Take Domestic Violence Out of the Plea Bargain Basement
Plea bargaining in so-called “domestic violence” cases needs to be restricted by legislation and strictly enforced in American criminal courts. Where intimate violence results in traumatic injury to the spouse or partner, no deals should be allowed for the batterer to get mere “time-out” probation. Victims endure hospitalization and often years of psychotherapy after the fact.
Although the U.S. Supreme Court has visited the general issue of plea bargaining in criminal cases, upholding its value in the American criminal justice system (e.g., Brady v. U.S. (1970), Santobello v. New York (1971)), we have yet to have the issue revisited in cases specifically involving cases of so-called “Domestic Violence.” Why “so-called Domestic Violence”? Because the reality is that this form of criminal violence takes place in intimate relationships, between co-habitants, “lovers,” ex-cohabitants and ex-partners, between people dating or who used to date, and not just between spouses at home. Be not confused. The victims of this type of violence are most always women. Although statistics about the number of reported intimate violence matters in the United States or those that result in plea-bargained probation for the defendant seem cryptic, it is clear that the numbers are high. In California alone, over a million women every year are victims of intimate violence that results in “traumatic injury.”
Let us pause, here, to remind ourselves, that a plea bargain, approved by the court, results in a conviction and a sentence. The batterer is a convicted criminal at that point. However, because the criminal matter resolved by a plea bargain without a trial, none of the relevant evidence (testimonial or documentary) becomes part of the public court records. The charges, the case, forever remains mere “allegations,” unexamined, untested by Due Process of Law, and hidden from the public trial by jury process. The media is free to speculate about the case to its heart’s content and until it simply becomes “old news.”
“Domestic” implies that the course of violence occurs only within the privacy of home and behind closed doors. NO! This intimate violence occurs in isolation, in cars, in public, on the streets or in bathrooms, out for dinner at the restaurant, and in places where the batterer (physical or verbal) feels safe to continue the course of violence against the victim without witnesses or others who might intervene to stop it. There is nothing “home-like” about this kind of criminal violence and it often boarders on torture. Further, “domestic” implies that the batterer is tamed, friendly to people, unlike a dangerous wild animal that could kill you without provocation. “Domestic Violence” is a dangerous euphemism, a kind of “it’s okay” speak, detracting from and diminishing the very often horrific injuries that are inflicted upon the victim. Let us not forget that “The Departed” is a euphemism for “The Dead.”
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Post Commentladybaby
On April 26, 2009 at 3:51 pm
The plea bargain is a terrible game played by the prosecutors. Violent and dangerous suspects get a good deal with this corrupt tactic. However, it ruins the lives of those who plead guilty when they are innocent, because the plea bargain will give a person a much lighter sentence for agreeing to plead guilty, than if the person were found guilty by a jury that is manipulated by the prosecutor.
A battered woman lives in \”IMMINENT DANGER\”, yet if she kills her monster, she faces life in prison. When a police officer kills a suspect and claims that his life was in IMMINENT DANGER he gets off with \”Justifiable homicide.\”
It seems like the more violent a crime is, the less time the offender gets in prison. UNLESS it is a woman. Our law enforcers are full of ego and corruption, they have NO COMMON SENSE WHAT SO EVER.
An Actual Prosecutor
On May 15, 2009 at 2:14 pm
This article is wholly flawed and makes numerous statements that simply aren’t true.
In the courthose where I work (a major one in southern California) we file about 7,000 misdemeanors and a a few thousand felonies.
the vast majority of so-called DV cases are very difficult to prove. What is left out of the article is the grim reality: By the time a criminal DV case gets to trial (typically one to two years after the crime occurred) the victim and the defendant are back together. The victim has completely recanted and either takes the position in court that she/he (and there are many “he” victims now — don’t believe the hype that it’s all women) was angry/upset at the mate when the police were called on the date of the crime; however, now, they are telling the truth and the police got it wrong. Indeed, victims frequently show up to “drop the charges” and are shocked when we as prosecutors refuse to do it.
Furthermore, what the author fails to understand about the realities of plea bargains: of the 8,000 or so cases filed in my courthouse last year, we tried about 60 misdemeanors and 30 felonies. I’ll round it to make it more simple: We did 100 cases otu of 10,000 cases, or 1% of all the cases went to trial. Those 100 cases kept our courthouse quite busy for the year. Each misdemeanor takes 6-10 days to try, and felonies typically take 10-30 days to try. Do the math.
If you want to try every case, we need to expand our trial courts by a factor of 100x. That means instead of having 400 judges in a large county in CA that means we’ll need to have 4000 judges (and at ~$165,000 per judge, we’re goin to need an extra $6.4 billion just for the judges for 2010 — let alone the additional clerks, staff, etc. You want to ante up a few extra thousand dollars a year to fund this adventure? And what would the actual benefit be?).
And that means when you say, look, I’ll plead guilty to my shoplifting charge, as a prosecutor I’ll have to insist you go to trial and go to jail for 180 days. . . or I could just allow you to plea, spend one day in jail and the case could be over.
Go to your local courthouse, find a calendar prosecutor and ask him/her how it really works. . . it’ll be an eye opener. . .