My fourth jury trial introduced me to the world of domestic violence. To say that as a prosecutor we never really know how a domestic violence case is going to pan out in front of a jury is an absolute understatement. These are the cases where prosecutors have to be prepared for absolutely every possibility. There are a couple of reasons why I believe this happens:

1. Victims don’t show up to court. In domestic violence cases everyone has a heightened emotional state at the time of the event. When the dust settles and the real life consequences on a family relationship put in the criminal arena begins; often it just becomes too much for a victim to handle.
2. Victims change their story. Victims of domestic violence are usually under an immense amount of pressure: they have lost the ability to co-parent, they usually lose an income, they don’t want someone they love to go to jail. The reasons for stories to change goes on and on. Often prosecutors don’t know what a victim is going to say on the stand until the testimony starts.
3. Witnesses are often family members. This includes the children of the parties. Family members are reluctant to be involved.
4. Victims become overly cooperative. This can also be a red flag. Sometimes and unfortunately law enforcment contact is used to influence family law cases. As a prosecutor we always have to look at the family law case to see what is being said by the parties in their corresponding family law cases to get a better understanding of the bigger picture.

Domestic violence often happens behind closed doors and so every scrap of cooberating evidence supporting the victim’s statement becomes key. We use small bits and pieces of those observations and evidence law enforcement finds to get to the truth between what he-said and what she-said. Always the best practice it to be able to rely on something other than the statements made by either party to prove the crime that occurred.

Trial #4 involved a female defendant and a male victim who had been in a relationship for approximately 22 years. They had recently broken up but the victim continued to live on the same property as the defendant, just in his own mobilehome. On this occassion victim and defendant got into an argument because the defendant beleived the victim was not sympathetic enough to his adult son’s situation and she went to victim’s mobilehome to confront him about it. She was told to leave; however defendant did not. Instead she got upset and grabbed victim by the jacket. The victim then punched her in the face causing a laceration to the defendant’s chin.

This was a misdemeanor level domestic violence battery. Minor, but documented injuries to the victim and a corroberating injury to the defendant. There were some pretty complex legal issues to convey to a jury in regards to self-defense that came up. Namely that the defendant shouldn’t be able to claim self-defense in a situation she created and the fact that the victim had a right to reasonable self-defense in response to her conduct. We relied on defendant’s own admissions of guilt made to law enforcement and photos taken of injuries in our case-in-chief.

Our victim also relocated out of the State prior to the jury trial and that opened the door to allow defendant to take the stand on her behalf to tell the jury about what happened INSIDE her house before defendant confronted the victim at his own. Information our office was not privy to at the time of the arrest. Information we could not discuss the accuracy of with our victim. Information we could not overcome at trial.

This rocky road of a trial taught me so much.

Evaluate self-defense prior to filing and make sure we can prove beyond a resaonable doubt that the defendant’s actions were not in reasonable self-defense. As a prosecutor that is always my burden to carry and it should never be overlooked.

Non-verbal communication can have an affect on the outcome of a trial. We had a non-traditional DV here. One were the female was charged. She took the stand using a cane and used assisted listening devices in the courtroom. Defendant also testified as to medical issues that she was having at the time of this incident and through the trial, lending her as a sympathetic soul to the jury.

A jury will always wonder where your victim is, even if they are told not to speculate.

Our Judge in this case was a long-term retired judge who had been filling a vacancy in our County for so long he was a permanent fixture. He had seen and heard it all. As soon as the jury left the courtroom, he turned to me and defense counsel and said, “Well this isn’t going to take long.” He was right, 10 minutes of deliberation to a not guilty verdict.