Thanks.
By Jeffery M. Leving and Glenn Sacks
The OJ Simpson 1994-1995 double murder trial and the recent controversy over Simpson’s book mean different things to different people. For some, they are a symbol of America’s racial divide. For others, they reflect the problems in our judicial system. Yet the most important and enduring aspect of the Simpson case is one which is rarely discussed—its dramatic effect on domestic violence policies, particularly in California.
In 1995 and 1996, California passed nearly two dozen domestic violence-related bills and doubled its funding for domestic violence programs. Some of these new laws and initiatives improved the domestic violence system, some were questionable, and some have been very harmful.
SB 591 mandated that all law enforcement agencies implement mandatory/presumptory arrest policies which virtually require officers to make arrests when responding to domestic violence calls. SB 1944 introduced the “dominant aggressor” doctrine as a way of encouraging officers to arrest men, not women. Many California District Attorneys adopted “no drop” prosecution policies.
These three were a direct and understandable outcome of the Simpson case. In the late ’80s, police had come to Simpson’s home on 911 calls for eight separate incidents before finally arresting him. Simpson received little punishment, and many later concluded that if the system had been tougher on him, perhaps the killings could have been prevented.
These policies have led to large numbers of arrests and prosecutions in cases where it is questionable whether the men actually committed any abuse. In a report in the California legal publication Daily Journal detailing attorneys’ frustration with these policies, Pacifica criminal defense attorney Dave McDonald explains that now “[Domestic violence] is a political hot potato…The Legislature is saying, ‘Prosecute, prosecute, prosecute’…They prosecute everything.” John Digiacinto, head of the San Mateo County Bar Association’s Private Defender Program, asserts, “There are cases of pushing and shoving that are treated like the crimes of the century.”
Reflecting the questionable nature of many of these arrests and prosecutions, the Daily Journal report explains that many “victims” do not want their husbands or boyfriends prosecuted. Digiacinto criticizes the system’s “craziness [with] spouses calling in complaining because [the defense lawyer] can’t get the case dismissed.”
Certainly there are instances where the defendant really did batter his wife and she later recants her previous allegations. However, many prosecutors refuse to acknowledge that sometimes women want the charges dropped because the “violence” never happened, was marginal, was mutual, or was actually perpetrated by the woman. The report notes:
“Domestic violence units have adopted aggressive policies, refusing to drop the cases even when the victim refuses to cooperate.”
Another outgrowth of the Simpson case has been an explosion in domestic violence restraining orders, as new laws and services have made the orders easier to obtain. According to Attorney General Bill Lockyer, there are a quarter million domestic violence-related restraining orders currently active in California–one for every 50 adult males in the state.
Restraining orders can be a useful tool to help protect battered women. However, a recent article in the Family Law News, the official publication of the State Bar of California Family Law Section, explains:
“Protective orders are increasingly being used in family law cases to help one side jockey for an advantage in child custody…[the orders are] almost routinely issued by the court in family law proceedings even when there is relatively meager evidence and usually without notice to the restrained person.”
These orders often do not even involve an allegation of violence–according to the Judicial Council of California, the “abuse” needed to get a restraining order can be “spoken” or “written.” Yet in the wake of the Simpson case it became politically difficult for judges to deny them.
When a restraining order is issued, the man is booted out of his own home and can be jailed if he tries to contact his own children, even though he has never been afforded the opportunity to defend himself. The subsequent hearings to determine whether the orders will be made permanent are often conducted in an assembly line fashion with little due process. Under California’s AB 840, also passed in the wake of the Simpson case, these orders can be considered findings of abuse, making the restrained person ineligible for joint custody of his children after divorce.
The Simpson case pushed the domestic violence system way out of balance, stacking it unfairly against men. Now that the case is being revisited, it’s time to rethink the laws and policies it helped create.
This column first appeared in the Riverside Press-Enterprise (12/5/06).
Jeffery M. Leving is one of America’s most prominent family law attorneys. He is the author of the new HarperCollins book Divorce Wars: A Field Guide to the Winning Tactics, Preemptive Strikes, and Top Maneuvers When Divorce Gets Ugly. His website is www.dadsrights.com.
Glenn Sacks’ columns on men’s and fathers’ issues have appeared in dozens of America’s largest newspapers. Glenn can be reached via his website at www.GlennSacks.com or via email at Glenn@GlennSacks.com.
