-domestic violence training and education among police, judges and court personnel.
-- Set aside $75 million for "safe havens," places staffed by social services workers where divorced parents with joint custody could safely exchange children.
Gandy said the bill had a good chance of passing this year. The last bill was passed overwhelmingly.
Under the first Violence Against Women Act, Delaware has received nearly $2.5 million, including $400,000 to provide emergency housing for 800 women and children in the state's three battered women's shelters. Money from the bill also was used to set up a 24-hour Spanish hotline to help Hispanic women in Kent and Sussex counties.
------
Here are facts about violence against women in the United States:
-- About 1,400 women a year die as a result of domestic violence.
-- About 572,000 domestic assaults are reported to federal officials each year, but the number of actual assaults is believed to be between 2 million and 4 million.
-- Children who witness violence at home are five times more likely to commit or suffer violence when they become adults.
Source: National Organization for Women
Stabenow wants continued funding for battered spouse hotline
USA TODAY (Arlington, VA)
May 21, 1998
https://infoweb.newsbank.com/
Federal funding for a toll-free hotline serving battered spouses would increase to $2 million annually under bipartisan legislation proposed Thursday by Reps. Debbie Stabenow, D-Lansing, and Connie Morella, R-Md.
Stabenow also introduced a bill that would extend a federal program that provides money for training law enforcement officers to handle domestic violence calls. Funding would increase to $340 million over five years.
However, the chance of any Senate or House action on major domestic violence legislation remains slim this year because the 1994 Violence Against Women Act is not up for reauthorization until 1999.
With few workdays scheduled between now and a targeted adjournment date in October, Congress is having difficulty wading through an agenda that already includes tobacco legislation and enactment of the 1999 federal budget.
Stabenow, however, said Thursday the domestic violence hotline needs special attention and may be able to get attention as a stand-alone bill.
The hotline, which receives up to 10,000 calls each month, needs additional funding to keep up with the demand, Stabenow said. Federal support for the 1-800-799-SAFE hotline, authorized in 1994, currently stands at $400,000 annually. The Stabenow-Morella bill would quadruple that amount in the first year to $1.6 million, and to $2 million by year three.
Meanwhile, a bipartisan group of senators proposed a more far-reaching use of domestic violence hotlines -- having unpaid lawyers volunteer to advise battered women of their legal options.
Under the Senate's Violence Against Women Act II, $80 million would be authorized for this expanded lawyer-line over four years.
One key goal of the $1.6 billion, four-year Senate proposal: spending $470 million to add new beds at women's shelters across the country.
Led by Sens. Joseph Biden, D-Del., and Arlen Specter, R-Pa., the coalition of senators said they intend to push through their legislation later this year.
The major domestic violence legislation proposed in the House -- the Violence Against Women Prevention Act of 1998 -- was introduced in March by Reps. Morella, John Conyers, D-Detroit, and Charles Schumer, D-N.Y.
However, the Republican-controlled House Judiciary Committee is not likely to consider major domestic violence legislation until next year. A spokeswoman for Conyers said Thursday no hearings have been scheduled by the Republican leadership and none are expected until next year.
LUCHA: A STRUGGLE FOR LIFE
TWO YOUNG LAWYERS ARE HELPING ABUSED IMMIGRANT SPOUSES FIND SAFETY, HOPE
Miami Herald, The (FL)
May 27, 1998
https://infoweb.newsbank.com/
Her ticket out of trouble was a phone number.
For three months, the young Honduran mother agonized over dialing it, hiding it from her husband on the tongue of her sneaker. For three months it whispered to her the promise of escape from a medieval kind of nuptial bondage -- a violent four-year marriage during which her husband had rented her out as a maid, searched her belongings, cheated on her, and abused her and their two daughters, ages 3 and 5.
But because she was living in Miami on an expired tourist visa, using the phone number virtually guaranteed that her husband, also Honduran but a legal U.S. resident, would report her for deportation. He had warned her, ``You're nothing here. You have no rights.''
Finally, she made the phone call for help late last year. It led her to the pair of lawyers who are presently representing 20 Mexican women discovered enslaved in a South Florida sex ring in April.
Those lawyers say the Honduran woman and about 200 others they've identified in Miami since last fall have been similarly exploited -- not as prostitutes, but as immigrant wives with no legal status, trapped by abusive, violent husbands who hold the threat of deportation over their heads.
All of the women were unaware of a 1994 federal protection law -- the Violence Against Women Act -- that contains a provision designed to prevent abusive spouses from using immigration law to further violence.
