Law Commons^™

We Have A "Purpose" Requirement If We Can Keep It, James F. Flanagan

Faculty Publications

The Supreme Court in Giles v. California held that a defendant forfeits the right to confront a witness only when he purposefully keeps the witness away. Many see the "purpose" requirement as an unjustified bar to the use of victim hearsay, particularly in domestic violence prosecutions where victims often refuse to appear. The author defends Giles as a correct reading of history, and independently justified by longstanding precedent that constitutional trial rights can only be lost by intentional manipulation of the judicial process. Moreover, the purpose requirement does not prevent prosecutions or convictions because the definition of testimonial hearsay is …

Stop The Killing: Potential Courtroom Use Of A Questionnaire That Predicts The Likelihood That A Victim Of Intimate Partner Violence Will Be Murdered By Her Partner, Amanda Hitt, Lynn Mclain

All Faculty Scholarship

Judges in domestic cases often underestimate the risk to a mother and her children that an angry and abusive father or other intimate partner poses. In a recent Maryland case, for example, two judges refused to deny a father visitation or require that visitation be supervised, despite the fact that the father had threatened suicide. During the father’s unsupervised visitation, he drowned all three of his children, then attempted to kill himself.

The Danger Assessment tool (the D.A.) developed by a Johns Hopkins Nursing professor and validated by herself and other social scientists shows how much the father’s thoughts of …

When Reading Between The Lines Is Not Enough: Lessons From Media Coverage Of A Domestic Violence Homicide-Suicide, Elizabeth L. Macdowell

Scholarly Works

In October 2008, Karthik Rajaram murdered his wife, mother-in-law, sons and, ultimately, himself, in a wealthy Los Angeles suburb. This Article analyzes media reports about the deaths to illustrate the resilience of patriarchy and significant gaps in research and scholarship about domestic violence, and suggests a strategic approach to building counter-narratives about violence against women.

The Article is composed of five parts. Part I is the Introduction. Part II draws on narrative theory and critical media scholarship to lay the groundwork for analysis, and to show why media coverage of homicide-suicide is implicated in the production of dominant ideology.

Part …

Finding Power, Fighting Power (Or The Perpetual Motion Machine), Mae Quinn

Journal Articles

No abstract provided.

A Shift Toward Gender Equality In Prosecutions: Realizing Legitimate Enforcement Of Crimes Committed Against Women In Municipal And International Criminal Law, Tamara F. Lawson

Articles

A new era of law enforcement has emerged recognizing the importance of punishing gender-specific violence. This first wave of "gender-sensitive prosecutors" has changed the way crimes against women are handled in the criminal justice system. The enactment of gender neutralizing laws and policies has dramatically improved the enforcement of crimes against women and attempts to end the era of impunity. This Article addresses the changes in prosecutions and further considers international human rights treaties that require gender equality in law enforcement.

In criminal law, it is the willingness of a prosecutor to exercise his or her discretionary authority to file …

Prisons Must Cease Re-Traumatizing Women: A Call For Gender-Responsive Programs That End The Cycle Of Abuse, Sally Abrahamson

Legal Writing Competition Winners

“They break us out there and then more in here. And they don't do anything to build us back up.” This is a quote from a woman serving thirty-one years for assault and crack-cocaine possession. Like many other incarcerated women, she has a history of being in domestically abusive relationships. Prison, she said, felt like an extension of feeling the same hopelessness she did before entering prison. Using drugs was a means to escape the reality of abuse and poverty. Her time in prison further disempowered her economically and socially, as she received no job-training and lost many of her …

A Response To The Sounds Of Silence, Andrew King-Ries

Faculty Law Review Articles

In his article, The Sound of Silence: Holding Batterers Accountable for Silencing Their Victims, Tom Lininger attempts to "facilitate the effective prosecution of domestic violence cases, particularly domestic homicide, while complying with the new requirements announced [for forfeiture by wrongdoing] by the Supreme Court in Giles [v. California]."' In doing so, Lininger tackles a wide array of topics, including analyzing the "theoretical underpinnings" of forfeiture by wrongdoing; explicating the Giles decision, criticizing Justice Scalia's originalist approach for its "selective historical research . . . conflation of evidentiary and constitutional forfeiture theories, and . . . vacillation between objective and subjective …

Domestic Violence Trends And Topics, Patrick D. Costello

Articles

No abstract provided.

A Historical Perspective On Parental Alienation Syndrome And Parental Alienation, Joan S. Meier

GW Law Faculty Publications & Other Works

Claims of parental alienation syndrome (PAS) and parental alienation have come to dominate custody litigation, especially where abuse is alleged. While much psychological and legal literature has critiqued PAS, and leading researchers as well as most professional institutions have renounced the syndrome concept, alienation as a parental behavior or child’s condition continues to be extensively investigated and credited in research and forensic contexts. This article reviews the history of PAS, both as posited by its inventor, Richard Gardner, and as used and applied in courts, suggesting that it not only lacks empirical basis or objective merit, but that it derives …

The Victim-Informed Prosecution Project: A Quasi-Experimental Test Of A Collaborative Model For Cases Of Intimate Partner Violence, Laurie S. Kohn, Laura Bennett Cattaneo, Lisa A. Goodman, Deborah Epstein, Holly A. Zanville

GW Law Faculty Publications & Other Works

This Article describes the Victim-Informed Prosecution Project (VIP), a program that, over its 6-year tenure, aimed to amplify the voice of the victim in the handling of interpersonal violence (IPV) prosecutions in Washington, D.C. The Article discusses the rationale for and design and implementation of VIP and then explores whether it increased the victim’s sense of influence over the justice system response. While some VIP services, including legal advocacy and civil protection order representation, were associated with increased perceived victim voice, the program as a whole reflected more limited levels of perceived victim voice in the area of criminal prosecution. …

The Uniform Collaborative Law Act And Intimate Partner Violence: A Roadmap For Collaborative (And Non-Collaborative) Lawyers, Nancy Ver Steegh

Faculty Scholarship

This Article examines the intimate partner violence provisions of the Uniform Collaborative Law Act “UCLA” and provides an analytical roadmap for collaborative lawyers. The lack of required intimate partner violence training for collaborative lawyers presents a major roadblock for implementation of the Act. Consequently, states adopting the UCLA should take immediate steps to ensure that courts and bodies regulating lawyers require ongoing training. In the meantime, to gain valuable expertise and avoid potential liability, collaborative lawyers should voluntarily seek it.