New Law May Place Battered Women at Risk : Officials Describe Abuse of Statute by Wife Beaters

Maria fled to a battered women’s shelter in north Orange County with her three young children a few weeks ago after her husband told her he was going to kill her. Because he kept a handgun at their Santa Ana home, she believed him.

Maria, who asked that her real name not be used, said her husband is an alcoholic and had abused her before, slapping her face, pulling her hair and choking her until her neck was black and blue. Before she left for the shelter, “he was always threatening me. He’d tell me that if I took the kids, he was going to find me and kill me,” she said.

She was staying at the Women’s Transitional Living Center in north Orange County when a Santa Ana police detective called, looking for her. He told her that because she left without telling her husband where the children were, she might be in violation of Penal Code Section 277, she said. When the detective told her “that he had the right to arrest me,” Maria said, “I couldn’t believe it.”

After she told him her side of the story and agreed to see a lawyer about a temporary custody order, the detective said he would not press charges. But “I was very scared. And I thought it was very unfair after all the hell I went through,” Maria said. “That’s not justice to me.”

California Penal Code Section 277 has been causing a lot of concern among officials at shelters for battered women throughout the state since it became effective last Jan. 1. The law, which is intended to prevent one parent from taking and concealing a child with the intent of depriving the other parent of custody, is being used as a tool by wife beaters to punish the wife and make her come home, shelter directors say.

Maria’s case was one of two incidents in which Orange County police departments have contacted the Women’s Transitional Living Center, looking for women whose husbands had filed complaints under the new law, according to center director Susan Leibel.

Last spring, a warrant was issued for the arrest of an Orange County woman who had received help from Safety Net, a county-funded program that offers battered women immediate but temporary shelter in motel rooms, program manager Judi Naslund said. The woman’s husband dropped the charges after she agreed to go back to him, Naslund said.

Leibel said she is worried that the law will become a bigger problem as more people become aware of it. The majority of women in shelters bring their children with them, and batterers will try many avenues to get their wives and children back, Leibel said.

In years past, batterers have enlisted police assistance in trying to find the women, usually by filing a missing person report. Leibel said batterers will go to the police for assistance, even if, by assaulting their wives or girlfriends, they have committed a crime. “The batterers don’t see themselves as doing anything wrong,” she said.

Jill Kelly, a member of the California Alliance Against Domestic Violence and executive director of the El Dorado Women’s Center in Placerville, said she does not know how many complaints have been filed against women in shelters under the new law, but there has been “a growing concern” about Penal Code Section 277.

The California Alliance, a legislative and policy advocacy group, will discuss the law at its next meeting later this month, she said. “What we would like to do is add something (to the law) to exempt women in shelters from culpability,” Kelly said.

She said most shelter directors agree that the law is a good one but worry that it is being misused.

Before Penal Code Section 277 became effective, parental child stealing was only a crime if the parent had violated a custody agreement, according to state Sen. Bill Lockyer (D-Hayward), who sponsored the law. If one parent took the child, and there had never been any custody agreements, the other parent could not get assistance from the criminal justice system to get the child back, Lockyer said.

“It just says it’s a crime to permanently deprive a parent of custody,” Lockyer said. The issue of battered women in shelters “was discussed when the bill was moving (through the Legislature),” Lockyer said, but he added: “I would guess that a district attorney would not file a charge (against a woman in a shelter).

“I’m sympathetic to the (battered) woman’s plight. But it is far outweighed by the (situation of a) spouse stealing the kid and never giving him back.”

Exemption Possible

As for making an exemption for women in shelters, Lockyer said: “Theoretically that’s (possible), but I’m not sure it’s needed.” Women who leave home with their children to escape the husband’s abuse should file for temporary custody as soon as possible, Lockyer said. “She would generally have to do that regardless.”

Before the law was passed, “you had the situation where Dad had come home from work and Mom had gone with the children, and I mean gone,” said Richard Fulton, Orange County deputy district attorney in charge of the child-stealing unit. In the case where there had never been a custody agreement, Fulton said, the man “couldn’t get assistance from the district attorney.”

In a situation where the wife had taken the children with her to a women’s shelter, “we would interview him (the husband) on the family situation,” Fulton said, adding: “Just because she’s in a battered women’s shelter doesn’t mean she can deny him his visitation rights.”

A woman at a shelter would be told to go to court to get temporary custody orders, he said. “We’re willing to give her the opportunity to do this. (But if) the communication stops and she disappears, we’re going to file,” he said.

Judi Naslund said she found out about the law last spring, when a battered woman who had been staying with her children for a week in one of Safety Net’s “secret motels” went to court to get a restraining order against her husband. At the hearing, the husband informed her that there was a warrant out for her arrest under 277, Naslund said. “It made her the bad guy.”