The lawyers -- Terri Gerstein and Virginia Coto, who work for the Florida Immigrant Advocacy Center in Miami -- have started a support group for the women called LUCHA (``The Struggle'') and just launched a new weekly call-in show on WOCN (1450 AM) Spanish radio to reach out to other women in similar straits.
Their stories are often kept for years as dirty family secrets. Sometimes the women are seriously injured before they finally get help. One of the LUCHA women lost her thumb when she was hit by a baseball bat, and another suffered severe burns when her husband doused her with perfume, then set her on fire.
But public discovery or prosecution is rare, because the victims don't speak English and shun police.
``They believe that the government has a massive computer system that keeps track of everything,'' Gerstein says, ``and would deport them immediately.''
``I was trapped,'' said a 47-year-old LUCHA member, a Venezuelan woman with an 11-year-old daughter. She says her husband beat her and threatened to kill her when he drank. He had promised to sponsor her for legal residency. Without him, she said, ``I had no family here and no faith or confidence in myself.''
The LUCHA women are not in temporary marriages ``arranged'' to get them into the United States, the lawyers say. Most of the women have children and have been married for years. Their husbands are legal residents or citizens who they sometimes met and married while living in Miami on tourist visas. Coto and Gerstein have found most of them through battered-women's shelters.
Employer gave her number
That's how they met the Honduran woman working as a maid. The number scrawled on the tongue of a shoe -- 758-2546 -- was the hot line for Safespace in Miami-Dade. It was given to her by the woman whose house she cleaned.
The Honduran woman has asked that her name not be used because her husband -- who is under house arrest, charged with the attempted murder of his girlfriend -- is still looking for her.
``[My boss] wanted to know what was going on when I came to work with a black eye,'' the maid recalled in Spanish. ``My husband was with me because he always drove me to work and would never let me take the bus. So he told her a radio had fallen on my face.''
But her employer didn't believe it, and after her husband left, ``she told me I could get help,'' the maid said. ``She gave me the phone number. I couldn't keep it in my wallet, because he looked through everything I had. So I wrote it on the tongue of my sneaker, then worried about what to do for three months. My worry was what I would do on the street with my daughters.''
Her husband went so far as to threaten her employer after he suspected she was interfering. But the employer didn't give up.
``I told the lady I had a bank account in my name, but I couldn't touch it because he always checked the balance. She gave me $100 as a gift to open a second account, using her address. If I could move my money, I would be able to survive for a while.''
The account was opened. Finally, she made the call to Safe- space after suspecting that her husband -- who claims he is mentally ill -- molested their 3-year-old. (The child was examined at the Rape Crisis Center at Jackson Memorial Hospital, and tests were inconclusive, but both her children were placed in counseling.)
Then the woman waited for immigration officers to come and get her. She assumed Safespace would report her.
It didn't happen. ``We don't report,'' Safespace director Rob Schroeder says. Instead, the shelter referred her to LUCHA, in addition to helping her find housing. She recently got her own apartment.
Self-petitioning possible
Under normal circumstances, spouses of legal residents are sponsored in the residency process by their partners. But under the Violence Against Women Act, battered spouses and their children can take their husbands out of the process by ``self-petitioning'' for residency.
(Men also can apply under the law, though only about 2 percent of battered spouses are male. During last week's radio show, two male callers said they were beaten by their wives. ``It's embarrassing to admit,'' one said.)
To win residency, battered spouses must show that returning to their home country would cause extreme hardship. In their cases, ``hardship'' means the likelihood of being tracked down by their husbands after deportation.
Women in LUCHA say that the biggest danger of deportation is that wife-beating often isn't treated as a crime in Latin America and the Caribbean.
``My husband would do anything,'' says the Honduran woman. ``He hired a private detective who found me once through my car. Last night a family member called to warn me he's still looking for me, and he knows I'm in Miami.''
In addition, the women fear the possibility that their children, many of whom were born in Miami, will remain in the United States without them, says Gerstein, who with Coto started LUCHA with $50,000 in grants last fall from the echoing green foundation, a New York-based charitable organization that provides seed money and technical support for new public service ventures.
Need became clear
Gerstein and Coto, both recent law graduates who have chosen public-service causes for careers, became aware of the need for help when they went to work for the Florida Immigrant Advocacy Center in 1996.
Gerstein, who earned a degree from Harvard Law School in 1995, had moved to South Florida the same year to work for Legal Services of Greater Miami. Her specialty: defending immigrant workers being exploited in sweatshops and other sub-minimum-wage jobs. Helping workers who also had problems with abusive spouses was the next logical step.
