My new co-authored column, Maine’s Adoption of Primary Aggressor Doctrine in DV Arrests Will Ensnare Innocent Men (Lewiston Sun Journal, 8/5/07), criticizes LD 1039, a domestic violence bill. Combining with other misguided laws and policies, the bill essentially makes a street cop responding to a 911 call the arbiter of child custody, and of whether the children involved will have their fathers in their futures or not.
The column appears below.
New Column: Maine’s Adoption of Primary Aggressor Doctrine in DV Arrests Will Ensnare Innocent Men
By Mike McCormick and Glenn Sacks
LD 1039, which was recently signed by Governor Baldacci, requires law enforcement agencies to adopt a “process to evaluate and determine who is the predominant physical aggressor in a domestic violence situation.†While this sounds reasonable, in reality the predominant aggressor doctrine functions as a method of directing police officers to arrest men, not women, when responding to domestic disturbance calls.
The stakes here are high. Because Maine also has a mandatory arrest law in domestic violence cases, instituting the predominant aggressor doctrine will lead to the arrests of many innocent men. Since Maine family courts must consider evidence of domestic violence in determining child custody, an officer’s decision on who to arrest can often determine who will get custody of the couple’s children after the couple divorces or separates.
Under the predominant aggressor doctrine, when police officers respond to a domestic disturbance call, they are instructed not to focus on who attacked whom and who inflicted the injuries, but instead consider different factors which will almost always weigh against men. These factors include: comparable size; comparable strength; the person allegedly least likely to be afraid; who has access to or control of family resources (i.e., who makes more money); and others. Given these factors, it is very difficult for officers to arrest female offenders. (more…)
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