Migration Category: NCWP Old Site

The Supreme Court heard arguments today in NOW v Scheidler, a landmark case brought to curtail violence against women’s reproductive health care centers. In 1986 while serving as president of the National Organization for Women (NOW), Eleanor Smeal (currently president of the Feminist Majority Foundation) initiated this case along with two clinics from the National Women’s Health Organization. The jury, district court, and Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals all found that the attacks on clinics orchestrated by Joseph Scheidler and his cohorts constituted extortion and racketeering.

The Supreme Court arguments addressed two issues. First, whether a private party such as NOW can obtain an injunction under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act, and second, whether the violence perpetrated by Scheidler and his followers qualified as extortion under federal law.

Fay Clayton, arguing for NOW and the clinics, stressed the violence that Scheidler and his accomplices used in their campaign and likened it to a mafia figure terrorizing a business owner. For the RICO argument, she emphasized the fact that without the right to bring an injunction, private plaintiffs would be unable to stop racketeering that affected their business or property.

According to Eleanor Smeal, “What is really at issue is whether women patients and businesses providing them reproductive health care will have the full measure of protection under the law or will be treated as second class citizens, as women themselves all too often are.”

A 19-member team sent to investigate the four Fort Bragg murders last summer announced yesterday that marital problems and the military culture, such as work-related stress and a stigma against psychological counseling all played a role in the killings. Dispelling earlier speculation that the anti-malaria medication, mefloquine, might have spurred the violence, the 41-page report points to inadequate family support services and inconsistent soldier re-acclimation programs as contributing factors. Principal investigator psychiatrist Col. Dave Orman stressed, “In none of these cases was behavior health treatment sought prior to these tragediesÉ There was a prevalent attitude that seeking behavioral health care was not career safe,” reported the Charlotte Observer and the Associated Press. Investigators recommend creating and developing a supportive environment, providing greater access to help, and assuring soldiers their careers will not suffer for seeking treatment. Still, Fort Bragg Commander Col. Tad Davis admits, “There’s an education process that needs to unfoldÉ” according to the Charlotte Observer.

In the military, the rate of domestic violence incidents rose from 18.6 to 25.6 per 1,000 military personnel between 1990 and 1996. Since then, the rate has decreased to 16.5 per 1,000 in 2001, but still remains much higher than in the civilian population, which has 3.1 incidents of domestic violence per 1,000 people, according to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Though numbers are not available for the past 10 months, the downward trend may be reversing, according to Christine Hansen, executive director of the Miles Foundation, a non-profit organization that provides services to domestic abuse victims in the military community. “We have seen through our clients alone an increase in the number of domestic violence incidents since mid-October as well as an increase in the severity of abuse,” she told the Journal-Constitution.

An article appearing today in the Washington Post reiterates the link between the military and domestic violence. Sniper suspect John Muhammad’s ex-wife Mildred told the Post that serving in the Persian Gulf War made her husband “a very angry man.” Upon his return, the abuse began ultimately leading to death threats. “You have become my enemy, and as my enemy, I will kill you,” he told her.

Last month, US Congress approved Senate Amendment 4447, sponsored by Sens. Paul Wellstone (D-MN), Barbara Boxer (D-CA) and Barbara Mikulski (D-MD), including $10 million to fund domestic violence programs on military installations in the final version of the Defense Appropriations Bill. The bill, H.R. 5010, became Public Law No. 107-248 on October 23, 2002.

Meanwhile, Fort Bragg has implemented a mandatory spouse separation time of 48 to 72 hours after violence has been reported. Army officials are also working with civilian social service groups and local law enforcement to share data on domestic violence incidents.

For the first time since the first Megan’s law was passed in New Jersey in 1994, the US Supreme Court will consider two appeals to sex offender registration requirements now in effect in all 50 states. While these laws were passed to help protect against the most egregious of crimes – the Justice Department estimates that the number of people imprisoned for sex crimes grew at a faster rate than any other category of crime from 1980 to 1994 – others claim that they violate constitutional rights of due process, double jeopardy, and privacy.

