Tough Spouse-Abuse Bill Wins Governor’s Support : Domestic violence: Legislation would increase penalties for offenders and expand victims’ services.

Gov. Pete Wilson on Friday threw his support behind a bill that would substantially toughen the penalties against repeat domestic violence offenders, expand services to victims of such crimes and establish a pilot project designed to improve police response to battered women.

The action may give renewed life to a proposal that has lain dormant in the California Senate since it was introduced in January.

The governor spent half an hour with a group of abused women and their children Friday morning before he appeared at a news conference in the South Bay. He described the bill, sponsored by Sen. Marian Bergeson (R-Newport Beach), as the most comprehensive package of domestic violence legislation ever introduced in California.

Wilson also said he supports another proposal sponsored by Sen. Robert Presley (D-Riverside) that would raise the surcharge on marriage licenses from $19 to $24 to pay for increased domestic violence services.

Presley’s bill, introduced last year, also has not moved through the Legislature.

The delay in action on the bills was not mentioned by Wilson.

“No civilized society can tolerate assaults on the vulnerable and the innocent,” the governor said. “And in California we won’t. We have. But we won’t.”

Wilson skirted a question about whether he intended to sign 34 petitions for clemency sent to him last year by women who are imprisoned in California for kill ing abusive spouses.

“They are under review as individual cases,” he said. “I would have to withhold comment until I talk to my legal adviser.”

Bergeson, who appeared with Wilson, said she thinks his handling of the clemency petitions is appropriate.

As to her bill, she said she expected it to be heard within the next 30 days.

She acknowledged later that elements of the bill--harsher sentences for those convicted of domestic violence--have been rejected by legislators who seemed uncomfortable with them.

“I think some of the incarceration features seemed too dramatic,” she said.

Presley could not be reached for comment. But Presley aide Sandy Silberstein said she was optimistic about the bill, given the governor’s backing.

The Bergeson bill would increase from 48 hours to a mandatory 60 days the period an abusive mate could be jailed for violating a court order prohibiting contact with a victim, make any violation of a court order that results in serious injury a felony punishable by a maximum nine-year prison sentence, and raise the maximum fine for violating such an order from $1,000 to $2,000. Domestic violence that ended in serious bodily injury would be a felony instead of a misdemeanor.

Also, the bill would increase funding of domestic violence centers and shelters by 50% and increase the number of such facilities, particularly in rural areas.

It also would establish a fund to upgrade domestic violence services, and set up a three-year pilot program in which police officers would be educated about domestic violence and encouraged to arrest suspects accused of battering a mate.

Advocates for the victims of domestic violence have long complained that police often do not take seriously women’s complaints.

Lydia Bodin, a Los Angeles County deputy district attorney who prosecutes domestic violence suspects, said the harsher jail and prison terms will make her job easier.

“If I can put them in jail for a longer period,” Bodin said, “I’m giving (a battered woman) an opportunity to be safe, I’m giving her an opportunity to get her life together and I’m giving her--perhaps for the first time--many years to have a life.”

Cheryl Ward, of the Los Angeles Domestic Violence Council, agreed.

The Bergeson bill, she said, would “send a very clear message that if you are battering, you are a criminal and you will be treated as such.”