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Dianne Hardisty: Victim is no longer the criminal
| Thursday, Aug 28 2008 9:09 PM
Last Updated: Friday, Aug 29 2008 8:16 AM
It has been more than three decades, but from time to time I still think about the woman whose tragic, violent life tumbled from the pages of a police report.
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One of those times was just a few weeks ago when Gov. Schwarzenegger signed into law a bill “protecting” domestic violence victims. But the protection that SB 1356 is supposed to provide is widely debated. Prosecutors and others fear the law will unravel years of effort by the Legislature to make domestic violence the serious crime it really is.
I was a young reporter at The Hanford Sentinel in Kings County when I was assigned to cover the police beat for a vacationing colleague. The city police had a relaxed relationship with the press. If you wanted to see their reports, they just handed you a stack and sat you in the corner.
I was plowing through pretty mundane stuff — burglaries, neighborhood disputes, drunken driving — when I came across the brutal beating and near drowning in a canal of a young woman by what appeared to be her husband or live-in boyfriend. The gruesome details sent me rushing back to the newsroom, certain I had a front page story.
But when I related the tale to my editors, I was told: Forget about it. She won’t press charges. She won’t testify. Nothing will come of it. If it goes to trial — but it won’t — you can write about it then.
Until now, I have never written about it. I did wonder if the woman survived the subsequent beatings she was certain to receive.
Over the years, California lawmakers elevated domestic violence to being a real crime — rather than one dismissed by law enforcement, ignored by the media and hidden by traumatized families.
New laws have increased penalties. Victims can no longer ask law enforcement to look the other way. In rare cases, judges can threaten to throw victims in jail if they refuse to testify against attackers. It is that threat that SB 1356 took away.
“Some have argued that incarceration of domestic violence victims is an important tool in compelling victims to testify,” Schwarzenegger said in signing SB 1356. “However, I believe that the victims in these cases have suffered enough.”
The legislation stems from a 2005 domestic violence case in which a judge ordered a victim jailed because she refused to testify. The woman appealed the order and ultimately was never jailed.
But it set into motion state Sen. Leland Yee, D-San Francisco, and others who argued that domestic violence victims should be exempted from testifying, just as sexual assault victims have been exempted since 1991.
“I have a problem with our system trying to combat domestic violence by targeting the victim,” Nada Yorke, president of Kern’s Domestic Violence Advisory Council, told me.
“I can think of no other crime where the victim is still held accountable by the justice system for their victimization. We often ask ‘why doesn’t she leave?’ and fail to ask the more pertinent question, ‘why does he hit?’
“Instead of holding batterers accountable for their criminal behavior, we allow them to manipulate the system through frivolous trial continuances which serve to ‘wear down’ the victim.
“The system has no problem threatening the victim with jail, when our policies offer little to no physical protection for them. Worse, we send a message to offenders that it’s OK to continue their abusive behavior, because it’s a relationship problem — not a real crime,” she said.
“In Kern County, the system is attempting to address DV through a variety of venues, but more resources need to be dedicated to stopping the violence.”
Existing law allows judges to order jail only after victims are sent to counseling or required to do community service. Speaking on behalf of prosecutors, retired San Mateo County Superior Court Judge Quentin Kopp, a former state senator, warned SB 1356 would destroy a law that works.
“... battered women are more willing to testify after receiving information, emotional support, community referrals and trial preparation from victim advocates,” Kopp testified.
Kopp and prosecutors are correct to worry about removing the hammer that compelled victims to testify. With the hammer gone, we must focus more on convincing victims they do not have to take abuse. And support them in getting out of violent relationships.
E-mail Dianne Hardisty at dhardisty@bakersfield.com