Coto, a Miami-reared Cuban American, graduated from the University of Miami School of Law last year and only two years ago was a server at an Outback Steak House. She was hired by the Immigrant Advocacy Center as an intern to help indigent immigrants in deportation proceedings.
One day, a woman without resident status walked into her office, announcing that she had nowhere else to turn. ``Her face was black and blue,'' Coto said.
Not only was her husband threatening to report her to the Immigration and Nationalization Service, but ``he was threatening to take her children away.''
Project LUCHA was born.
An unusual mix
Spouse abuse and immigration law traditionally have not fit well together, the lawyers say, complaining that INS investigators have little expertise in domestic violence.
Andrew Luberes, an INS spokesman in Washington, D.C., says such cases are treated as seriously as political asylum petitions and that INS recognizes the danger the women are in.
But nationally, of nearly 2,500 battered wives who file each year, only about half win residency through self-petitioning.
In Miami, slightly more than a third of the 200 battered women found by LUCHA have filed self-petitions. None has won yet, but none has been deported.
While they wait, they participate in a six-week series of classes on immigration law, workers' rights and domestic violence sponsored by LUCHA. The women then help spread the word to other women who are unaware of legal protections and that they can get free help.
``To be a member of LUCHA, a woman has to agree to become involved in the broader struggle of women,'' Gerstein says, ``by talking to friends and others in the community, by offering rides to meetings or by exchanging phone numbers. It shows them how to take an active role in their own lives and, altruistically, how to help others. They are victims, but they are also survivors.''
That support is sometimes all they have. None qualifies for food stamps or other assistance, and most lack work permits. The Venezuelan woman is working as a hot-dog vendor, and the Honduran woman is surviving on odd jobs.
Going it alone doesn't work
But not seeking help sometimes has disastrous consequences. A LUCHA client from Jamaica says she locked her husband out of their apartment rather than seek legal protection. He retaliated by reporting her to INS, which sent officers to the airline office where she worked last September.
``They handcuffed me and took me out of the building,'' the woman says. ``They later released me, because there was no one else to take care of my 2-year-old son, but I lost my job.''
She was referred to LUCHA when she sought a restraining order against her husband. In another case, Dora Garcia, a battered 40-year-old Mexican wife who entered the country illegally in 1986, has been incarcerated in Miami-Dade and Fort Lauderdale since October, when her husband turned her in to the U.S. Border Patrol.
Her Florida Immigrant Advocacy Center attorney, Moira Fisher, says Garcia would never have been detained if she had found LUCHA and left her husband before he reported her. While her case is appealed, she faces another year in confinement.
The Honduran woman says that if her husband hadn't abused their daughter, she might never have sought out LUCHA.
``You always think he will change,'' she says. ``There are always people who tell you to wait, that you'll lose your home, a father for your children.''
Now, she says, she's learned otherwise.
``My message to women like me is they shouldn't give up,'' said another LUCHA member, a Venezuelan who fled her husband after he made death threats against her. ``There are women who are afraid to take the first step, but you have to take a chance. We can live decently.''
living TO GET HELP
To find out more about LUCHA, call Terri Gerstein or Virginia Coto at (305) 573-1106, ext. 112 or 138, or visit their walk-in legal clinic from 9 a.m. to 7 p.m. Wednesdays. The clinic is at 3000 Biscayne Blvd., Suite 400, Miami.
Gerstein and Coto's weekly radio show airs from 3:30 to 4 p.m. Thursdays on WOCN (1450 AM) Spanish radio.
LANE EVANS TOUTS ANTI-DOMESTIC VIOLENCE BILL
Dispatch-Argus, The (Moline, IL)
June 16, 1998
https://infoweb.newsbank.com/
ROCK ISLAND -- With the goal of strengthening laws protecting victims of domestic violence, Rep. Lane Evans has co-sponsored a bill that proposes dedicating $1.6 billion toward supplementing existing domestic violence laws and programs.
At a morning meeting Monday with victim counselors and advocates at Family Resources, Inc. in Rock Island, Rep. Evans announced his push for the new legislation that would supplement protections provided in the original Violence Against Women Act passed in 1994, and add new provisions.
"We need to do more to reach many women who have not yet been reached," Rep. Evans said. "We have to look in more places to find the resources that are needed."