The woman had suffered physical and verbal abuse for years and had left her husband five times before but had always gone back. Each time she left, her husband used different ploys to get her back. Once he threatened suicide. Another time “he cut his own leg and ended up in the emergency room,” Naslund said.

Didn’t Get ‘Restraining Order’

“She did not get a restraining order because there was a warrant out for her arrest and the judge didn’t believe her story,” Naslund said. The man agreed to drop the charges after she agreed to go back to him, Naslund said.

“We didn’t know about 277,” Naslund said. “That’s how we found out.”

Mary Padore, supervisor of the Santa Ana Superior Court Victim Witness Program, said her office helped 992 battered women file temporary restraining orders during the period from June, 1984, to July, 1985. A temporary restraining order can establish custody and visitation rights “until the next hearing in about 21 days,” Padore said.

A temporary court order can be obtained the day it is filed, as long as the woman notifies the man at least four hours before the hearing, Padore said. Judges “hardly ever” deny visitation rights, she said. In the case where there are police reports of child abuse, the man may still get some visitation rights, although there may be a provision for the visitation to occur in the presence of a third party.

Naslund said that now she almost “forces” all the women who use the Safety Net program to get temporary custody orders in court. But it is not easy for her to convince a woman to see her husband when he beat her up the night before, Naslund said.

“Their scare emotions are real high. They need a cooling-off period,” Naslund said. “They’re afraid of seeing him. (The woman is) afraid he’s going to beat her up again as soon as she walks out the courthouse doors.”

Women usually agree to go to court, until they find out they have to call their husbands four hours before the court appearance, Naslund said. The women often are so terrified of talking with their husbands on the phone that Naslund uses role-playing exercises to try to prepare them. “We rehearse (the phone call) several times. We say: ‘Don’t listen to him, just tell him,’ “she said.

“We’ve had some refuse (to go to court), and we just kind of hope nothing happens,” Naslund said.

Address Never Given

Leibel expressed concern that police who are looking for women will let the husbands know the address of the shelter. When a woman calls the Women’s Transitional Living Center seeking shelter, she is never given the address over the phone but must meet a shelter worker in a prearranged location. The policy is to protect the women and the shelter staff from wife beaters who might be listening on the phone or who may follow the woman to the shelter, Leibel said.

“We are talking about a very violent population,” she said. “Some of them do have weapons. They may be on drugs, and they may be addicts. We have had bomb threats.”

Because wife batterers often beat the woman to “control” her, Leibel said, “the worst thing a woman can do to a batterer is to leave him.”

According to Fulton, a shelter worker could be arrested if she did not cooperate with police. But before an arrest is made, Fulton said, “the police officer would have to say the key words: ‘We have an arrest warrant for child stealing. It is a felony.’ ”

The policy of the Women’s Transitional Living Center is never to release any information over the phone, Leibel said. In Maria’s case, she was told that a detective was looking for her and was given his telephone number. But the shelter employee who answered the telephone did not tell the detective that Maria was there. As a result, that employee “was threatened with arrest,” Leibel said.

When a Santa Ana police detective called to ask if Maria was at the shelter, Cherylynn Glass-Hubbard, a shelter employee, was working the hot line. “I said: ‘Due to the nature of our business, we maintain confidentiality,’ and I couldn’t answer his questions. He stated charges could be filed against me,” she said.

“We don’t want to give any information over the phone because we don’t know who we’re talking to,” Glass-Hubbard said. Since she started working at the shelter, batterers have called the hot line posing as ministers, lawyers and police officers, she said.

11 Complaints a Month

Santa Ana Detective Frank Stastany, a juvenile investigator, said he could not discuss Maria’s case because no criminal charges had been filed. He said, however, that since January he has handled about 11 parental child-stealing complaints a month, half of them falling within the limits of Penal Code Section 277. And since January, he has made only one arrest, which did not involve a woman in a shelter.

“My main concern is not to throw people in jail, it’s to resolve the situation,” he said. Most people, like Maria, are not aware that they are committing a crime, he said. “We’re normally able to resolve these things by saying: ‘Hey, you’ve got (to get) a court order.’ ”

He said that after the parent with the children agrees to go to court, “I normally tell (the parent who filed the complaint) I’ve been in contact with the spouse, and the matter is being resolved.

“The shelters are behind the times,” Stastany said. “They should assist the person in the situation” by having her go to court before the other parent files a complaint, he said. “There are situations where these people at the shelter won’t even say if the person is there. Are they aiding and abetting that person?”

Wanda Fox, the executive director of Women’s Base Unlimited, a program in Lake Tahoe that provides temporary shelter in motel rooms, said she consulted a district attorney who told her that she could be prosecuted under the law if the shelter hides women who are in violation of Penal Code Section 277.

“We don’t think we should be charged with anything,” she said. “Which is more important, her life and her health or his access?”