Published: Sunday, August 15, 2010, 5:50 AM Updated: Sunday, August 15, 2010, 6:04 AM
Rachel Dissell, The Plain Dealer
No time is more perilous for a battered woman than the moment she tries to leave her abuser.
The departure marks the end of a controlling partner's dominion -- and can ignite a violent rampage, all too often with deadly consequences.
Tonya Hunter-Lyons and Shana Gardner-Carson are the latest examples. Both were educated, professional women in their 40s, who mustered the nerve to leave the men who had battered them. Both were killed in the process.
According to a U.S. Department of Justice study, homicide at the hands of an intimate partner is the leading cause of death among black women between the ages of 15 and 45 and the seventh leading cause of premature death for women overall.
That risk increases when a victim pursues a separation or divorce, files a criminal domestic violence charge, or simply moves out of the home, experts say. Yet within those critical timeframes, victims often have no idea whom they can turn to for protection, or whether they will be alerted when their abusers have been served protection orders or divorce papers, or are released from jail.
"These clients need the right combination of advocate, attorney and judge or they can find themselves in the wilderness," said Alexandria Ruden, an attorney with the Legal Aid Society of Cleveland who has specialized in domestic-abuse cases for more than 30 years. "At the very least, every person should have the right to the information that can help keep them safe."
Ruden knows. Fifteen of her clients have died over the decades because of domestic violence. Thousands of others have gotten out of abusive relationships safely because of careful planning to avoid the escalation of violence.
View full sizeSpecial to PD
Shana Gardner-Carson was stabbed to death last week after filing for a divorce. Her husband Ramon Carson has been charged in her death.
But her thoughts return to fatal cases -- like the two recently -- when she hears about yet another woman killed. She begins to question every aspect. Did the victim have a protection order? Did the police enforce it? Did she have an advocate? Did she choose to stay in the home or did she leave?
Sometimes there are clear missteps. Other times, Ruden wonders if anything at all could have stopped a person intent on killing.
Legal protections include criminal and civil orders
Abuse victims can seek court orders to keep abusers away through criminal or civil proceedings. In the absence of a criminal case, a victim can seek a domestic violence civil protection order from a domestic relations court, forcing the abuser to stay away from the victim or risk facing criminal penalties.
Last year, Cuyahoga County's Domestic Relations Court judges and magistrates heard 415 requests for special domestic-violence-related protection orders. They issued 282.
But the sheriff's office, which serves defendants with the orders, sometimes takes days to deliver them to the abusers. And the office does not alert victims when the accused abusers are served, said John O'Brien, spokesman for the sheriff's office. A victim is welcome to check the court's docket, but it can run up to seven days behind, he said.
Domestic Relations Magistrate Joan Pellegrin holds hearings on emergency and long-term protection orders daily.
She said she warns people that the protection order is a piece of paper -- albeit a powerful one, because violating it results in an arrest.
"But it's not a shield," she said, and she warns those in front of her that they must protect themselves.
"We do walk a fine line," she said. "We can tell them what they can do legally but not what they should do. We can lead them and assist them but only so far."
A judge must also balance the rights of the victim and the accused when relying on one-sided information to issue a protective order, Pellegrin said. "It is an enormous responsibility to take away someone's rights."
Larger caseloads, a victim on the run can slow efforts
Shaker Heights Municipal Judge K.J. Montgomery said a court is expected to remain a neutral party in criminal proceedings.
Previous Plain Dealer coverage
Bedford Heights marriage counselor stabbed to death; husband arrested (July 26)
Judge warned Tonya Hunter-Lyons to get out of bad marriage (July 31)
Cleveland police accuse Ramon Carson of fatally stabbing his wife (Aug. 10)
As long as the defendant is presumed innocent, the court should not notify a victim of changes in his or her case, such as when the defendant is released from jail on bond, Montgomery said. She and other judges in suburban municipal courts say that it's up to police officers in the arresting jurisdictions to warn victims when their abusers are set free.
Police in some suburbs work closely with victims to track the abusers' whereabouts and alert the victim when police plan to deliver protection orders.
Parma Municipal Judge Deanna O'Donnell described a 2009 Broadview Heights domestic-violence case in which the defendant threatened to kill his battered wife if she ever left him.