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Ray Blumhorst said,
The O. J. Simpson case has led directly to much of the witch hunting of all things male in the State of California. If anyone doubts the effect that the O. J. Simpson case has had on public sentiment about CA domestic violence law read the events enumerated in Tammy Bruce’s book The New Thought Police. There you will see the kind of activism LA NOW engaged in following Ron Goldman and Nicole Simpson‘s deaths.
O. J’s. case opened the door for the gender feminist to run amok in the area of domestic violence law and they haven’t stopped yet. In CA Health and Safety Code men are excluded by definition from coverage under domestic violence laws. It just doesn’t get anymore sexist and hateful against men than that. Sadly, as CA has gone so has most of the rest of the U.S.
It’s is time for all our elected representatives to pass laws allowing men to be victims of domestic violence (wasn’t Ron Goldman a victim of domestic violence) as well as pass laws admitting women are batterers in domestic violence events. Failing that they should just openly admit that they are toadies of the gender feminist movement, implementing a Stalinist pogrom against males.
December 6, 2006 at 12:21 pm
DadWithGirls said,
under the guise of an imagined male-battering epidemic and universal female victimiza-tion “every 14 seconds a woman is abused…” etc.
But the real source of the DV hysteria preceded O.J. by several years, and it can still be traced to the DULUTH MODEL.
There’s a concise description at –
What’s Wrong with the “Duluth Model”?
http://www.menweb.org/battered/batdulut.htm
(excerpt) –
“Like so many projects of the feminist agenda, the battered women’s movement has outlived its useful beginnings, which was to help women leave violent relationships and persuade the legal system to take domestic abuse more seriously. Now they have brought us to a point at which a single complaint touches off an irreversible cascade of useless and often destructive legal and therapeutic events. This could well have a chilling effect upon victims of real violence, who may be reluctant to file police reports or to seek help if it subjects them to further battery from the authorities. And it certainly won’t help violent men if they emerge from so-called treatment programs no more enlightened but certainly more angry, more resentful, and as dangerous as ever.” (Yale psychiatrist Sally Satel.)
Google “Duluth Model” and you may wish to spend a few hours digesting the extent of anti-male hatred that is the reality in FemAmerica.
It is, in fact, a very profitable business.
December 6, 2006 at 7:14 pm
Ray Blumhorst said,
The close minded misandrists in that movement closed ranks around the O.J. case to reinforce their blame of all men for all domestic violence. I once mentioned to a feminist domestic violence industry. Indoctrinee (at a d.v. conference) that in the year 2000, according to DOJ stats there were 1247 female victims of intimate partner homicide and 440 male victims of intimate partner homicide. Unbelievably, the woman then said, all those men (the 440) were batterers. Was Ron Goldman a batterer? Was Phil Hartman a batterer? Duh!
I am painfully aware of the gender biased Duluth Wheel you mention (man as perpetrator/woman as victim). The domestic violence Duluth wheel (man as perpetrator/woman as victim) you mention really is a despicable distortion of truth and reality, IMO, that itself deserves refutation and/or parody - hence The Duh Loop Wheel.
http://i61.photobucket.com/albums/h53/MRA_06/Biz/DuhLoopSchemePoster2a.jpg
December 7, 2006 at 12:02 am
mruffolo said,
Media bias confirmed.
“Surveys demonstrating a liberal or pro-Democratic Party bias by the national press corps go back 40 years. One of the most interesting, a 1996 survey from the Freedom Forum, showed that 89 percent of the reporters in Washington said they had voted for Bill Clinton in 1992, while only seven percent said they voted for George Bush.”
http://www.aim.org/media_monitor/5054_0_2_0_C
December 7, 2006 at 12:42 am
Steve White said,
They emphasize that it’s a one stop center for women to get everything they want out of the legal system — restraining orders, domestic violence prosecutions, CHILD CUSTODY, DIVORCE ISSUES, and FINALLY, EVEN IMMIGRATION ISSUES.
(under Federal laws recently passed, a foreign born woman who might be subject to deportation if she comes here under a marriage visa then rapidly divorces her American husband, can clain exemption if she is a victim of domestic violence)
My point is, if a woman did not know of all the benefits she can get from claiming domestic violence, they make sure to tell her — it’s even in their brochure.
Also in my county, in the restraining order court, a private organization, Family Violence Law Center, has special status. They get their own seat in the courtroom, in the area which was built for the jury, (interesting symbolism) and the judge does whatever they want.
In effect, they act as prosecutors, without the ethical constraints prosecutors have. The District Attorney knows they are extremists, but he washes his hands of it, because that’s politically expedient.
December 7, 2006 at 9:21 am