It's a weird day

[drwex]

It's a weird day when multiple people take the time to thank me for being the voice of reason. You all who know me can stop laughing now. Any minute. I'll wait.

I've been posting a good deal in both sunspiral's LJ and shadesong's LJ. I'm glad to be able to have discussions with both of them. This is where I stand:

- Judah is a self-admitted abuser and has a restraining order against him for domestic violence and other related offenses. As such, I do not want him at my house and I am probably not comfortable going to other parties where he is welcome. That might change in the future; or, maybe not. I'm in new territory here and the Magic 8 Ball is cloudy.

- My comfort is about me and my loved ones. It's not a standard for other private individuals to follow. I am not the boss of you (unless you're one of my kids and they have some vehement objections to my Boss status anyway).

- When I go to a party I expect to follow the hosts' rules. When people come to my parties I'd like them to follow my rules, which are often summarized as "don't piss off the hosts." Part of why Judah is not welcome is because I'm so angry at what he did. I want him to be banned from other events where I might attend because I have my visceral, fist-clenching furious reaction to imagining someone doing to my loved ones what he did to Shira.

- I recognize that my response to the situation is seated in a position of vast privilege, including white, able, cis-male, wealth privilege. I also don't know what to do with that, except try to keep it in mind when I write or speak.

- There are people I like, love, and respect, on all sides of this debate. I am struggling to understand how these people I respect have reasoned to the positions they hold. I think we have now a large rift in the circle of people I like and if people do not understand each other there is no hope for dialog. Because this is all about me, I feel like I want to understand all the sides first.

- I am currently using the theoretical basis of framing ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Framing_(social_sciences) ) to think about this. I believe we have a framing problem, not a Rashomon problem. In Rashomon, every witness tells their own version of events, and no two of them agree on all the facts. In this situation I think pretty much everyone agrees on the facts, but is using different framings to interpret those facts.

- I have a long and friendly relationship with Scott & Rachel. I have a much shorter acquaintanceship with Shira and even less so with Adam but I'd like to think that Shira and I are at least on friendly terms.

- I am intensely sad that this situation has now become a conflict between these households when I think that conflict was entirely avoidable. I see people responding to perceived attacks on each of these people, being protective of the people they love. I understand that, deeply. I continue to believe that this level of self- and other-protectiveness is preventing many people from recognizing the framing differences.

- We accuse each other of lies, deceptions, exaggerations, denials, etc. But I think these things are all distractions from the core issues. I care about how you treat the people who commit these violent acts; how you treat the people who are the victims of these acts; how you treat the people who have to deal with the consequences of these acts; and how you treat the people who are trying to navigate these unknown and shark-infested waters. I reject any formulation that says, "It's simple, just XYZ." It's not simple.

- I would like to be able to focus on the problems that having Judah in the social circle brings and how we can deal with that. Unfortunately the grounds have shifted and people are choosing up sides in a wholly unnecessary war. Perhaps I'm falling into a geek fallacy, but I also see this as an important test case. If we cannot find a way to work with each other - despite our different frameworks - to deal with an abuser and social gatherings then we have a pretty deep problem.

Comments

[(Anonymous)]

I have, as they say, no dog in this fight, but as several of my LJ friends are involved, have been following the kerfuffle for several days. I appreciate points made by people on both "sides" of this discussion (I use the quote quite deliberately, as I actually think the framing of the argument is, as you say, what puts people in different spaces, and they really aren't nearly as far apart in their thinking as either of them thinks they are.). Anyway, as I am an attorney, I tend to look at things through a legal lens, and there are a couple of things that I find troubling from a legal standpoint:

1. A restraining order is designed to protect the survivor, yes. However, at least where I practice law, the survivor is told by the judge that he/she is not to deliberately place the subject of the restraining order in danger of violation -- in other words, yes, the subject of the RO should leave if he/she should happen to find him/herself in the same space as the survivor, but the survivor should not deliberately go places with the specific intent of running into the subject and making him/her leave. Which is what seemed to be about to happen here.

