Eye-Opening Step Against Domestic Violence

I stumbled upon some wonderful news as I cut through the lobby of a fancy Downtown hotel last week.

A bunch of your basic professional conference types--with name tags and notebooks--were conferring in clumps. When I saw a couple of Family Violence Prevention Fund posters behind a long registration table, I stopped.

Turns out I’d walked into “Family Violence and the Courts,” a three-day conference put on by the Judicial Council of California, the agency that oversees the state’s courts. The council had not sought media coverage for fear that the event, in the works for more than a year, might become tangled in the upcoming Murder Trial of the Century.

More than 100 judges from all 58 California counties were joined by prosecutors, probation officers, police officers, public defenders and advocates for victims of domestic violence in what I can only describe as an extraordinary (and encouraging) session of consciousness-raising and goal-setting.

In the ballrooms, victims of domestic violence recounted appalling court experiences, batterers spoke of breaking through denial, judges talked of social commitment, prosecutors and public defenders discussed the use of expert witnesses and protective orders.

In the meeting rooms, county teams met to create plans to improve the ways courts respond to cases of family violence.

For L.A. Superior Court Presiding Judge Robert Mallano, the conference was an eye-opener.

“For the first time,” he said, “I could put myself in the shoes of a battered woman, how she feels petrified about dying, how she feels shamed, how she has no money, no friends and no place to go. And the shocking thing is, there is so little support. Someone at the conference said that we shelter more animals than human beings. That really brought it home for me.”

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Although it is not without its share of highly publicized problems, L.A. County is recognized as a leader in the movement to coordinate services for victims of domestic violence (and Dist. Atty. Gil Garcetti, among others, was praised in several quarters for his advocacy on behalf of victims).

“I’d say we are light-years ahead of other counties,” said Alana Bowman, who supervises the domestic-violence unit of the Los Angeles city attorney’s office and whose profile increased exponentially after Nicole Simpson and Ronald Goldman were killed.

Some smaller counties are seriously constrained by staffing and budget issues--and will, for instance, issue temporary restraining orders only one day a week. Thus, a woman who seeks court protection on a Monday may be told to return Thursday, by which time the courts could be dealing with homicide instead of spouse abuse.

Sheila James Kuehl, the women’s rights attorney and Assembly candidate, offered a classic example of how the system can conspire against victims of family violence. She repeated a story told to her by the police chief of a small San Joaquin Valley town: “He said, ‘We have no jail, so we have to take people to county jail, and we have to pay the county for each incarceration, so it is a disincentive for our police force to arrest batterers.’ ”

For Kuehl, who has trained judges on domestic-violence issues, the conference was about “raising the consciousness about the connection between court procedures and putting battered women in jeopardy.”

Though judges are allergic to appearing one-sided on any issue, she said, how they respond to domestic violence can make a huge difference--and not just in the courtroom.

“Their own example in taking this seriously sets a tone,” said Kuehl, “not just for their courts, but for their entire communities.”

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Judges, like anyone else, are often unschooled in the dynamics of domestic violence. Judges, like anyone else, wonder why victims stay, why they refuse to press charges, why they don’t want to testify against their partner.

Judges, like anyone else, often have trouble understanding that lesbians and gay men suffer from domestic violence and that when a gay man batters his partner, it is not “mutual combat.”

“Judges are often viewed by battered-women’s advocates as being unaware and uneducated,” Bowman said. “Sure, judges are expected to be neutral. But just because judges cannot be advocates doesn’t mean they have to be ignorant. We are trying to educate them.”

This year, a bill asking the Judicial Council to require judges to undergo domestic violence training was passed by the Legislature. The council has not yet acted on the bill.

“Domestic violence is a serious issue that permeates the entire law system,” said Judge Mallano. “There is a need for judges to understand the plight of the battered person and to understand why someone batters their spouse. And judges need the training necessary to do a good job. But I don’t like this ‘required’ thing. We should offer judges training.”

With all due respect to Judge Mallano, I bet the judges who would refuse the offer are the ones who need it most.

* Robin Abcarian’s column is published Wednesdays and Sundays.