On Nov. 13, the Supreme Court will consider appeals brought against Connecticut and Alaska. The Connecticut case challenges the state’s decision to publish the whereabouts of all sex offenders without first making an assessment of the “potential dangerousness” of the offender. Connecticut is one of 25 states that take this approach. The US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit ordered the Internet site that publishes this information shut down until the state offers individual hearings on each offenders’ dangerousness, according to the New York Times.

Meanwhile, the two plaintiffs in the Alaska case argue that because they completed their criminal sentences before the law was passed in 1994 – the requirement that they now publicize their whereabouts amounts to a new punishment. The Supreme Court’s ruling on this case will be watched closely by states such as New Jersey, where a challenge to that state’s law is currently before a federal appeals court on the grounds that it violates the right to privacy and imposes double jeopardy. The double jeopardy argument would be considered invalid if the Supreme Court rules that the law is regulatory rather than punitive, according to the Times.

The 9th circuit federal appeals court overturned the sentence of Los Angeles Police Department whistle-blower Bob Mullally this week. Mullally was facing a 6-month prison sentence for contempt of court after leaking documents to the media that exposed brutal domestic violence felonies committed by LAPD officers. The Court of Appeals directed that Mullally be re-sentenced, and recommended that he be given probation instead of a prison sentence. In doing so, the 9th Circuit upheld Mullally’s violation of the protective order, but found that the sentence should be overturned because the language in the order was vague, and because the convicting judge erroneously stated that Mullally was motivated by ego. Mullally’s efforts, along with pressure from the National Center for Women & Policing and the Feminist Majority Foundation, led to a major investigation into and reform of the LAPD’s disciplinary procedures for officers who commit domestic violence. Katherine Spillar, Executive Vice President of the Feminist Majority Foundation, was pleased with the court’s refusal to endorse a prison sentence for Mullally, but disheartened to see that the court was unwilling to take a stronger stance against the use of protective orders to conceal felonies. “From day one, I’ve said that it’s a tragedy that Bob Mullally is the one being punished here, when none of the criminal officers he exposed were ever prosecuted, or even arrested.”

Marva Wallace, an abused woman who has served 17 years in California state prison for killing her husband, became the first woman to be released under a state law passed in June that allows inmates to use the battered women’s syndrome to seek reversal of convictions for killing their abuser before 1992, when the syndrome was deemed lawful. Wallace was released Friday after a Los Angeles District Judge David Wesley overturned her 1984 murder conviction and ordered a new trial in the case. A hearing was scheduled for today in which state prosecutors and defense lawyers will discuss the possibility of a new trial. “I’m speechless,” Olivia Wang, director of the California Coalition for Battered Women in Prison, told the Los Angeles Times. “It is so gratifying to see a judge recognize that battered woman syndrome was a factor in this case and do the right thing.” In addition to its potential to overturn convictions, the law also influences parole determinations. However, Governor Gray Davis denied Wallace parole two weeks ago, despite a recommendation from the state Board of Prison Terms to release Wallace. So far this year, Davis has blocked the parole of seven other women in similar situations with decisions on three others pending, according to the Times. Currently, there are 441 women incarcerated for pre-1992 murder or attempted murder convictions who may benefit from this law, according to battered women supporters. The battered women’s syndrome is a behavioral condition suffered by those who are repeatedly abused, according to medical experts. Continuous abuse makes women feel so powerless that they tend to stay in an abusive situation until they come to believe that suicide or homicide is their only option.

