Background: Since the mid-90s, many states have adopted aggressive arrest procedures on domestic violence calls. Police officers are often encouraged to make arrests in petty incidents, often where the abuse is mutual or it is unclear who the aggressor was. They also are under political pressure to arrest men, not women.
Moreover, many prosecutors follow “No Drop†policies in domestic violence cases, pursuing marginal cases which ordinarily would be dropped for lack of evidence. To learn more, see my co-authored column Texas bill to create domestic violence offender registry will harm innocent men (Austin American-Statesman, 4/11/07) or click here.
In the Letter to the Editor below–Exploiting Marin jurors (Marin Independent Journal, 6/28/07)–a Marin, California woman blasts “politically correct” prosecutors for wasting jurors’ time with a ludicrous, politically motivated, evidence-free domestic violence prosecution.After reading the letter, I suggest you contact Marin County District Attorney Edward S. Berberian, Jr. (pictured) at the address below and express your opposition to these prosecutorial abuses.
Marin County District Attorney Edward S. Berberian, Jr.
3501 Civic Center Drive, Room 130
San Rafael, CA 94903
Telephone: (415) 499-6450
FAX: (415) 499-6734
It is an injustice to our justice system to bring frivolous criminal prosecutions to the courtroom.
Last week, I spent three days as a juror in a case in which it seemed obvious early on that no conviction could possibly result.
A woman had called 911 complaining her fiance had been drinking and pushed her onto their bed. The defendant claimed he held her arms to keep her from hitting him with a phone. The next day, the woman phoned police and the district attorney’s office asking that her fiance not be prosecuted. She stated that she had overreacted, and that she would do anything she could to stop the prosecution. True to her word, she came to court with an attorney and refused to answer any questions, claiming that to do so would be self-incriminating. Nonetheless, the case proceeded.
The only other witness the prosecution had was a policeman who had heard the woman’s original complaint. Part of his testimony was contradicted by facts that could be ascertained from the 911 recording. To convict required the jury to find that there was no reasonable doubt that the man had pushed the woman onto their bed. Ten of the jurors heard the woman’s call as a manipulative expression of anger. Two jurors agreed with the prosecutor that they heard fear in her voice. The outcome of the case rested on this subjective factor.
In the jury room, some of us speculated about why this case had ever been brought to court. Sixty-five citizens had spent a day being quizzed for 12 jurors and one alternate to be selected.
All of us had to abandon our family, employment and earning responsibilities for three days. Undoubtedly, tens of thousands of dollars were spent to pay for the combination of the prosecuting attorney, the judge and the public defender’s services to bring this case to court. This waste of taxpayer money left me feeling cynical about the district attorney’s political motivations and reluctant to serve as a juror again. It is time for the DA’s office to use some discretion and to consider issues of proportionality before it requires 65 citizens to be such a captive audience.
Preventing domestic violence is a worthwhile goal, but this extreme form of political correctness does not advance the cause. Providing and promoting treatment for alcohol and drug dependence is also a most worthwhile goal, but this kind of judicial spectacle fails to advance that cause, too.
The people need to hold the district attorney’s office to some standard of accountability other than rhetorical law and order.
Suzanne Gassner Weatherford,
Sausalito, CA.
[For another example of this type of anti-male this law enforcement nonsense, see my blog post Father Locked in Jail for Tossing Granola Bars at Fiance, Fiance Can't Get Him Out. Thanks to John Hamel, LCSW, of the National Family Violence Legislative Resource Center and Michael Robinson of the California Alliance for Families and Children for the tip on this article. Both are working to reform California's domestic violence policies.]
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