Yes, I recognize that Shira was concerned that Judah would pick up another potential victim at the party, but protecting people other than the particular survivor who has the RO is not what the RO is designed to do. Whether or not Judah was intending to run Shira down by going to the party, we don't know, but, as she was not there, he was not actually in violation of the RO at the time and would not have been had Shira stayed home (and, as she did stay home and not go to the party, Judah was at no time actually in violation of the RO, whatever his intentions may have been at the time).

This is not to say that the hosts of the party don't have their own legal issues here, they do.

2. If one is hosting a large party, and one possesses the knowledge that a party guest may pose a threat to others (ie: may assault, sexually or otherwise) another party guest, whether on the party premises or not, there is a potential legal liability to allowing said person on the property without proper warning to the other guests. Put more simply, the party hosts were aware that Judah had raped and later assaulted Shira (whether they believed it or not is irrelevant, as credible evidence existed). As such, they were put on notice that someone who was potentially violent was on their premises. If Judah had indeed picked up someone at their party and later assaulted that person in any way, the potential exists for a civil suit against the party hosts for failing to warn the guests of the danger that they knew Judah posed. There is some evidence that the party hosts had previously stated that rapists would be banned from their party, which, if true, makes a lawsuit of this nature even more likely, as such a statement gives potential victims a false sense of security.

While I understand the party hosts' distrust of the police (no one who has worked in criminal defense would fail to understand that), and understand their misreading of the text "police to follow," adding a rule to their list of party guidelines that the police are not to be called unless someone's life is in danger (a subject that is inherently subjective) puts party guests at yet another disadvantage, discouraging them from availing themselves of aid. Again, this could be a further legal liability. For example, a person pressing a lawsuit would say, "Not only did they not share their knowledge of this other party guest's propensity to violence, they prevented me from contacting help."

I would suggest that the party hosts need to think about this not only in terms of what hurts their guests, but what places them in legal danger.

Again, I have no dog in this fight, but there are legal issues at play that it appears no one is discussing.

[drwex]

Thank you for contributing a legal perspective to this. Can I ask you without breaking anonymity whether you're licensed in MA? My online reading of R.O. literature seems to indicate there's some variation state-to-state.

I fully agree with your point about the hosts putting themselves at risk by trying to limit others' police contact. I raised that issue in Scott's original LJ post and I know that the hosts are engaged in discussions about how they'll respond to all the feedback there as well as in private correspondence.

[(Anonymous)]

I am licensed in several states (the product of several moves). None of them are MA. You are quite correct that there are some variations from state-to-state regarding restraining orders/orders of protection. However, usually, the variations are minor. And, as someone who has done a LOT of work with R.O.'s, I have had to make a study of them in the states where I'm licensed and in surrounding states , and, in one particular case of mine, I was required to research R.O.'s in MA because a client moved to MA with a R.O. in tow and I had to know how said R.O. would be enforced by MA -- theoretically, they would have to enforce it as written and use the requirements from the promulgating state, but, practically speaking, the individual cops wouldn't have the legal knowledge or training and would, most likely, revert to their standard operating procedure in enforcing an order. That said, I in no way claim to be an expert on R.O.'s. And, each one has its own vagaries based on how it is written (there is language that is standard boilerplate fare contained in all R.O.'s, but there are also spaces to be filled out by judge that address the issues of a particular case).

Most R.O.'s contain language addressing the future behavior of only the subject, not the survivor who obtained the R.O. The assumption is twofold: first, that, if the abuser wanted to affect the future behavior of the survivor, he/she could attempt to get a R.O. of their own against that person (and, providing that said R.O. was justified, the court would grant it -- I can't tell you how many clients I've worked with who have R.O.'s against them and who also have R.O.'s against the person who has an R.O. against them), and, second, that the person who obtains a restraining order would not want to deliberately go where their abuser was located, so boilerplate language doesn't usually reflect that a survivor must not deliberately place the abuser in violation. However, when one looks to trial court outcomes and caselaw (written decisions handed down by an appellate court), you see whole lines of cases that indicate if a survivor deliberately places a subject in violation, convictions for violation of a restraining order are typically not upheld.

