And that person just testified under oath that they gave a false statement to police, which is obstructing and/or making a false report. Not a terribly serious offense, but a crime nonetheless. And cases like this are charged from time to time.
Sorry - I wasn’t as clear as I meant to be (it’s late 
).
So, the officer can’t just testify as to what the victim said. The victim has to be called to testify, be cross-examined on the statement, and only then can the police officer be allowed to testify about the statement - is that right?
Different approach to hearsay than I’m used to.
The answer is yes, but in over 30 years I’ve known very few to come to this on a DV case. Homicide and robbery cases yes, I’ve seen the ADA’s hammer witnesses on the stand. But in DV cases usually the Victim/Witness Coordinator has done their job and people don’t change their story by the time and if it goes to court (most of those types of cases plea out).
If you try to go for a false report you then have to argue that the case you have just been fighting for and all the other evidence so wrong and the original report was false. You are basically going to be arguing against yourself. Talk about reasonable doubt.
I think we are in agreement then. The scenario I was talking about is where the victim simply does not show up for trial. Yes, I know they are subpoenaed, but it’s not uncommon around here for the victim to ignore it. Unless the case is egregious, very little if any action is taken.
Without a victim testifying, that’s when a cop cannot say “At the scene, the victim told me that he punched her in the face.” The prior inconsistent statement exception to hearsay applies only when the victim testifies, as the 6th amendment is also satisfied.
Not my problem, you of all people know that. If the DA’s office doesn’t have his shit straight before trial they probably aren’t going to be cross examining them.
The Victim/Witness Coordinator usually has this stuff worked out. Photographs, medical staff reports, and confessions from the perp also all come into play.
I’ve actually had to testify in very, very few DV cases. Once I’ve processed someone and read them their 72 hour no contact notice, 99% of the time that’s the end of it for me, except for the few times I have to give an oral summary to an ADA.
A crime remains a crime even if the victim doesn’t want to pursue it. I have known someone who brought assault charges against someone else, then was unable to stop the prosecution because the State was pressing the charges.
HOWEVER, in many cases a conviction would be absolutely impossible without the cooperation of the victim. Person A says Person B hit them, there were no other witnesses around, so what the state has as evidence amounts to Person A’s word and fist shaped bruises. Remove Person A’s testimony, and what the state has is “Person A got bruised, and we think Person B did it.” And nobody goes to jail.
So to avoid wasting their time, the state may decline to prosecute such a case. They may also factor in the seriousness of the crime, and how much they consider the perpetrator to be a continuing danger.
That is, they may decide to drop a case that is not completely unwinable because, in their estimation, it isn’t worth the effort. While the same charges with the same evidence against someone else they might decide to try.
One last thing: Let’s try not to jump to judgement here just because we think the accused is a jerk.
I have known of an abusive woman who would tell the police her boyfriend hit her (a lie) because she knew they’d arrest him. She wasn’t powerful herself, but could get the police to abuse her boyfriend for her.
I have also known a woman who dropped entirely justified assault charges against her brother because her whole family was taking his side.
So sometimes the witness stops cooperating because they were intimidated into it, and sometimes they do so out of remorse for having made something more serious than it was, and sometimes they do so to prove that they hold all the power: they can get you put in jail, and they can get you released.
Maybe this girlfriend was counting on the fact that people would just assume George Zimmerman was guilty, and then had second thoughts.
I’m just saying that we don’t have all the facts, and we are supposed to consider folks innocent until proven otherwise.
And let’s not forget:
Men are less likely to report being abused than women, and
Men are more likely to be killed by their abuser.
And historically, most victims of violent crimes knew their attacker, and most victims of murder were killed by someone they knew, so it isn’t just women who “historically, … have been most often victimized by someone they knew”, it’s everyone.