Suspected sniper John Allen Muhammad is currently being held on violation of the Domestic Violence Offender Gun Ban, also known as the Lautenberg Law, which was passed in 1996 due in large part to the efforts of the feminist movement. This law aims to save lives by keeping guns out of the hands of abusers. Muhammad was arraigned on this offense on Thursday while police continue to gather evidence to potentially bring murder charges against him. Muhammad’s violation of the law is enabling police to hold him in custody while they further investigate the sniper shootings. Muhammad’s second wife placed a restraining order against him after he threatened her life, forced his way into her house, and kidnapped her children, according to Salon.com. Muhammad, a former soldier who served in the Gulf War, also went through a bitter custody battle with his first wife and is rumored to have abused his “step-son” John Malvo, 17, who was arrested with him for the recent spate of shootings in the Washington, DC area. “Too many abusers like Muhammad have guns,” said Eleanor Smeal, president of the Feminist Majority. “During the first year that this law was in effect, more than 2,000 gun permits were denied because applicants had previous domestic violence convictions. However, we know that 2,000 was just the tip of the iceberg. One half of all 911 calls are related to domestic violence. Allowing convicted abusers to possess guns invites deadly abuse.” Heralded by the domestic violence community and women’s rights advocates as a strong protector of women, the Lautenberg Law has also been praised for refusing to exclude military and police personnel from its jurisdiction, as in the case of similar legislation. The Lautenberg Law has therefore been a powerful tool in preventing law enforcement from continuing to carry government-issued weapons after they have been restrained on domestic violence charges. As in the case of the alleged sniper, men who commit violent acts often have at some point committed violence against an intimate partner, so the Lautenberg Law goes beyond protecting individual women by also protecting the general citizenry from individuals with demonstrated violent histories.

The Baltimore Police Department is taking two positive steps at improving community relations. They have just received a $1 million grant to outfit each district office with permanent, full-time social service professionals to assist troubled teens before intervention is needed by police, detention or foster-care. The program will be up and running by December, and is modeled after a similar program in Boston. Services will address such issues as parent-child conflicts, mental health and substance abuse issues, and education. Secondly, Baltimore is developing a powerful computer base that will monitor performance of the city’s officers in areas such as arrests, car stops, and citizen complaints, and will then identify those officers that might be at risk of unlawful behavior. Police officials hope that the database will change the culture of the Department by identifying problem officers who may benefit from counseling before they commit serious offenses like domestic violence or excessive force against a citizen. Monitoring citizen complaints is nothing new, but Baltimore’s system is the most sophisticated to be proposed for a metropolitan area. It integrates many of the Department’s databases, and preliminary tests show that it will be highly effective for red-flagging potentially dangerous officers.

William Bratton, newly appointed Chief to the LAPD, has warned internal LAPD staff that he will not tolerate those who don’t back his vision for change in the Department. In community meetings throughout the city, Bratton said that much of the LAPD continues to operate the way it did in the 1960’s, and that he will work to change the Department by using the federal consent decree signed last year as a template for reform. The decree was signed after the U.S. Department of Justice found that the LAPD had been engaging in a long practice of civil rights violations. Bratton spent a year in Los Angeles as part of the decree’s federal monitoring team, and has said that he will use the findings of the decree to shape the development of an updated version of CompStat, a computer system he installed in New York in the 1990’s that guides police crime response. Because of the endemic problems in the LAPD, the new computer system will track data that will allow for the monitoring of possible racial profiling, and use of excessive force.

Throughout the selection process for the new chief, the National Center for Women & Policing and the Feminist Majority Foundation urged that candidates be asked specifically about what programs they had implemented to increase the numbers of women in policing, and to reduce violence against women. The National Center plans to meet with Chief Bratton soon to discuss reinstating departmental gender balance goals for hiring and promotion, as well as steps to eliminate police family violence.