The new bill, called the Violence Against Women Act II, was introduced in the house last March. The house unanimously approved $1 billion of the proposed funding Thursday when it passed a bill cracking down on internet pedophiles. Rep. John Conyers D-Mich. tacked the funding on as an ammendment to the Child Protection and Sexual Predator Punishment Act of 1998.
The remaining $600 million still needs to be acted on, said Rep. Evans' Washington spokesman Steve Vetzner.
The bill would re-establish expired funding for programs established under the original bill, such as the National Domestic Violence Hotline 1-800-799-SAFE. It would continue funding for such programs for the next four years, until 2002.
It would also establish protections not provided for in the originial legislation, including:
- bolstering the interstate enforcement of stay-away orders
- extending the Family and Medical Leave Act to ensure abuse victims don't lose thier jobs while attending court or seeking medical treatment
- expanding federal hate crime laws to include gender-based crimes
- targeting the use of so-called date rape drugs with maximum federal penalties
- prohibiting insurance companies from discriminating against victims of domestic abuse by denying health coverage
The bill would also provide funding for more law enforcement personell and victim counselors, and expand funding for new shelters and crisis centers.
A similar, senate version of the bill was introduced May 21 by Sen. Joseph Biden D-Delaware, the sponsor of the original Violence Against Women Act.
Federal law for domestic violence victims
Herald-Citizen (Cookeville, TN)
June 16, 1998
https://infoweb.newsbank.com/
Here's a tip for men who beat women: watch your assets. Your victim can now file a federal case against you.
And one of the first such cases has been filed against a Putnam County man who hit his wife last January, knocking some of her teeth loose and cutting her ear.
The Violence Against Women Act was passed as part of the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994 and is designed to help victims of domestic violence by making it possible for women who are beaten to file federal civil suits against their attackers in certain cases.
"The significance of this relatively new law is that it gives women who are beaten a way to sue for money against the men who beat them," said Cookeville attorney John Nisbet III. "Until now, the only remedy they had was to go through the criminal justice system."
A successful suit under the new law must show that a felony, or what constitutes a felony, was committed and that it was committed because the victim is a woman.
Attorney Nisbet, who works for the Acuff and Acuff law firm here, has filed one of the very first such suits in the state in connection with an incident of domestic violence that happened here last January.
He represents Nancy Hale, who is suing her estranged husband, Dennis Earl Hale, for hitting her at their home last January.
According to a report by Putnam Sheriff's Deputy Tim Davis, who investigated, Mrs. Hale went to the hospital emergency room that night. She told the deputy that her husband had hit her in the mouth and "knocked out three front teeth and cut her left ear," the report says.
She also told the deputy her husband had "assaulted her several times in the past."
Deputy Davis took a warrant charging Hale, 50, with aggravated domestic assault, which is a felony.
Later in court, Hale pleaded guilty to a reduced charge, simple assault.
Judge John Hudson fined him $75 and court costs and sentenced him to 11 months and 29 days in jail, all of it but five days suspended.
The Hales are now getting a divorce, and Nancy Hale is also suing Dennis Hale under the new federal law.
In that suit, she contends he attacked her because she is a woman, the motive required to be proven for a successful suit under the new law.
The lawsuit recounts the January incident and, noting that the Hales were married in August of 1976, alleges that Dennis Hale beat his wife "on numerous occasions" throughout the marriage.
The suit says that Dennis Hale's "conduct in hitting his wife in the face, combined with the defendant violently beating the plaintiff during the course of their marriage, constitutes a crime of violence motivated by the plaintiff's gender and the defendant's perception of the plaintiff's status as his wife."
The beating deprived Mrs. Hale of the right to be free of such crimes of violence, a right established specifically by the 1994 law, attorney Nisbet said.
And while Dennis Hale later pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor, rather than to the felony he was first charged with, the act of hitting his wife in the face involved physical force that constitutes a felony, the attorney said.
The lawsuit asks the Federal Court to "enter judgment" against Dennis Hale and "award fair and just damages, as well as exemplary and punitive damages and attorney fees" to Nancy Hale.
Is the new law under which Nancy Hale is suing constitutional?
So far, courts have disagreed, and the question will soon go to the 6th Circuit Court of Appeals, and ultimately will go to the United States Supreme Court, attorney Nisbet said.
He said the case here is the first in the Upper Cumberland filed under the new law. Another case has been filed in Knoxville, he said.
Man pleads guilty to interstate stalking
Star Tribune: Newspaper of the Twin Cities (MN)
June 26, 1998
https://infoweb.newsbank.com/
The first person in Minnesota to be charged under a federal interstate stalking law pleaded guilty Thursday in U.S. District Court in Minneapolis.
