When Principles Collide: Domestic Violence Edition
posted by M. LeBlanc
Good morning, bitches and bitch readers. Forgive me for not posting very much (although, really, what's new?); this time I have a good excuse! Since we last spoke, I did the final preparations for and carried out my very first jury trial. I did the opening, the closing, put on both of our witnesses, and cross-examined three of the opposition's four witnesses (my boss did the cross of their main witness). I argued motions and made objections. I did the absolute very best I could, and I was pleased with my performance. But because the judge ruled against us on nearly every evidentiary issue (including several rulings that were just flat-out wrong), and because we had a very difficult case to begin with, I was convinced we would lose. So was everyone else there, including everyone in my office, the other side, and spectators. Even our client didn't seem too optimistic.
But we won! It was a shocking verdict. I don't know how much credit I can take for the win, but given that I can never really know what swayed them, I'm going to take at least some of it. It was a truly awesome experience, and I already feel like a better lawyer for having done it. Just spending a whole two days in the courtroom, talking a lot, interacting with the judge, coming up with arguments on the fly...it really helps. I was surprised at how much fun I had, and how comfortable I felt up there. Unexpected fun was had in voir dire, where I basically just got to chat with the jurors until I got a sense of them--it was an easy extension of my natural nosiness and curiosity about people.
And then, after we'd won, and I went with my awesome friends, who showed up to watch, to get food and drink, I got the most kickass post-trial present:
Fuck, yeah.
So now that I've bragged and gloated, let's get on topic: I want to talk about the new Illinois law allowing judges to order abusers who have violated a restraining order to wear a GPS device. The linked article talks about Cindy Bischof, an Illinois woman who was killed by her ex-boyfriend right after he got out of a mental health facility. He'd spent 60 days there after he violated an order of protection against him, and apparently the stay didn't do him much good. After her death, her family lobbied for this law, and it was signed into law by the Governor last week.
The GPS devices authorized by the new law are apparently sophisticated enough to alert the police when the device-wearer goes within certain areas--the victim's home, her work, or another particular place she may designate (I assume there are restrictions on this--you can't designate, say, a whole town as a zone in which your ex-boyfriend may not be).
I feel extremely conflicted about this. First off, I'll say that insofar as the monitoring devices are used as a substitute for pre-trial detention, I think they're a great idea. Electronic monitoring is extremely effective, and it has the added bonus of not putting people in jail—when they go, they're not likely to come out feeling any more inclined to spare their abused from harm. Detention only fuels the rage.
But electronic monitoring for people who wouldn't be in jail, to monitor their whereabouts, basically putting them in state custody? Pre-trial? I just don't know. This is one of many situations where my multiple senses of justice collide. To me, in a just world, women wouldn't have to be subjected to harassment, violence, and death at the hands of their boyfriends, husbands, ex-husbands, brothers, co-workers, or friends. But in the same just world, poor men, men of color, and mentally ill men wouldn't be locked up at disproportionate rates both pre- and post-trial, creating an underclass of people for whom the criminal justice system is a revolving door of incarceration and freedom to get arrested again.
It seems that our only approach to dealing with the problem of domestic violence is a bad-apples theory, peppered with a healthy dose of victim-blaming (for all the people who are forever asking "why doesn't she leave?!", please see the statistic in the linked article about how when women leave, they end up dead).
These aren't just bad apples. Our society is sick—it is a patriarchy where men are promised power and dominion over women and they are taught that violence is noble, that using force is masculine. It is a pornocracy where children are sexualized, where women's dismembered bodies are used to sell soap, blue jeans, and hamburgers. It is a market economy where the right to have a young woman rub her naked body on you can be legally purchased in any town or city, but where those same young women are arrested for accepting money for giving a blowjob. It is a world where all things deemed within the fake construct of masculinity are positive attributes, and all those within the construct of femininity are deprecated. Where women make less money, hold far fewer political offices and judgeships, where motherhood is "the most important job in the world," a privilege for which mothers are treated like utter shit.
Abusers aren't just bad apples. They are normal dudes. They are the guys you work with, the guys you went to college with, the guys you see in a bar on a Friday night or the grocery store on a Sunday afternoon.
They bear the blame for what they do. But the rest of us do, too. Every guy who stands by and heh-hehs when sexist jokes are made, who views their co-workers or classmates not as colleagues, but as eye-candy, who refuses to acknowledge the misogyny inherent in pornography, is a part of this sick society. Every woman who tut-tuts her friends or neighbors for trying too hard to look sexy, or not trying hard enough, who criticizes other women for being too assertive, who criticizes other men for not being manly enough or showing too much emotion, is a part of this putrid virus.