Robert Mullally, the legal researcher turned whistle-blower who brought attention to domestic violence felonies committed by Los Angeles police officers, may face time in federal prison for leaking personnel files to a local television station. The files documented 79 LAPD officers who had brutally beaten, and in some cases raped, wives, girlfriends and family members. None of the officers were ever arrested, and the majority remained on the force as gun-carrying police officers. By exposing the files, Mullally hoped that public outrage would lead to reform in the LAPD. In March 2001, Mullally was sentenced to 60 days in jail. The sentence was stayed, pending an appeal, and was heard last week by the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals. The court’s decision is expected in a few months. If sentenced, Mullally could become the first person every sentenced to jail in the United States for violating a protective order in a civil law suit. Mullally’s appeal comes at a time of increasing controversy over the use of court orders to seal files containing information on pedophilia committed by priests, and on the dangers of cigarettes and automobile tires. In the wake of the media coverage generated by Mullally’s actions, the Feminist Majority Foundation and the National Center for Women & Policing pushed for reforms that resulted in an investigation of the LAPD by the Inspector General, and the development of a special internal affairs unit to handle officer-involved domestic violence. Both FMF and NCWP have continued to support Mullally throughout his case by helping with court costs, filing amicus briefs on his behalf, and by publicly urging that Mullally’s sentence be overturned on the grounds that he acted to protect women and children from police officers who had abdicated their duty to protect and had themselves become threats to the public.

Debra Webb-Allingham, formerly Debra Moss, died on October 3rd of a heart attack at the age of 48. Webb-Allingham graduated from the Belleville Area College Police Academy in 1983, and was the only woman in her class. She was the Chief of the Fayettville Police Department for 5 years, before retiring after injuring her back in the line of duty. She is survived by her mother, father, husband, and two children. The National Center for Women & Policing offers condolences to her family.

Four female Massachusetts state troopers were awarded $1 million in damages this week, as well as $300,000 for emotional distress and $47,000 for economic losses resulting from a lawsuit that charged pregnancy discrimination. The charges stemmed from a directive that was issued by the Department in 1997 which prohibited pregnant women from “wearing uniforms, interacting with the public, working overtime, and driving police cruisers.” In response, the four women filed a discrimination complaint with the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. In response to their complaint, the State re-wrote the regulations so that pregnant women can get permission from a doctor to remain on full-duty status.

Sources in the Department of Justice say that Attorney General John Ashcroft’s heavy-handed control over Department activities has spread to the previously independent Bureau of Justice Statistics and National Institute of Justice, the statistical and research arms of the USDOJ. Criminal justice experts are concerned that as Ashcroft exerts more and more political control over these previously independent agencies, the integrity of the crime data will be lost. These agencies have long been independent of oversight from the Attorney General and were previously allowed to release reports at will and administer research grants without clearance. Employees working within these agencies say that Ashcroft’s political appointees have used the U.S.A. Patriot Act to remove the authority of the independent agencies, often holding up the release of reports for many months under the guise of waiting for approval. Alfred Blumstein, who helped found the Bureau of Justice Statistics in 1968, said that the Administration’s recent actions are the most “intrusive effort by political appointees in the Justice Department to control the shaping and dissemination of statistics” that he’s seen since his involvement with the agency. Blumstein said that he was particularly concerned over a statement by one of Ashcroft’s political appointees which said that centralizing control over both the Bureau of Justice Statistics and the National Institute of Justice would ensure that the Department “speaks with one voice.” Blumstein fears that the goal of having “one voice” will potentially hinder the release of data that may not be seen as favorable to, or in line with, Justice Department policy.

With this summer’s murders of four women in Fort Bragg, North Carolina serving as a haunting reminder, advocates for domestic violence victims in military families are asking the US Congress to include $10 million to fund domestic violence programs on military installations in the final version of the Defense Appropriations Bill. The bill, HR 5010, is currently pending consideration by a joint conference committee. Advocates are asking that Senate Amendment 4447, sponsored by Sens. Paul Wellstone (D-MN), Barbara Boxer (D-CA) and Barbara Mikulski (D-MD), be included in the final approved version of the bill. Rep. Lucille Roybal-Allard (D-CA) has drafted a Dear Colleague letter of support for members of Congress to encourage the inclusion of the amendment.