Last October, Jerry L. Pruitt, 47, of Rockford, Ill., followed his girlfriend to Red Wing, Minn., where she was living in a women's shelter and had a restraining order against him.
He found her leaving a temporary-employment agency and allegedly blocked her exit and forced her to drive with him to Arkansas.
The interstate stalking law passed in 1996 is part of the Violence Against Women Act. The law prohibits people from traveling across state lines with intent to injure or harass a person and causing the victim to fear injury or death.
Remedies for undocumented battered women
Brownsville Herald, The (TX)
July 29, 1998
https://infoweb.newsbank.com/
HARLINGEN -- Despite tighter immigration controls, undocumented women who are battered by their husbands have won new ways to become legal residents of the United States.
That was the message about 30 attorneys heard Tuesday at a workshop at the Harlingen Public Library, which was part of a national campaign to educate immigrant advocates and domestic-abuse workers about the new legal remedies.
Very often, undocumented women who are abused by their husbands aren't likely to call police because they fear deportation, said Andrew Taylor, a paralegal with Proyecto Libertad, the Harlingen-based group that sponsored the all-day seminar.
"It's important because there are easily hundreds of women, if not more, who could be eligible for this and don't know it," said Taylor, who began visiting domestic-abuse shelters in the Rio Grande Valley in October to handle cases.
According to changes in the 1994 Violence Against Women Act, battered spouses who are in the United States illegally no longer have to rely on their abusive partner to petition for legal resident status.
The provision, which survived a massive 1996 overhaul of immigration laws, allows women to independently file their own residence petition.
Immigration attorneys said abusive husbands often wield the power to file such paperwork as a tool to keep power over their wives, threatening to have them deported if they try to buck their control.
"They tell them, `If you don't have any papers, you can't go outside, you can't watch TV. You can't do anything without me,"' said Jodi Goodwin, an immigration attorney who has handled several cases under the new law.
The law also makes it easier for undocumented women, who are abused by U.S. citizens or legal residents, to stay in the country even after they are in the process of being deported.
Abused immigrants must prove to a judge that they have been continuously in the country for three years -- seven years less than the time required by others petitioning for a resident alien or "green" card. Battered spouses who can document the abuse and meet a series of other criteria, are exempt from provisions that bar others from returning to the country for three and 10 years if they have been here illegally.
"Among the Hispanic community this is something very confidential the women try to hide," said Benigno Pe a, the director of South Texas Immigration Council.
The provision also applies to women who are emotionally and verbally abused, although those cases are more difficult to prove, Pe a said.
But even with the legal openings, it takes "a lot of convincing" to prompt many women to file their own papers, Pe a said. "It's the biggest burden we face."
ARON ENTERS NO CONTEST PLEA
Delaware State News (Dover, DE)
July 31, 1998
https://infoweb.newsbank.com/
Former U.S. Senate candidate Ruthann Aron was jailed Thursday after withdrawing innocent pleas to charges that she tried to hire a hit man to kill her husband and a lawyer she blamed for her political loss.
Ms. Aron avoided admitting guilt by pleading ''no contest'' to two charges of solicitation to commit murder. The plea, which surprised prosecutors, came just before closing arguments were to be held in her second monthlong trial.
Her first ended in late March with a jury hung 11-1 in favor of her conviction.
Ms. Aron assured Judge Vincent Ferretti Jr. that she was changing her plea because she wanted to, not because she cut a deal for a guaranteed sentence.
''I know what I'm doing,'' she said.
Defense attorney Charles Cockerill said Ms. Aron had been thinking about changing her plea from innocent and ''not criminally responsible'' -- Maryland's equivalent of an insanity plea -- for a long time and decided to do it when faced with another round of jury deliberations.
STATE RECEIVES FUNDS TO FIGHT ABUSE: Delaware will receive an additional $425,000 to help abused women and children, particularly those living in the rural areas of the state, U.S. Sen. Joseph Biden said Thursday.
The money is coming to Delaware through the federal Violence Against Women Act.
This year, the state received nearly $1 million to hire more police, expand victim services and help construct Delaware's third battered women's shelter. The new funding brings the total to $1.4 million.
It is targeted to help women and children in small towns and communities and will be used to fund crisis counseling, shelters and legal assistance.
