"Ohio’s new constitutional amendment aimed at denying special legal rights to gay and unmarried couples also may strip legal protections from thousands of unwed victims of domestic violence.
Legal and victim-advocacy circles are buzzing over motions from the Cuyahoga County public defender’s office to dismiss domestic-violence charges against unmarried defendants.
The argument: that the charge violates the amendment to Ohio’s Constitution known as Issue 1 by giving spouselike status and protection to victims who live with, but aren’t married to, their accused attackers.
‘The thing is, you can only get a domestic-violence charge now if you are a wife beater, not a girlfriend beater,’ said Jeff Lazarus, a law clerk for public defender Robert Tobik and chief architect of the motions to dismiss. "
So now because of the defense-of-marriage amendments in various states, if you’re only shacked-up instead of married, he or she can’t be charged with domestic violence?
I hope the author of this article is correct when they mention later:
“Yet the public defender’s tactic gives hope for opponents of Issue 1, which Ohio voters approved in November. Some lawyers who oppose the amendment say if a judge sides with the public defender’s reasoning, the court could declare the amendment a violation of the U.S. Constitution’s 14th Amendment guarantee of equal protection under the law. Specifically, a married victim of domestic violence would have more protection than an unmarried neighbor beaten by a live-in lover, and married and unmarried defendants would be treated differently as well.”
Maybe these amendments can yet be overturned, in Ohio and elsewhere.
Sadly, i think they’ll just use it as another club against the unwed. You know, “Well, if you were married, then he couldn’t beat you, because then it would be illegal!” :rolleyes:
Well, if this gets these biggoted POS laws tossed, that’s all for the good. But I suspect the folks what penned them care about as much for domestic abuse in un-wed couples as they do about conferring full and equal protection under the law to gays and lesbians. Most of 'em probably view this as a positive side-effect.
I think it’s too early to assume this reasoning will actually transfer to any other state’s anti-gay marriage amendments or domestic abuse laws - it sounds like a hopefully unique combination of wordings that would be hard to equal.
Doesn’t make me think any better of Ohio at the moment, though. :dubious:
I don’t believe you. You’ll have to live and sleep with me before I’ll be able to accept the possibility that there’s anything wrong with it. Probably take years of hard work on your part to convince me.
I’ve been away over the weekend, but I wonder this:
Perhaps a beating of someone in a “live-in” relationship can be handled as a case of “assault” if this is the result of the new amendment.
If you’re charged with “assault” rather than “domestic violence” do you stand a better chance of getting jail time? Maybe it’s better.
Just so you don’t misunderstand my view of this, I live in Ohio and think that Ohio is one of the more backward states in the US in many areas. I’m embarrassed about our amendment. I’m embarrassed about Ken Blackwell. I’m embarrassed about…ad infinitum.
I understand that there’s a point to treating domestic violence differently from non-domestic violence, in that the victims probably need more support in order to press charges, and possibly in getting away from their abuser, but why can’t the courts just charge these batterers with ordinary assault? Beating someone up is still a crime, whether you’re married to them or not, isn’t it?
What do they currently do in domestic violence cases where it’s not partner-on-partner (eg a teenage son thumping his mother). Surely it’s not “well it’s not your spouse, so big deal”?
Domestic abuse laws are worded so that it’s automatic prosecution if a complaint is filed. This is done to prevent the victim from changing their mind during the time the police are called and they arrive at the scene. It also prevents the victim from bailing out their abuser while their waiting for a hearing.
“Hopefully, instead of the [domestic-violence] statute, it will blow out the constitutional amendment,” said Ruden, who co-authored a leading legal text on Ohio’s domestic-violence law.
That, Lazarus acknowledged, is exactly why he concocted the public defender’s line of attack.
"Personally, when I was brainstorming this, it was with an eye toward, ‘How could we make this amendment look not so good?’ " he said Wednesday
Sounds like this guy isn’t too concerned with who might get hurt, as long as he makes his point. Talk about using the vulnerable and the poor for your own purpose.
In the article it sounds as if the law specifies “household member” as someone who is protected. Doesn’t say they have to be married, or even “cohabiting” So it doesn’t cover just spouses or those who act as if they are. I think I’ll wait and see what happens, but this looks like a bit of a stretch.
I think you misunderstand his point. He is hoping that the Ohio amendment is overturned by the courts for violating the Federal Constitution, which would re-establish the domestic abuse laws for non-married couples while simultaneously throwing out the recemt gay-bashing change to Ohio law.
Arrrrrrrgh! Your quote has my pet peeve: It ain’t “special” rights, it’s equal rights. We don’t don’t want anything more than the same rights that everybody else already has.
Drives me batshit when newspapers do that. “Special” rights is the very jargon that got people thinking “What makes them so special? That’s not fair…”
Yes, but that doesn’t mean that cases thrown out under this reasoning, while such legal wrangling is going on, can be re-instated. IANAL, but it seems to me that it seems likely that, during the time between the introduction of this reasoning and when such a statute gets tossed out, there are going to be people caught up in the machine. At the very least, until this legal reasoning is tested in court, I’m not sure that any domestic abuse cases can go forward at all.
Of course, one can argue that it’s the defense attorney’s duty to do anything to try to get their client off. But that doesn’t change that the implications of this seem a bit more far-reaching than I care to see. I’m afraid I agree with thirdwarning’s reasoning here - the attorney looks to care more about the idea of equal rights for gay marriage than about people who are suffering in from domestic abuse, and can justify the potential harm he’s causing them in the name of Justice.
I don’t like the Ohio amendment, or others like it. I think that those in favor of gay marriage are blinding themselves willfully to the potential consequences of the changes they want, but that doesn’t mean that justice isn’t with them. I just don’t think making domestic abuse sufferers legal victims as well as physical and mental victims is justifiable.
That’s good. Let’s blame the guy fighting against an unjust and immoral law, and not the people who wrote and voted for the fucking thing in the first place.
