RADAR ALERT:
Washington Post Ignores Battered Justice for Male Victim

On December 16, 2003 Georgia beauty queen Sharron Nicole Redmond rolled down the window of her car and shot boyfriend Kevin Shorter. Three days later, Shorter bled to death.

Even though Shorter did not have a gun with him, and even though Redmond easily could have driven away in her car, Redmond later testified that she killed Shorter in self-defense. This past week the jury in Savannah found Miss Redmond not guilty of murder. [http://wtop.com/index.php?nid=104&sid=447343].

A case of battered justice for a male victim of domestic violence.

Three days after the jury verdict, the Washington Post ran an editorial about Battered Justice in domestic violence cases. The article did not mention anything about Kevin Shorter. The article did not say anything about Ray Blumhorst, a battered man who was turned away by a local domestic violence shelter [http://www.ifeminists.net/introduction/editorials/2005/0223blumhorst.html]. The article did not refer to male victims at all.

Written by law professor Joan Meier, the essay tells the tragic story of Jessica Gonzalez. Finding her daughters missing from the house, she called the police for help, who did not respond to her appeal. The daughters were later found dead.

In her editorial, Joan Meier ignores the cold indifference that meets male DV victims, instead claiming that “too many have continued to be indifferent and sometimes hostile to women’s calls for help.”

Meier rightfully refers to “protecting battered women and children,” but fails to point out that women are equally likely to commit DV as men, and that mothers are more likely to physically abuse children than fathers.

Contact the Washington Post and tell them the following:

1. Joan Meier’s editorial on “Battered Justice for Battered Women” is biased and unfair.
2. Editorialists who make claims about “protecting battered women and children” should be expected to provide evidence to back such one-sided statements.
3. The Washington Post should run an article about “Battered Justice for Battered Men,” and highlight the recent tragic case of Kevin Shorter.

Here’s the contact information at the Washington Post:

Michael Getler, Ombudsman:

E-mail: ombudsman@washpost.com

Telephone: 202-334-7582

Leonard Downie, Executive Editor:

Telephone: 202-334-7512

Letters to the Editor (remember to keep your letter courteous and concise):

The Washington Post
1150 15th Street, NW
Washington, D.C. 20071

If you are really bothered by this blatant example of media bias, contact the writer directly:

Joan Meier

George Washington University Law School
2000 H Street, N.W.
Washington, DC 20052

E-mail: jmeier@law.gwu.edu
Telephone: 202-994-2278

The Washington Post has never run a major article that highlights DV against men. With the re- introduction of VAWA coming any day now, we need to generate at least 1,000 e-mails, phone calls, and letters about this unfair editorial.

Battered Justice for Battered Women

Joan Meier

Saturday, March 19, 2005; Page A25

www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A48483-2005Mar18.html?referrer=emailarticle

It is common for the public and the courts to criticize women who are victims of domestic abuse for staying in an abusive relationship and tolerating it. But what happens when women do try to end the abuse? Jessica Gonzales's story provides one horrifying answer.

In May 1999 Gonzales received a protection order from her suicidal and frightening husband, Simon Gonzales, whom she was divorcing. The order limited his access to the home and the children. On June 22 the three girls disappeared near their house. But when Jessica Gonzales called the Castle Rock, Colo., police department, she received no assistance. Over a period of eight hours, the police refused to take action, repeatedly telling her that there was nothing they could do and that she should call back later -- even after she had located her husband and daughters by cell phone. The three young girls, ages 7, 9 and 10, were not to survive the night. At 3 a.m. on June 23, Simon Gonzales arrived at the police station in his truck, opened fire and was killed by return fire. The bodies of Leslie, Katheryn and Rebecca were found in the back of his truck.

Next week the U.S. Supreme Court will hear the case of Town of Castle Rock, Colorado v. Jessica Gonzales , which stems from Gonzales's lawsuit against the police. The question before the court is whether the constitutional guarantee of procedural due process was violated by the police department's dismissal of the protection order, in clear violation of the state statute, which required them to use "every reasonable means" to enforce it. If procedural due process -- required by the 14th Amendment -- means anything, then it must be found that it was violated here, and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 10th Circuit has so ruled.

The doctrine of procedural due process derives from the principle that when a state chooses to establish a benefit or right for citizens, it may not deny such benefits in an arbitrary or unfair way. In this case, the state established a benefit of mandated police enforcement of protection orders. Aware that police discretion too often fails, the Colorado legislation required the police to make arrests or otherwise to enforce domestic violence restraining orders of the sort issued to Jessica Gonzales. Police discretion was limited to determining whether a violation of an order had occurred. Yet in this case the police did nothing; they simply ignored the complaint, a clear example of "arbitrary" conduct.

This type of police behavior has to be understood in its historical and legal context. Early English common law and some U.S. courts once endorsed the right of men to beat their wives and children, on the grounds that the man was head of the household. By the mid-19th century, most states had abandoned such legal doctrines, but the courts and police continued to refuse to protect victims of violence in the family in the name of so-called family privacy. In the past few decades, while many police departments have implemented better procedures, too many have continued to be indifferent and sometimes even hostile to women's calls for help. Thus many states such as Colorado have tried to force change by requiring police responses to victims of abuse, particularly where a protection order has been violated.

The Castle Rock police department and its defenders, such as the National League of Cities, the National Sheriffs' Association and others, are arguing that the police could not have predicted the terrible outcome of what appeared at the time to be a mere "domestic dispute." But it was not the police department's job to make predictions. As in 19 other states and the District of Columbia, Colorado's mandatory-arrest statute was adopted to end precisely this type of speculative decision making by police. Indeed, the Castle Rock police department's dismissive attitude not only defied the law, it flouted standard practices for domestic violence cases. Four police associations and the police-led Americans for Effective Law Enforcement have signed on to a brief opposing the Castle Rock police department, and the International Association of Chiefs of Police has refused to support the town's position.

Castle Rock and, shamefully, the Bush administration argue that to uphold the 10th Circuit's finding of a constitutional violation would be to inappropriately insert the federal courts into state matters. But here the state has done everything it could to ensure police action: Both the legislature and courts have spoken emphatically to require police protection in domestic violence cases. A negative decision from the high court, far from respecting the state's policy, would undercut it and would give police everywhere a green light to ignore state mandates requiring enforcement. Such a decision would encourage police to do less than they do now, drastically weakening the effectiveness of protection orders, which are a crucial legal means of protecting battered women and children.

In fact, the history of profound gender inequality in the government's treatment of wife-beating makes the problem one of core constitutional concern. No less than police brutality, this kind of passive misconduct implicates fundamental civil rights.

Date of RADAR Release: March 20, 2005

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R.A.D.A.R. – Respecting Accuracy in Domestic Abuse Reporting – is a non-profit, non-partisan organization of men and women working to improve the effectiveness of our nation's approach to solving domestic violence. http://www.mediaradar.org