The criminal justice system does nothing but create more criminals. We need it, like we need a tourniquet to staunch the bleeding of human dignity from every woman on the planet, but it can not, and will not, solve our problems. These GPS devices will not stop women from being hurt and killed, and they will be another chink in the wall that we put between citizens and the state. The lock and the key, the bracelet and the computer, will not stop or even slow the violence.
For that, we need a revolution.
But we won! It was a shocking verdict. I don't know how much credit I can take for the win, but given that I can never really know what swayed them, I'm going to take at least some of it. It was a truly awesome experience, and I already feel like a better lawyer for having done it. Just spending a whole two days in the courtroom, talking a lot, interacting with the judge, coming up with arguments on the fly...it really helps. I was surprised at how much fun I had, and how comfortable I felt up there. Unexpected fun was had in voir dire, where I basically just got to chat with the jurors until I got a sense of them--it was an easy extension of my natural nosiness and curiosity about people.
And then, after we'd won, and I went with my awesome friends, who showed up to watch, to get food and drink, I got the most kickass post-trial present:
Fuck, yeah.So now that I've bragged and gloated, let's get on topic: I want to talk about the new Illinois law allowing judges to order abusers who have violated a restraining order to wear a GPS device. The linked article talks about Cindy Bischof, an Illinois woman who was killed by her ex-boyfriend right after he got out of a mental health facility. He'd spent 60 days there after he violated an order of protection against him, and apparently the stay didn't do him much good. After her death, her family lobbied for this law, and it was signed into law by the Governor last week.
The GPS devices authorized by the new law are apparently sophisticated enough to alert the police when the device-wearer goes within certain areas--the victim's home, her work, or another particular place she may designate (I assume there are restrictions on this--you can't designate, say, a whole town as a zone in which your ex-boyfriend may not be).
I feel extremely conflicted about this. First off, I'll say that insofar as the monitoring devices are used as a substitute for pre-trial detention, I think they're a great idea. Electronic monitoring is extremely effective, and it has the added bonus of not putting people in jail—when they go, they're not likely to come out feeling any more inclined to spare their abused from harm. Detention only fuels the rage.
But electronic monitoring for people who wouldn't be in jail, to monitor their whereabouts, basically putting them in state custody? Pre-trial? I just don't know. This is one of many situations where my multiple senses of justice collide. To me, in a just world, women wouldn't have to be subjected to harassment, violence, and death at the hands of their boyfriends, husbands, ex-husbands, brothers, co-workers, or friends. But in the same just world, poor men, men of color, and mentally ill men wouldn't be locked up at disproportionate rates both pre- and post-trial, creating an underclass of people for whom the criminal justice system is a revolving door of incarceration and freedom to get arrested again.
It seems that our only approach to dealing with the problem of domestic violence is a bad-apples theory, peppered with a healthy dose of victim-blaming (for all the people who are forever asking "why doesn't she leave?!", please see the statistic in the linked article about how when women leave, they end up dead).
These aren't just bad apples. Our society is sick—it is a patriarchy where men are promised power and dominion over women and they are taught that violence is noble, that using force is masculine. It is a pornocracy where children are sexualized, where women's dismembered bodies are used to sell soap, blue jeans, and hamburgers. It is a market economy where the right to have a young woman rub her naked body on you can be legally purchased in any town or city, but where those same young women are arrested for accepting money for giving a blowjob. It is a world where all things deemed within the fake construct of masculinity are positive attributes, and all those within the construct of femininity are deprecated. Where women make less money, hold far fewer political offices and judgeships, where motherhood is "the most important job in the world," a privilege for which mothers are treated like utter shit.
Abusers aren't just bad apples. They are normal dudes. They are the guys you work with, the guys you went to college with, the guys you see in a bar on a Friday night or the grocery store on a Sunday afternoon.
They bear the blame for what they do. But the rest of us do, too. Every guy who stands by and heh-hehs when sexist jokes are made, who views their co-workers or classmates not as colleagues, but as eye-candy, who refuses to acknowledge the misogyny inherent in pornography, is a part of this sick society. Every woman who tut-tuts her friends or neighbors for trying too hard to look sexy, or not trying hard enough, who criticizes other women for being too assertive, who criticizes other men for not being manly enough or showing too much emotion, is a part of this putrid virus.
The criminal justice system does nothing but create more criminals. We need it, like we need a tourniquet to staunch the bleeding of human dignity from every woman on the planet, but it can not, and will not, solve our problems. These GPS devices will not stop women from being hurt and killed, and they will be another chink in the wall that we put between citizens and the state. The lock and the key, the bracelet and the computer, will not stop or even slow the violence.
For that, we need a revolution.
Posted at 2:34 AM
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