O'Donnell issued a protection order, and Broadview Heights police stationed surveillance outside the victim's home while an advocate scrambled the resources to help the woman remove her children from school and relocate to safety.
"I notified Broadview Heights police that there was a protection order against this man, and they just ran with it," O'Donnell said. "It made me feel good. I felt like I could sleep at night, knowing I wasn't going to get that 3 a.m. phone call that something horrible had happened to her."
But O'Donnell acknowledges that her Municipal Court's jurisdiction, eight Southwest suburbs, processes far fewer cases than Cleveland.
In the past two weeks, O'Donnell handled the court's entire domestic violence docket -- a total of five cases.
Cleveland police officers field about 20,000 domestic violence calls a year. And Cleveland Municipal Court judges have heard more than 600 domestic violence cases this year to date.
Protecting victims during their most vulnerable times becomes more difficult in the shadow of such massive caseloads, said Municipal Court Administrative and Presiding Judge Ronald Adrine, who created a specialized domestic-violence docket to route some cases into an educational program.
The municipal court clerk's office is assigned to notify victims when their abusers are released on bond, and advocates will follow up with phone calls, too, Adrine said.
But victims often move or change their phone numbers. They never get the warning, and they fall out of touch with advocates who could direct them to resources and help keep them safe.
Judge, others seek Family Justice Center
A committee assembled to investigate deaths related to domestic violence in Cuyahoga County discovered that in most of the 31 cases that ended in homicide in 2007, victims never sought help -- or perhaps, were unaware of how to find it.
The solution, Adrine says, might be in the creation of a Family Justice Center. The model, launched in San Diego in 2002, draws together under one roof a multitude of services to help victims protect themselves and their children from their abusers -- even to leave the relationship and start anew.
Dozens of the centers have cropped up across the country, offering a menu of services including medical attention, food and clothing; help finding safe housing options; and legal aid in filing for divorce.
Police are stationed at the centers to take criminal complaints against abusers, and advocates, police and counselors form teams to track the highest-risk cases. However, any victim, regardless of whether charges have been filed against his or her abuser, can take advantage of the services.
Adrine and a committee of others involved in the criminal justice system have led the movement in recent years to develop a center to serve Cuyahoga County.
Some in the Domestic Relations Court are uncomfortable with the idea of participating in a family justice center model.
"There is a question about fairness," Magistrate Pellegrin said. "Some in the civil court have differing opinions as to what the role of the court can be or should be in that process."
Development of a center could be under way as early as late spring, Adrine said. But progress depends entirely on the support of the new Cuyahoga County government that will be elected in the fall.
System is 'overwhelming,' abused wife says
In the meantime, connecting victims to the resources to protect them as they leave abusive relationships remains among the system's greatest challenges.
Recently, a woman in her 30s -- not unlike the two women recently killed -- waited her turn outside a Domestic Relations courtroom.
With her tall, willowy figure folded onto a wooden bench, she exhaled loudly and forced her shoulders back, prepared to ask a judge for a long-term protection order against her husband.
He was arrested last month after he attacked and tried to choke her, and he was set to be sentenced this same day.
She talks about going to the police station in her East Side suburb to ask for protection after the attack. At first she was told they didn't do protection orders and that she would have to go downtown. So she left.
"I felt this is why people get killed. They don't feel supported," she said.
But she knew she had to report the abuse. So she went back.
Her husband was arrested and she later returned home to find her bagged-up clothing had been destroyed. Then nobody called her when her husband was bailed out of jail.
"It made me angry. I was angry with the system. I was supposed to know."
But the woman said she was lucky enough to be hooked up with a legal advocate who helped her find Ruden, the lawyer who is helping her with her divorce and the protection order. She also joined a support group and enrolled in education classes that have helped her recognize signs and patterns of abuse.
Even so, she still is anxious about how her husband will react to the news that she is divorcing him and asking that he be forced to stay away from her and their daughter. --She's also unsure when he will even be served with papers.
"The whole thing," she said. "It's been overwhelming. Having to tell the stories over and over again. Having to look behind my back all of the time. I can see how women do give up.
"Knowing I had to be strong for my daughter and raise her safely and feel like I am protecting her keeps me going," she said.
In front of Judge Leslie Ann Celebrezze recently, the woman repeated some details of that June attack.
Celebrezze granted the order.
"Stay safe," she told the woman.
No comments:
Post a Comment