HATE-CRIMES BILLS PROMOTE DISUNITY
Rocky Mountain News (Denver, CO)
Author/Byline: Jeff Jacoby The Boston Globe
August 1, 1998
https://infoweb.newsbank.com/
In 1988, Congress passed the Hate Crimes Statistics Act. In 1994, it passed the Hate Crimes Sentencing Enhancement Act and the Violence Against Women Act. In 1996, it passed the Church Arson Prevention Act. Now, saying that Congress must do still more, Sen. Edward Kennedy proposed yet another federal statute, the Hate Crimes Prevention Act of 1998.
Kennedy's bill would expand federal criminal jurisdiction to a degree never before contemplated. It would overlap with hate-crimes laws already in force in 41 states. It would give U.S. attorneys the authority to prosecute violent crimes - from simple assault to murder - which have always been illegal in every state. It would stretch the definition of ``hate crime'' far beyond what most Americans understand that term to mean; for example, it would turn every rape into a federal ``hate crime'' against women.
And why is so tremendous an increase in federal power necessary? Two words, says Kennedy: Jasper, Texas. The sickening murder there of James Byrd Jr. in June ``shocked the conscience of the country,'' he told the Judiciary Committee a few days ago. ``A strong response is clearly needed.''
But there is nothing a new federal hate crime law can supply that isn't already in the Texas criminal code. ``A strong response''? Prosecutors in the Jasper case will seek the death penalty if the men charged with dragging Byrd to death behind their truck are convicted. How much stronger a response did Kennedy have in mind? There is no state in the union where prosecutors would ignore so stomach-churning a hate crime, or fail to demand the harshest punishment available. Far from proving that a vast expansion of federal prosecutorial powers is urgently needed, the horror in Jasper demonstrates that it isn't.
What minorities have to fear most is not white-supremacist hate crimes going unpunished. It is ``ordinary'' violent crime, the great bulk of which is black-on-black.
But that's not a problem Ted Kennedy cares about. Liberal politicians of his stripe find it a lot sexier to denounce hate crimes that cross racial, ethnic, religious or sexual lines than to deal seriously with punishing violent crime in general. Even though it is violent crime in general that causes most of the bloodshed and mayhem in America. Of the roughly 20,000 homicides, 30,000 rapes, 150,000 robberies, and half a million aggravated assaults for which police will make arrests this year, only a tiny fraction would qualify as hate crimes. What do we gain by shining a spotlight on that fraction and eclipsing the rest?
The recent rash of hate crime laws would be understandable if crime motivated by bigotry and racism was out of control. It isn't. A few years back, the Minnesota Department of Public Safety reported that there had been 425 bias crimes statewide the year before, a finding that led the district attorney in St. Paul to decry the ``massive increase in hate crimes.'' Yet those 425 criminal attacks accounted for just two-tenths of 1 percent of all the violent crime reported in Minnesota that year. Check the numbers for the other states; the results will be the same.
The blood of bias-crime victims is no redder than that of ``ordinary'' victims. The daughter of a man murdered because he was black sheds tears just as hot as the daughter of a man murdered because he had $20 in his pocket. By singling out hate crimes for special statistical and prosecutorial attention, lawmakers in effect declare some victims more equal than others.
Every single crime that would be covered by Kennedy's legislation is already a crime. Each one can already be prosecuted. Each can already be punished. ``Hate crimes prevention'' has a fine ring to it, but this bill would prevent nothing except unity. What it would promote is balkanization, class warfare and identity politics. Of all the ways to memorialize James Byrd, that has to be the worst.
SINK SO-CALLED `HATE' BILL
Augusta Chronicle, The (GA)
August 2, 1998
https://infoweb.newsbank.com/
Ultraliberal Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., and his fellow travelers are never at a loss to find ways to expand Washington's heavy-handed reach. The latest power grab is prompted by the despicable dragging-by-truck murder of James Byrd Jr. in Jasper, Texas.
Byrd's heinous death, Kennedy told his Senate colleagues, ``shocked the conscience of the country.'' He's right about that, but not when he adds ``a strong response'' from the federal government is necessary.
Why is that? And what does Chappaquiddick Ted have in mind? Expanding hate-crime laws, of course. First there was the Hate Crimes Statistics Act in 1988, followed by the Hate Crimes Sentencing Enhancement Act, the Violence Against Women Act and the Church Arson Prevention Act.
None of these new federal laws were necessary, because they were already covered by local and state ordinances. But never mind that. They did achieve their purpose for the Big Government types -- expanding federal law-enforcement into jurisdictions it had never been before.
Now Kennedy is urging Congress to pass yet another statute, the so-called Hate Crimes Prevention Act. It would give U.S. attorneys unprecedented power to prosecute violent crimes, from simple assault to murder, just about anywhere they find them.
