A troubling story

[Kasreyn]

On the one hand, she said, the criminal prosecution of Ms. Lucas was misguided and potentially counterproductive. On the other, she continued, the concerns animating the prosecution were appropriate.

I agree that prosecuting her was misguided. The onus is on Mr. Lucas to not come near Ms. Lucas. There is nothing that says she can't make an invitation he cannot legally accept.

"We have to be careful not to treat women who are abused as children who are not responsible for their actions," she said. "Once you start treating women as irresponsible and unable to take care of themselves in the domestic violence context, you risk women losing their rights in a whole host of other areas as well, like reproductive choice and workplace matters."

Maybe this is just a pet peeve of mine, but have you ever noticed how the first words out of anyone's mouth when anything calls any sort of women's rights into question, is how it might have an effect on "reproductive choice"? I wish certain people would just lay off the abortion issues. You won, dammit, it's legal. Why do you have to bring it up constantly? I wish they'd just let me avoid thinking about it one in a while.

Ms. Lucas pleaded guilty to domestic violence in the wake of the fight with her husband and was sentenced to 90 days in jail. Her lawyer, Andrew T. Sanderson, called the sentence appropriate.

If she struck the first blow, or if she continued to attack him after he was sufficiently subdued to no longer pose a threat (if he struck first), then yes, it's appropriate that she was convicted. But in my opinion if she was rightly convicted, her sentence was a bit light, though I'm sure considerations of who would care for the children weighed in.

For his part, Mr. Lucas was prosecuted only for violating the protective order. He also pleaded no contest and was fined $100.

This part is screwy. A hundred bucks is a sneeze to some guys. What would prevent them from constantly stalking their ex-punching-bags? "Oh no", one can imagine SUV-Driving Ex-Batterer saying, "Not 100 bucks! I spend more than that on my wine with dinner." I say a stiffer fine, or jail time. Of course, one could make the argument that in this case he was provoked, but still...

"He's a grown-up," Ms. Murphy said. "He knows the law. He's no more empowered to violate the protective order because she invited him than he is empowered to kill someone."

Agreed. Under the law, if someone asks me to shoot them in the eye and I do, it's still murder and I can still be convicted of it. Though personally I disagree on that one...

...adding that the victims of domestic violence could not always be trusted to make the right decisions...

O.o

"Yep, them poor little cupcakes cain't always think so well onct you pop 'em a few times, bless their sweet lil black-and-blue hearts." Maybe I'm being a bit extreme there, but do I sense condescencion from that guy?

"Their point of view," he said, "was that these are grown-up people who should be able to make these decisions on their own."

You know those judges. It's always some silly thing, like wanting to treat grown-ups like grown-ups.

Through her lawyer, Ms. Lucas declined a request for an interview.

I'm not surprised. I wonder if her friends will ever let her live this down.

"The city showed a certain degree of impatience with the victim in this case,"

...

"If they come down to break up another fight a week after they cuffed a guy and dragged him out of there,"

...then IMHO the cops have the right to feel frustrated and treat her like a mental defective. My sympathy here is for the cops who try hard to protect these women and then watch them run right back to their abusers, sometimes to their deaths. It must be very hard, as a cop, to just have to sit and watch, not having been requested to interfere so you can't. Not until it's time to haul Mr. Happyfists off to jail for finally killing the poor woman. I bet they just love that part. =\

Mr. Fallon added that making women immune from such prosecutions could allow them to entrap their former partners by inviting them over and then calling the police.

I suppose that might be possible, but entrapment only works because *gasp* the person breaks the law! Yeah, someone else incited them to, but the person still broke the law. They may have done it from their own motives or because they were told. Is it the legal system's job to determine motive? No, motive merely helps catch suspects. The legal system is supposed to determine *guilt*.

Ms. Neylon added that abstract legal principles must be tempered by attention to the messy realities of life itself, filled as it is with second thoughts, children's birthday parties and, sometimes, one beer too many.

"Stuff happens," she said. "You can have a protective order, but if your kids are hungry and he says he's going to stop by with a couple of bags of groceries, what are you going to do?"

Well, if you're a nitwit, you'll sacrifice your principles to leech food off the guy who used to beat you, and possibly get beaten again.

If you have a brain, you'll think to yourself, "My kids will wind up even hungrier if this happens to be the night he beats me to death. I'm going to tell him to stay the hell away, and I'm going to go apply for food stamps tomorrow."

There is no reason to rely on wife-beaters for food. We have perfectly good social programs in this country to help feed hungry kids. If a woman lets her ex-abuser come over, it's not for the groceries, it's because apparently she feels she hasn't had enough pain yet.

-Kasreyn