Domestic violence services provided by the military differ from those offered in the civilian population, according to Roybal-Allard. Congress established the Domestic Violence Task Force of the US Department of Defense after the rate of incidents of domestic violence in the military rose from 18.6 to 25.6 per 1000 military personnel between 1990 and 1996. According to the Miles Foundation, a nonprofit organization that tracks domestic violence in the military, the Department of Defense has identified 61,093 offenders in the armed forces or civilians married to active duty personnel. This does not reflect repeat offenses.

With a lack of confidentiality deterring victims on military bases from coming forward to ask for help, the Senate amendment would provide funding for victim advocates at military installations to provide confidential assistance; provide for the operation of multidisciplinary, impartial domestic violence fatality review teams for the Department of Defense; and require annual reports to Congress.

TAKE ACTION Contact Your Representative Or Senator To Ask Him/Her To Sign The Dear Colleague Letter In Support Of Senate Amendment 4447

With the help of the Los Angeles Commission on Assaults Against Women , two Los Angeles city council members have proposed a new bill that would create a local version of the federal Debbie Smith Act, which authorizes money to reduce the national backlog of untested DNA rape kits. Council members Jack Weiss and Jan Perry’s proposal to the Los Angeles City Council follows the recent revelation that thousands of untested rape-evidence kits were destroyed by the LAPD. In addition to endorsing the legislation of the Debbie Smith Act, Weiss and Perry’s bill increases local funding for DNA testing so that all rape evidence can be inventoried and tested, regardless of whether or not a suspect has been identified. Current LAPD protocol encourages detectives to only test evidence in cases where a suspect has been identified, leaving “critical evidence locked away in the LAPD’s freezers while rapists are free to assault more women,” said Weiss. Weiss and Perry’s bill will prohibit police from destroying DNA rape kits, and will mandate that all tested evidence be put through the California Cold Hit program, which matches DNA evidence with offender databases. According to the Rape Abuse and Incest National Network, states that use cold hit programs on DNA rape evidence are finding up to a 48% “hit rate” on other unsolved rape cases.

California is leading the nation for women once again. In the latest of a series of landmark bills to protect the rights of women in California, Governor Gray Davis signed a bill yesterday sponsored by the California National Organization for Women (NOW) that allows victims of gender-based crimes such as domestic violence and sexual assault to bring civil action against their attackers. California is the first state to enact such a law based on a civil remedy provision originally contained in the federal Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) – approved by the US Congress in 1994 but struck down by the US Supreme Court in 2000. In United States v. Morrison, the Supreme Court ruled that the states, not Congress, had the right to enact this provision.

“Violence against women has reached epidemic proportions in this country. Through this measure, the state of California is making a strong statement about our commitment to ensuring that victims of gender-motivated crimes are able to recover financially from those who commit such violence,” said Assemblymember Hannah-Beth Jackson (D), who authored the bill. “Until we are able to decrease the incidence of gender-motivated violence, women cannot hope to achieve equality in our society.”

The bill allows women and men who are victims of gender-based violence to seek “actual, compensatory, and punitive damages, attorneys’ fees, and costs.” The bill ensures that women have civil rights protections that recognize and address the wide-ranging impacts associated with these crimes.

Janeith Glenn-Davis has been appointed to the position of Director of Public Safety of the California State University in Hayward. A 1984 Cal-State Hayward graduate, Glenn-Davis has been an officer with the Oakland Police Department for over 17 years. She leaves Oakland as the highest-ranking woman in the Department, and their only female commander. Her most recent position was as a lieutenant in charge of investigations. She has also served as an acting captain and area commander of field operations, a patrol watch commander, a patrol district supervisor, a recruiting officer, and a patrol officer. Additionally, she was the founding member of the Oakland Police Law Enforcement Association for Women. Glenn-Davis will begin her new duties at Cal-State, Hayward on October 1st. The National Center for Women & Policing congratulates Janeith on breaking the glass ceiling!