By John Pirro, Staff Writer
Published: 05:17 p.m., Monday, January 18, 2010
It happens at least 10 times a day in courthouses in Connecticut, more than 700 times last year in Danbury Superior Court alone.
A wife in the process of extricating herself from an abusive marriage will ask a judge for restraining order to keep her husband away, or a woman whose husband or boyfriend has been arrested for beating her will seek a protective order to avoid further harm.
But it's at that time, domestic violence experts say, when the woman is in greatest danger from her abuser.
"It seems like we can't pick up a newspaper without reading about some victim of domestic violence being killed, and a vast majority of them had obtained a restraining order or a protective order," said Erika Tindill, executive director of the Connecticut Coalition Against Domestic Violence.
Several such murders and assaults have recently made headlines in the Danbury area.
In November, a Superior Court jury convicted Julio Morquecho of murder for killing Maria Chulca, the 22-year-old mother of his two children, on Rose Street in April 2006. On Jan. 8, he was sentenced to serve 55 years in prison.
Chulca had left Morquecho a year earlier because he abused her, according to testimony at the trial, but he continued stalking her, even after spending 90 days in jail for violating a civil restraining order she'd obtained against him.
Two days before Morquecho was pronounced guilty, a 41-year-old New Milford man, Neil Fergus, allegedly repeatedly stabbed his estranged wife, Catherine Fergus, in the driveway of her Cortland Drive home, an attack that police said occurred in view of two of their children.
Catherine Fergus, who'd previously obtained a criminal protective order against Neil Fergus, survived the assault. He is in custody for attempted murder, among other charges.
Between July 1, 2008, and June 30, 2009, the last full year for which statistics are available, judges in the Danbury and Litchfield judicial districts granted 3,743 protective and restraining orders in family violence cases, according to the State of Connecticut Judicial Branch.
During that same period, 337 people, just under one in 10 who were subjects of the orders, were charged with violating them.
Statewide, more than 28,600 orders were granted during the same year-long period, and there were more than 4,800 violations, a more than 17 percent rate.
Ultimately, said Melanie Danyliw, family services coordinator for the Women's Center of Greater Danbury, the orders are "just pieces of paper," useful in giving the woman who obtains one a window of opportunity to leave an abusive relationship, but not a real barrier if the man is intent on preventing her escape.
Judges grant protective orders in cases where an abuser has been arrested by police for a crime, such as an assault.
Restraining orders carry many of the same restrictions, barring the subject from contacting the person who sought protection. They are issued in cases where the police are not yet involved, and the alleged victim doesn't want to have the abuser arrested for any number of reasons, including potential loss of employment when there are children involved, Danyliw said.
But a number of factors must be taken into consideration when a battered or abused woman obtains an order against her spouse or partner, and the order can't be a substituted for overall safety planning, she said.
"You have to analyze the batterer. Does he or she use alcohol or drugs that will interfere with logical thinking? Is there any mental illness that will render them unable to be rational or make good decisions?" Danyliw said.
The third factor is whether or not the abuser cares about the law and fears potential legal sanctions.
"When they have the attitude `If I can't have you, no one can,' that's going to override a piece of paper," she said.
Faced with the impending loss of control over someone whose life he has in effect manipulated for years, that kind of abuser is more likely to react violently.
"The most dangerous time is when the guy knows she is going to leave or has left," said Evan Stark, head of the public health department at Rutgers University and a long-time activist in developing programs for battered women.
Nearly half of the men held on Death Row for domestic homicide around the country killed in retaliation after their wife or lover left them, he said.
"These guys obsess about these women," he said. "Everyone who works in the field understands that the real difficult thing is getting him to leave her alone."
But Stark questions the effectiveness of court orders intended to enforce the separation of parties in an abusive relationship.
"The notion of a protective order is predicated on the idea that abuse occurs in discrete and primarily violent episodes, leading people to believe there is time between those episodes to make a decision about leaving, and that physical separation is safer than proximity," he said. "Neither assumption holds in most cases."
The woman may feel like a hostage, Stark said, but from the standpoint of a police officer, who needs probable cause to make an arrest, "there are no injuries and no blood and guts."
Spurred by a series of highly publicized domestic violence murder cases earlier this year, Tindill's group, which represents 18 family violence programs across the state, launched what is considered the most comprehensive study to date on the effectiveness of court orders in protecting victims and their children.
The coalition will collect information from everyone involved in the process, including victims, police, victim advocates, prosecutors, defense attorneys, judges and court personnel, to give recommendations to state lawmakers about improving the system by the start of the 2011 legislative session.
The most difficult part to date, Tindill said, is getting in touch with the victims.
"We're still in the data collection process," she said. "The purpose is to hear from everyone. It's not about pointing fingers. We want people to tell us what their experiences are."
Contact John Pirro
at jpirro@newstimes.com
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