Again, there isn't anything here that's not already against the law in every state and locality across the nation. Why the need for federal intervention when crime is being adequately fought in local jurisdictions?
Could Janet Reno's Justice Department respond any stronger to Byrd's brutal fate than the prosecutors in Jasper, who will ask the murder suspects be put to death if they are convicted?
Moreover, Kennedy's bill stretches the concept of federal ``hate crime'' way beyond anything ever imagined by ordinary Americans or, for that matter, local police agencies.
Besides, the whole concept of ``hate crimes'' is ridiculous and divisive: Ridiculous, because most violent crime is intra-racial, but even when it's not, what does it matter if it was motivated by race hatred or not?
Kennedy's bill is divisive because it further advances the ugly but fashionable cultural trend of encouraging citizens to see themselves as members of an aggrieved group rather than as part of a healthy, unified society.
NOW'S RESPONSE TO REPORTS OF CLINTON TESTIMONY
Virginian-Pilot, The (Norfolk, VA)
August 22, 1998
https://infoweb.newsbank.com/
I write as president of Virginia NOW. NOW has said from the beginning that no CEO and no elected official, including the president, should take advantage of the aphrodisiac of power to have sex with interns or staff.
Consensual sex with a White House intern is an abuse of power by the president; but consensual sex is not illegal harassment and is not an impeachable offense. Nor is it in the best interest of our country for the president to resign.
Whatever Congress decides to do, the only ones who should vote on this issue are members who themselves have never had sex outside of marriage and never lied about their sex lives - neither denying or exaggerating.
After all this time and money, it appears Ken Starr has found nothing to pin on the Clintons - nothing on Whitewater, nothing on Filegate, nothing on Travelgate - nothing more than some sort of consensual relationship between Bill Clinton and Monica Lewinsky.
The investigation - and the attempts to legitimize the wildest of allegations - began with the appointment of the special prosecutor in August 1994, right before the elections that turned over the Congress to Newt Gingrich and Trent Lott. Now Ken Starr is going to send his report to Congress right before the 1998 elections. This amy or may not be a right-wing ``conspiracy,'' but it certainly makes NOW's political action committees' electoral project, Victory 2000, even more important. We are determined to elect 2000 new feminists to office by the turn of the century as part of our strategy to end the disrespect of women in the workplace and in politics.
NOW never thought Bill Clinton was the answer to our dreams of equality for women. Clinton was, for many of us, the option in 1996. Women voters elected Clinton, and the majority of women still approve of his performance in office, apparently judging him as a president whose strengths outweigh his flaws.
Clinton's administration worked hard and successfully on the Violence Against Women Act, the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act, the Family and Medical Leave Act, the earned income tax credit, women's health and other issues that affect us and our families; he has appointed more women and women's rights supporters to positions of power than ever before. Still, he seems to be a man who divides women into two unfortunate traditional categories: women he must treat with respect like Hillary Clinton, Madeleine Albright and Ruth Bader Ginsburg, and those he can use and toss aside like tissue paper.
NOW would like better options for president in the future. That's why we're working to re-elect senators like Barbara Boxer, Patty Murray and Carol Moseley-Braun, to send Geraldine Ferraro to join them and to elect more feminist women like New York's Betsy McCaughey Ross to governors' mansions, which have been the springboard to the White House in recent years.
We reiterate our demand for immediate action by the president, the Congress and employers across the country to stop sexual harassment in the workplace. We call upon right-wing women's groups, conservative commentators and the leadership of Congress - given their new-found interest in sexual harassment and workplace abuses - to work to strengthen anti-discrimination laws by: removing the cap on damages and extending the deadline for filing charges under Title VII; authorizing and appropriating sufficient funding for the EEOC to clear up the massive backlog of discrimination complaints; and filling the many vacancies on the federal courts that hear such complaints.
Connie Hannah, Norfolk
Many women back Clinton, polls indicate
But Republicans tend to be less supportive amid crisis
Dallas Morning News, The (TX)
August 25, 1998
https://infoweb.newsbank.com/
President Clinton's dealings with Monica Lewinsky were disgusting, repugnant and pathological, the women said. And they are disappointed, repulsed or, in one case, surprised that he would risk it all "for something so frivolous, so reckless, so small."
And these are his longtime supporters.
Republican women who oppose the president's politics used equally strong language. But they also want Mr. Clinton to resign or be impeached by Congress.
