"My Client Suffered a Traumatic Event"

Today was a shitty day.  I spent the entire day in court and I only had one case.

Fridays are domestic violence, or DV, dockets in Montgomery County.  The one I had was a bad one.  Both the victim and suspect, her lover and the father of one of her children, had been drinking alcohol.  Apparently though, this time she had had enough and got angry with him.  Shouting followed.  And soon, it broke into a physical fight.  She was no match for him.  She got one good lick in and that was it.  He punched her in the face and then the belt came out.

I saw the marks.  Two very distinct loops on her back.  Bloody and bruised.  Red with a black hue.  There was also blood that had dried in her right ear from a blow.  A large lump grew on her forehead.  Soon I saw more smaller marks covering her arms.  She was drunk.  But that probably helped her in the end.  Maybe preventing her from feeling the full extent of her pain.   Maybe...I could only hope.

I arrested him for assault and reckless endangerment.  The endangerment alone carried a maximum of 5 years.  And, although this was Montgomery County, I still held out hope that justice would be served.

But I already told you, I had a shitty day, so you can probably imagine the outcome.

And that was just my case. The whole fucking day was DV shit.  This one shitbird put his hands around his baby's mother's throat, trying to choke her.  Probably over money.  After the judge heard his case, he talked about how "disturbed" he was by the facts of it.  And then proceeded to sentence him to 60 days in jail for the second degree assault.  He quickly followed that up by suspending all, but 58 of those days because the abuser had already served 2 when he was initially arrested and booked.  No fine, just court costs because when the public defender talked about his client, he talked about what a model citizen he was and how he's already gone through yada yada treatment or counseling programs and then the defendant vowed it'd never happen again.

They all say the same goddamn thing.  Its fucking sick.  There's so much emphasis in our judicial system, particularly this county, to ensure that none of the accused's rights are skirted.  Fuck the victim.   And the betterment of society.  During one of these defense narratives, his lawyer stated that her client experienced a "traumatic" event when he spent 2 days in lock up.  What?!  Fuck him.  He's lucky he's not castrated.

And it was like that ALL day.

One defendant's victim, now former girlfriend, was so afraid of him, she stayed in a secured room to avoid him as much as possible.  Another who got thoroughly beaten invoked her marital privilege, a one time free pass in Maryland for the wife beater to get off scott free because the wife still "loves" him.  Or is completely petrified of him and what he'll do to her if she doesn't invoke it.

My favorite though was a dude who is active duty military.  Now listen, I'm in the military reserves, but even if I wasn't, I'd still be a huge supporter.  So, this guy is an alcoholic and supposedly this was his first out of control episode.  Well, I guess, if you're gonna do it once, you might as well go big...A neighbor calls 9-1-1 and reports the domestic assault, says it been going on for a while and they can hear a woman screaming.  The call taker can hear the victim pleading in the background, "I didn't do anything!" as the defendant is dragging her into the middle of the apartment complex courtyard.  He beats the fuck out of her...rupturing an eardrum.  But the defense gets to tell everyone how great of a guy he is, what a decorated servicemember he is, how he's changed, gone to programs and all the other complete bullshit.  He brings 3 members of his branches' command cadre to speak on his behalf and say what a good dude he is and how he's taken this seriously.  Then he speaks...reads a fucking novel that he wrote.  And it's all about him.  He tells everyone what's he's done and that it took courage to tell his command.  He says he really wishes he could walk up to his victim and tell her he's sorry...to free his guilty conscience, right?  Screw what'd it do to her mentally.  But he can't...she's got a protective order out against him she's so damn scared.  Throughout it all, he's never humble, he never mentions the sheer terror he must've put his victim through...and never says jackshit about her permanent physical injury, the ruptured eardrum.  His attorney pleads with the judge to give her client PBJ, probation before judgement, so that, when he faces his military trial board in February, he can say he doesn't have a conviction.  Fuck.  That.

But he made out...he got the same sentence as the others...all suspended sentences.  No one got any jail time.  Not a day.  They got a stern talking to, maybe some probation with the threat of jail "if you ever do that again", and a few got actual fines.  That's it.

How am I, let alone a victim, supposed to have any faith in our judicial system?   Obviously, there are significant affects on the victims, but there's also fallout on the officers that handle these calls for service one after another after another.  And the holidays are a hotbed for domestics.  Never fucking ending.

I left court sick.  Exhausted from the mental and emotional drain of utter frustration and anger.  20+ years of shit like that piled up inside of me.

My guy...pled to a lesser, amended charge.  He was sentenced to 60 days with credit for 2 and the remaining 58 were suspended.   No fine,  just $57.50 in court costs.  Twelve months probation and he must complete the county's Abused Persons Program.  Done deal.

Oh...I almost "forgot"...the military defendant?  He's a chaplain.  And you bet your ass they rode that pony until she dropped...