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"Spousal Rape" Law Challenged in Arizona
February 8, 2005 - 12:04am
But Arizona is not alone:
Hard to believe.
It wasn't that long ago that husbands were prevented from ever being charged with raping their wives in Canada. We've made progress since then, and I certainly hope that other jurisdictions will reverse the sorts of policies found in Arizona with extreme haste.
I don't buy that for a second. I think it just goes back to the troglodyte perception of married women as "property." That's a mentality that has been ingrained in the US, especially the south and sun belt, for quite some time. I find it funny that these same legislators pass all kinds of criminal law, i.e. drug laws, where the burden of proof is questionable at best and the sanctions are completely outsized to the crime, but for something like this - oh, no, must be cautious of false accusations and such - we must be assured of justice.
Yeah, right.
I don't know if this happens already but I think men convicted of spousal abuse should also have a mandatory restraining order as part of any parole or probation following release.
I am sure it is part of their conditions in most cases, but yet we all know how effective restraining orders are!
Sometimes it goes to the point of being ludicrous. a woman where i worked once, had a restraining order on her husband, and her had been stalking her. There was quite a few of us at the work place, so one of us would go each night to spend the night with her, until she got to the trial date for his actions.
It got so bad, and he was so angry about her never being left alone, he started going to our houses and vehicles and vandalizing them too. Finally after about 6 months of this the RCMP set up a camera to catch him at it.
And what happened, he plead down to mischief, he was sentenced to jail for 30 days. And once his less than 20 days were up, he was right back at it again.
How long would you lock him up, remind? Some of these guys are perpectual stalkers and the only way to give permanent protection would be to lock them up...for life.
That is not the point. The response is the action needed. A primary reaction would keep putting a stalker back in jail which would then begin to build a pattern that a judge could use in subsequent sentencing. Enough violations may qualify an offender to be determined a 'dangerous offender' and incarcerated accordingly. You accomplish both the protection for women, (as much as possible within the justice system), while using the justice sentencing system properly. This allows you to separate men who may actually learn to change their behaviour and men who won't.
Now what about the dead woman, who had a restraining order, who was filling up at the gas bar and her estranged partner pulled up and shot her?
This happens, as well as mny other like activities, repeated throwings in jail, do not save those who get dead the minute the person gets out. I ask why should a stalker get out of jail, and get returned time and again?
Keep him/her there until the trial, it is an patriarchial control mechanism, an addictive behaviour, as well as a perverted one.
There are grounds to deny bail. This has to come from judges who are educated on the subject of domestic abuse and the already familiar patterns of stalkers. (As this series of threads indicates judges and the legal system still do not take sexual assault and domestic abuse seriously enough.) The right to a bail hearing though is granted to everyone including violent offenders so it really is up to judges to determine the nature of the abuse during the relationship that brought it to an end and the primary violation of the restraining order. I don't know if legislation requiring automatic bail denial in cases of violent crimes would survive a legal rights challenge but in domestic abuse cases it would certainly be worth a try. Domestic violence far exceeds the amount of stranger on stranger violence so I think there is solid grounds to support this alteration in rights.
1) There is enough fact in these cases to allow for examining an automatic restraining order as the result of domestic violence which ends a relationship, whether requested specifically by the abused woman or not. (Here I would also point out my statement in another post above that women need more help in escaping abusive relationships earlier.)
2) As I just stated above an automatic denial of bail when this restraining order is violated the first time.
3) I know that restraining orders have time limits applied. Perhaps the time limit should be automatic. Five years?
4) Longer sentences for abusive spouses in the first place that reflect the nature of the crime. Abuse is premeditated, systematic and predatory. This behaviour far exceeds other forms of violent behaviour and I think comes closer already to the grounds for "dangerous offender" status.
5) Do all restraining orders automatically include a ban on firearms? I don't know. If the answer is no then I think it should.
At this point in my life, I believe that the help for some women to escape abusive relationships is far beyond our reach. I will reference the thread that Michelle started about condom use a few days ago. In that thread we found that some feminists, not your average woman/girl, were still un-comfortable about asking a male to wear one. This is a huge statement as to how much the patriarchial privilege is ingrained and entrenched in our society.
This is an excellent point.
I do not think so.
I think increasing penalties, etc. for breaching a restraining order are kind of beside the point. A stalker in that state is not thinking clearly enough to appreciate the consequences of his actions.
I say to hell with him. Let's throw our resources into protecting the woman.
Unless it's attached to a chain bolted to a post (not a bad idea!), the same problem applies. The stalker could have killed by the time the police are alerted.
I concur, that the stalker could have, but moving outside prescibed boundaries, could forward an instant message to the person who the restraining order protects, so they know the person is on the move.
The police could instantly go to the persons who is being stalked as well.
Oh how enlightened. Incarceration BEFORE trial!
So, the presumption of innocence can be dispensed with then.
Why not trials themselves? You obviously think people can be jailed without them!
But aren't there already people denied bail?
Do you need to be such a prick over this?
Yes, I do. Because it is a point of principle that no one be sent to jail without a very good reason.
I think spousal rape laws are absolutely required, especially because "spouse" is a status which may not reflect the reality of the relationship at the moment.
but I don't think either spouse should be able to clap the other one in jail, just on his or her say-so. "I said no, and he continued anyway" is a good reason to have a trial.
It is not enough to justify detention before trial.
I'm not sure I can agree about the 24 hrs. Phonz but am willing to be corrected. A stalker's pathology is not one of thinking unclearly. They are predators and therefor are calculating. Abusive men are aware of what they are doing. It is not dissassociative in my opinion. The first 24 hours may be safer because the case is fresh and arresting officers are aware. The danger comes after time lapses, case load and scarce resources becomes a factor. A man may breach the 'barrier' but available police officers still have to go looking for him. Contacting the abused woman should always be mandatory so that she can take whatever steps she needs to address the situation.
Monitoring bracelets may in fact have to be a part of the solution with a wide scope to the restraining order in terms of distance. The restraining order I am personally familiar with encompassed the entire town. The person was not allowed within town limits. (not a domestic abuse case but relevent to the restraining order aspect of our discussion.) If the woman lived in Scarborough here in the Greater Toronto Area then the old city boundaries of Scarborough may be the radius.
As to men who can be reformed well it is possible and from what I heard after his death my dad was one of them. Abusive to us but good to his second family. In the end I never required an apology or relationship with him. There was no point. If he became a decent father to his other kids and a decent partner to his new spouse then he redeems himself in my eyes.
Jeff, wth, lots of people are incarcerated right up until their trial date, why the vitriol in this case?
Uh, there is no presumption of innocence or guilt, there is keeping safe women and children, just as there is for keeping society safe from others who are accused of crimes that they have not yet been convicted of. It seems there is a double standaard here.
Moreover, there is supported evidence enough for the judge to write out a restraining order.
People are jailed without them, everyday even, and you are going over the top here, no one said there should not be a trial, just handled it in different ways as the current ways are NOT working.
It was a mistake to talk about the issue without factoring in that the women might be lying or at fault or the abuser. In the future I guess we'll have to have a disclaimer when we are talking about victims.
I agree with Scout that there is already precedent for denying bail and don't think anyone has advocated that we deny bail based solely on accusations. Spousal rape is or at least should be an indicator of physical abuse in the relationship and not an isolated incident.