Battered Wives Out From Under Thumb of Old Law

Laws condoning or condemning wife beating have changed dramatically since the 19th Century “rule of thumb” law that permitted a husband to beat his wife with a stick that was no thicker than his thumb.

Today, most states have repealed laws that allow a man to have absolute power over his wife. Approximately 20 states, including California, have laws prohibiting spousal rape, and in California a change in the domestic violence laws has afforded greater protection to the battered woman.

In California, a batterer can be evicted from his residence, even if the house is in his name only. A court also can order the abusing spouse or domestic partner to stay away from the victim and her children, and, in some cases, the batterer can be forced to reimburse the victim for lost wages and medical bills that result from wife beatings.

However, for Faurosa Pau and Beverly Humphreys, two battered San Diego County women who took full advantage of the new laws, the protection extended by the courts was not enough to stop the violence.

Pau, 27, died on April 21, from gunshot wounds to the chest and abdomen. Her husband, Sione, 53, was charged with killing her and is awaiting trial. According to an application for a temporary restraining order filed in Superior Court by Faurosa Pau six weeks before she died, Sione Pau had beaten his wife for six years.

The court document also said that Pau was arrested in 1981 for beating his wife and fracturing the skull of the couple’s then 8-month-old son. In November, 1985, Faurosa Pau had attempted to have a restraining order served against her husband, but the officials were unable to find him and he was never served.

According to Joyce Faidley, an official at the San Diego Center for Women’s Studies and Services, Faurosa Pau was still under her husband’s domination even in death.

He was “the only one who could authorize the release of his wife’s body after the autopsy,” Faidley said.

Humphreys, 31, was married to her first husband, Leland Eugene Blackington, for more than seven years.

“I was abused during our entire marriage. . . . It kind of started out mostly as verbal abuse. Slowly, it turned into physical abuse. He was really into degrading me,” she said. “I went into the relationship as an insecure person . . . My whole thing was wanting to have a baby, and I wanted to be a wife. When I told my family and brothers about the beatings, they thought I was exaggerating.”

Humphreys recounted an incident when her husband came home drunk and did not like the spaghetti dinner she had cooked. She said that she was in a nightgown when Blackington spilled a plate of spaghetti over her head and forced her to stand outside their apartment.

Like most battered women, Humphreys said she elected to stay with Blackington and endure the beatings because of her economic dependence to him and a feeling of low self-esteem. And like many abused women, at one point she began to feel that maybe she deserved to be beaten.

“In the beginning I thought he’d change. If I do this, he’ll change. I tried just about everything to make him change . . . The typical battered wife feels that she’s responsible, and you began believing this when he tells you that the beatings are your fault, for something you’ve done or didn’t do,” Humphreys said.

For Humphreys, the turning point occurred in February, 1980, when Blackington allegedly cracked her forehead, leaving a scar that runs from the bridge of the nose to the hairline, noticeable even after plastic surgery.

“It was at the hospital that they called the police. And they put me in touch with a hot line for battered women. . . . This woman on the telephone told me, ‘Don’t you realize that if he could do that he can also kill you?’ This is what I was feeling, but to hear someone else say it . . . that’s what I really wanted to hear,” she said.

After that incident, Humphreys separated from her husband and eventually divorced him. She married her second husband, Eric Humphreys. On Nov. 8, 1983, Blackington and a companion, Donald Craig Eldred, came to the Humphreys’ Old Town home, allegedly so Blackington could see his two children from his marriage to Beverly Humphreys. Instead, Blackington shot Eric Humphreys dead with a bullet to the chest, according to trial testimony, while Eldred, who is Beverly’s brother, threatened her husband with a baseball bat.

At his first trial, Blackington was convicted of second-degree murder, but that conviction was reversed on appeal because of a technicality involving Eldred’s confession. Blackington’s second trial ended in a hung jury.

A third trial also resulted in a hung jury. Blackington eventually pleaded guilty to a reduced charge of voluntary manslaughter to avoid a fourth trial and was sentenced to four years in jail.

Blackington is scheduled to be released from state prison in August, and Humphreys said she will ask the court for a temporary restraining order to keep him away from her and the two children.

“I’m afraid of him,” she said. “When I filed for divorce in 1980 I told the court, ‘Hey, this guy is dangerous.’ I said that in my first declaration in the divorce papers . . . ‘This guy’s capable of murder.’ But nobody listened. I hope they listen now. I hope they believe me.”