Although highly critical of him, the president's women supporters say he should remain in office. And amid the current turmoil, that backing will be critical as he seeks to right his presidency.
In recent national opinion polls, more women than men give Mr. Clinton high marks on his job performance. More women than men say they are satisfied with his explanation about his relationship with Ms. Lewinsky, and more say they want the whole matter dropped.
"It seems to me that they are about where the American people are," said White House communications director Ann Lewis. "The majority of the people have come to what I see as a fairly pragmatic response: This was a bad thing. This should not have happened. But people should move ahead and focus on the needs of the country."
Linda DiVall, a Republican poll taker, said: "I am shocked that women are as supportive as they are" of the president.
The so-called gender gap in Mr. Clinton's favor could change when independent counsel Kenneth Starr sends his investigative report to Congress, Ms. DiVall said. She said "it becomes less a scandal about sex and more a matter of lying and obstruction of justice and the rule of law."
Women Democrats in Congress and prominent feminists are being pressed to explain why they aren't pushing for Mr. Clinton's ouster. Critics point to their past calls for Republican Sen. Bob Packwood of Oregon to be removed from office and for Clarence Thomas to be denied a seat on the U.S. Supreme Court.
"Clearly they have a selective outrage," said Rep. Anne Northup, R-Ky., on Fox News Sunday . "When it's somebody that politically is aligned with their politics, that standard seems to change."
Mr. Clinton, after forcefully denying a sexual relationship with Ms. Lewinsky seven months ago, reversed course a week ago and admitted an affair with the former White House intern.
Ms. Northup and others "miss the whole point of what women did" in the Packwood and Thomas cases, said former Rep. Pat Schroeder, a Democrat from Colorado who now leads the Association of American Publishers. "We said the Senate should hold hearings on Clarence Thomas and hear from Anita Hill. Same with Packwood. They weren't going to hold hearings."
This time, "there has not been a problem of Monica being heard," Ms. Schroeder said. "These charges have been heard so much people are nauseous."
National Organization for Women president Patricia Ireland said Sunday on NBC's Meet the Press that Mr. Clinton's behavior was "repugnant" and "clearly inappropriate" but "not sexual harassment that's illegal. This is not an impeachable offense."merit.the president."
Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., another strong Clinton ally, said that pressuring the president into resigning would "tear the country apart."
Like Mr. Packwood, who resigned from the Senate, Mr. Clinton's views closely track those of traditional women's rights groups.
The president favors abortion rights and refused to outlaw certain late-term abortions. He signed into law the Violence Against Women Act.
Ms. Schroeder said that the president's views didn't give him cover with these women's groups. But they do make his transgressions more difficult to comprehend, she said.
"You have seen that he's good on the issues. You know his wife. You hear he's a terrific father," Ms. Schroeder said. "You can't connect those dots."
Many voters, especially women, simply don't connect those dots between the president's personal and public lives, according to the public opinion polls.
In a Los Angeles Times survey released last week, for example, 68 percent of women approved of the job Mr. Clinton is doing.
Among women, 69 percent said they were satisfied with his explanation of his liaison with Ms. Lewinsky. Only 49 percent of men said they were satisfied.
At the same time, 69 percent of women said they did not share the president's moral values. And 66 percent said Mr. Clinton was not a good role model. The poll of 1,387 adults was taken August 18 and 19, right after Mr. Clinton's address.
Other national polls have likewise shown no movement of women away from Mr. Clinton.
Rep. Eddie Bernice Johnson, D-Dallas, was among the Democratic women who said she "was not going to abandon my friendship with the president because he's made this mistake."
But, Ms. Johnson added, "I hope the people will be voting on me and not the president when they vote."
One of the first prominent Democratic women to break ranks was Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., who was in the Roosevelt Room at the White House last January when Mr. Clinton gave his finger-wagging denial of any sexual relationship with Ms. Lewinsky.
"His remarks last evening leave me with a deep sense of sadness in that my trust in his credibility has been badly shattered," Ms. Feinstein told The New York Times on Aug. 18.
Dee Dee Myers, Mr. Clinton's former press secretary, offered a searing assessment in Time magazine.
"The president's relationship with Monica Lewinsky was so reckless as to seem pathological. He knew the consequences of getting caught, but went ahead. For 18 months. In the West Wing of the White House," Ms. Myers wrote.
"What surprised me in this case was this: It was true. I never believed that Bill Clinton would actually risk his presidency - a job he had studied, dreamed about and prepared for since he was a kid - for something so frivolous, so reckless, so small."
