Deluded Judge Suggests Domestic Violence Victim Wanted to Be Hit (WTF?)

[Triana]

This ruling is absolutely insane BS on SO many levels. WRITE to "Judge" Harris's boss at the address/contact info at the end of this post and EXPRESS YOUR OUTRAGE at this ruling!
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Posted by Karen Houppert at 1:00 PM on October 25, 2007.

Karen Houppert: If a woman falls in a parking lot and no one is around to hear, does she make a sound?


This post, written by Karen Houppert, originally appeared on The Nation

Domestic violence cases are notoriously difficult to prosecute.

But every once in a while, prosecutors get handed the tools for a conviction on a silver platter: An impartial eyewitness who just happens to be a police officer.

Such was the case in a domestic violence trial that made the local papers here in Maryland last week. A cop pulling into an Exxon station saw a man hit his girlfriend in the face three times, called in back-up and had the man arrested.

But according to Anne Arundel County Circuit Judge Paul Harris, who is "probably as against domestic violence as anybody, when the case is proven," one can't simply assume that a woman who is being hit didn't consent to the attack. "Sadomasochists sometimes like to get beat up," the judge reminded the courtroom--then acquitted the man.

The judge appeared to be in a snit because the girlfriend, the alleged victim in the attack, had disappeared, even though she had been ordered to testify. Ignoring decades of research proving that domestic violence victims are often too afraid and intimidated to testify against perpetrators, the judge discounted the female cop's eyewitness account.

more...

http://alternet.org/blogs/peek/66153/

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SEND YOUR OUTRAGE about "Judge" Harris to:

Robert G. Wallace
Court Administrator
Circuit Court for Anne Arundel County
P.O. Box 2395
Annapolis, MD 21404-2395
FAX: [phone]
[e-mail]

[Triana]

1. "Judge" Harris...

....

http://www.circuitcourt.org/content/view/47/68/

[silverojo]

2. Jesus, Mary, and Joseph!!

Since when do S&M couples get it on in a parking lot in front of a freakin' police officer???

K&R in the hopes of getting a shitstorm of protests flooding into that bastard's office! :mad:

[Triana]

3. EXACTLY. This is outrageous!

:wtf:

[roguevalley]

12. contacting the governor might be a nice touch too.

[Rincewind]

4. It seems

It seems to me, based on what the judge said, that he wishes to be kicked in the balls. Repeatedly. I've heard that some people like to be kicked in the balls.

[Lerkfish]

5. LOL! funniest.post.of.the.day!

thanks

[ChairmanAgnostic]

6. I second that e.motion.

holy batshit. That man is on the bench?

[Triana]

9. He obviously doesn't belong there...(n/t)

[Triana]

8. HA! By his own twisted "logic" you are absolutely right! (n/t)

[Nobody]

17. You got that right

If even one guy likes to be kicked in the balls, it therefore follows that all guys like to be kicked in the balls, and that if any given guy doesn't like to be kicked in the balls, the woman kicking him there is given a free pass because how was she to know that he's one of the vast majority of guys who don't like to be kicked in the balls.

She gets even more of a free pass if she puts on steel toed boots and kicks him in the balls in public. His screams of agony are only for show, as he obviously really likes it.

Logic: the world needs more of it.

[raccoon]

7. This "judge" is batshit crazy. K&R. nt

[progressoid]

10. I'm speechless

[Triana]

11. Audio Link to "Judge" Harris...I wonder how he inferred...

..from the victim's absence that she "OBVIOUSLY didn't care"? :wtf:

http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/local/annearundel/bal-arundelaudio1019,0,5365153.mp3file?coll=bal-movies-utility

This ape who slapped her up, from what I understand, was about 6'3" or so and over 300 pounds. Maybe - just maybe - she didn't want to SEE him again. What woman (or man for that matter) would NOT be in fear about facing his/her attacker in court - especially when MOST of them get OFF scot-free?

She may have been afraid that if he DID get off (chances of that are REALLY good in fact) that he'd beat her again, even worse.

Duh.

GOD this is insane.

[One_Life_To_Give]

13. Any Lawyers care to comment?

Wonder what the technical matters of law are in relation to this? They say you can't prosecute a murder without having the body to prove a crime has been comitted. Without some evidence such as photo's, medical/emergency room injury report or the victims testimony would this case have anything to stand on from a legal perspective?

[iverglas]

16. will an ex-lawyer do?

You can indeed prosecute a murder without a body, I think. Criminal law wasn't my field ...

What if the woman had been there, and denied that the man had struck her? She would have contradicted the police evidence. The judge would have had to decide who was the more credible, and whether the police evidence, if it was the more credible, was sufficient to leave no reasonable doubt.

The judge could perfectly well have convicted in that case, if s/he found that the woman was not credible. (A judge could be perfectly able to determine that a witness is testifying out of fear, e.g.)

This one's a bit iffy. Especially, for me, because I apparently don't have the plug-in I need, to see the video. ;)

It might have been a risky conviction without the woman's evidence, depending on what the police evidence was. If what the cop saw, for instance, started the instant before the woman was struck, he might have missed seeing her hit the man over the head with her umbrella right before that.

I would imagine that the police evidence was pretty credible, and that it was pretty obvious from that evidence what had actually happened. A judge still might have felt that a conviction was unsafe. But the judge could have had reasons for that thinking that would have been a little better than "maybe they were S&M fans", I'd think. A judge might have just come up with that as an example at the limit to explain why s/he thought it was unsafe to convict solely on the police evidence of what the cop had seen.

I wish I could see the video! I tend to think that this judge was looking for an excuse not to convict -- consent to the assault being a rather unnecessarily bizarre thing to raise as a possible reason not to convict -- rather than seriously determining whether he had a reasonable doubt as to the accused's guilt.

But hey, you want nasty judges ... I should dig up the tale from about a decade ago of the Montreal judge who gave a lenient sentence to a man who had sexually abused his daughter ... because as a good Muslim man he had raped her anally rather than vaginally, thus preserving her virginity, i.e. her worth as a Muslim woman.

Misogyny and racism, all wrapped up and tied with a bow. That one got judicially censured, I believe.

[noamnety]

14. From the article alternet links to:

In 1993, Baltimore County Circuit Judge Thomas J. Bollinger agreed to participate in sensitivity training at the recommendation of the state bar association. Complaints had been filed after the judge did not give a prison term to a man convicted of second- degree rape, saying that the woman, who had been drinking with the man, passed out and was carried to his apartment by friends, had facilitated the rape.

Bollinger noted from the bench that having a pretty young woman passed out in bed was "the dream of a lot of males."

[Katherine Brengle]

15. Sometimes I wish I had the constitution to just shoot people who do shit like

this.