A wise ruling on domestic violence law
The Ohio Supreme Court made the right call when it said the state's defense of marriage amendment couldn't be used to invalidate its domestic violence law.
In cases across the state, defendants charged with domestic violence against an unmarried housemate tried to say language that appeared to equate a spouse to "a person living as a spouse" made the domestic violence law unconstitutional. The marriage amendment, passed in 2004, banned the state from treating unmarried people the same as married people.
The majority of the court rightly affirmed the separate nature of the two laws, and did not allow a misrepresentation of the language to harm a quarter of a century of strong domestic violence law.
The ruling means accused abusers won't be able to skirt charges and victims won't face more obstacles to coming forward.
posted by Krista Ramsey at 4:38 PM
3 Comments:
at 1:31 AM, July 27, 2007 
Anonymous said...
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at 10:38 AM, July 27, 2007 
Anonymous said...
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at 2:17 PM, July 27, 2007 
Anonymous said...
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Post a Comment*You would be hard pressed to find a bigger piece of unconstitutional garbage in Ohio's law books than the statute on domestic violence. Our legal system is (allegedly) based upon the concepts of equal justice for all and the premise that all are innocent until proven guilty. In the case of so-called domestic violence law, a citizen is immediately stripped of his/her Second Amendment rights just on the basis of mere allegation no trial required, so much for innocent till proven guilty. Upon conviction under domestic violence law, the convicted are now permanently stripped of their Second Amendment rights, it does not matter if the so-called victim was never even physically hurt in any way which could be a possibility as the law has been written. Then there is the matter of different punishments between an assault and battery and so-called domestic violence which is only a different name for the same crime. It should make absolutely no difference if there is some sort of realtionship by blood or marriage along with the concept of the "as if" portions of this law. An assault is an assault no matter who does it. A total stranger to a victim should not receive a lesser punishment for an assault solely based upon that strangeness, but that is what we have here. A two tier system that can and does punish family members much more harshly and in some cases quite unjustly. If you want a higher punishment for assault, then fine so be it, but there should not be a difference in punishment for what is an identical crime between a family member and a stranger.
I have to agree with the previous poster on one point - if you put your hands on another person with the intent to physically harm that person, you should go to jail, regardless of whether you know the person, live with the person, are related to the person, etc.
I also agree with the current system, where medical personnel are bound by the law to report any injuries treated which are the result of physical violence by another. This includes child abuse, spousal abuse and any other person who has been assaulted, reardless of relation to the offender.
Swatting a disobedient child on the bottom when they run out in the street in front of a moving car is not the issue here. Thousands of assaults on men and women as a result of intentional harm by another person IS the issue.
Stomping a pregnant woman...go to jail.
Beat your wife/girlfriend...go to jail.
Slap around your husband/boyfriend...go to jail.
Fight in a bar...go to jail.
In a nutshell: KEEP YOUR HANDS AND FEET TO YOURSELF, OR GO TO JAIL.
Period.
its unfortunate that the domestic violence law couldn't be used to overturn the real worst piece of legislation, the defense of marriage act.
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