Again, I am not licensed in MA, nor have I performed a detailed search of MA caselaw with relation to R.O.'s, but this is pretty standard stuff.

Also, I have not seen, nor do I expect to see Shira's particular R.O. (I wouldn't counsel my own client to put a copy of their R.O. on the internet for others to pick apart, especially when there was a civil suit pending, nor do I think Shira should).

[drwex]

Thanks for clarifying.

My personal hope is still that people will drop discussion of this or other R.O. specifics because I don't think it contributes to moving things forward.

I would be interested to know if you've experienced other situations where social communities have dealt with members having R.O.s in their midst. Good or bad, we can all learn from other examples.

[(Anonymous)]

I, in fact, have. Twice in my life. Once from the perspective of a member of the community. Once from the perspective of the attorney of a client who was a member of the community.

In both instances, we had one member of a community who had allegedly abused another member. The survivor of the abuse obtained a restraining order against the abuser. When I was a member of the community, there was some discussion as to what to do -- people didn't want to take sides, people didn't want to ostracize one party or the other, etc. etc. -- but, ultimately, the community seemed to come to the collective decision that it was better to err on the side of caution and the abuser was no longer welcome at any of the gatherings.

When I was the attorney and my client was a member of a community, much the same thing occurred.

In neither case was the abuser ever welcomed back. When I was the attorney, my client was the abuser and he was, based on a criminal case arising out of the abuse and several other criminal cases, sentenced to a rather long stint in prison. When I was a member of the community myself, the abuser was not facing any criminal charges, but he refused to even acknowledge his behavior as wrong on any level, so no one felt he could return. At least that's how things stood before I moved to another state and, honestly, none of my friends that remained has mentioned anything about it in years.

[shadesong.livejournal.com]

Responding here to both this comment and your comment above: I hadn't said anything to my lawyer regarding putting the RO online, but I take your point and won't do so. People can indeed look around for them. They're pretty boilerplate.

if the abuser wanted to affect the future behavior of the survivor, he/she could attempt to get a R.O. of their own against that person (and, providing that said R.O. was justified, the court would grant it -- I can't tell you how many clients I've worked with who have R.O.'s against them and who also have R.O.'s against the person who has an R.O. against them)

He did attempt to do so - same day, same proceedings, after placing a phone call to his father for advice while the police were mostly focused documenting my injuries, before we proceeded to the courthouse. The judge did not see his request as justified and indicated that he had serious doubts that Judah was in any danger from me. (For data, since I don't know whether you know me: I am 4'11", 105 pounds, and disabled; my disabilities include chronic pain and muscle weakness.) Mine was granted without question, and has already had one extension without question.

Thank you for your comments.

[ron_newman]

I withdraw my suggestion that you post it online, especially in the face of legal advice against doing so.

(I can't edit a comment that has been replied to, nor do I want to disown it by deleting it.)

[(Anonymous)]

Thank you for this insight; I read it as extremely helpful.

Fwiw, my understanding is that the hosts are taking the issue of safety and accountability very seriously. I believe that they are in the process of crafting a more structured approach to invites to these parties in the interest of their guests' comfort and safety. My understanding is that they are doing this in collaboration with several members of the community (all of whom are parents, I believe) who have been highly invested in making social space = safe space. With parties as large as these, it can be no small task, but the hosts seem to be making strong efforts.

[(Anonymous)]

...in other words, yes, the subject of the RO should leave if he/she should happen to find him/herself in the same space as the survivor, but the survivor should not deliberately go places with the specific intent of running into the subject and making him/her leave. Which is what seemed to be about to happen here.

This is something that had bothered me about this side of the situation that night, quite apart from the question of whether Judah ought to have even been welcomed by the hosts in the first place.

[(Anonymous)]

Upon reflection, I wish to clarify this comment with my opinion that I don't think he should have been welcome there, and that I think it is absolutely reasonable to question the hosts' initial decision that he was. It upsets me that he was welcome. Simultaneously, my above comment stands.

[hel]

A question you might never see, given it's been a week since you posted - Isn't it generally a violation of a restraining order for the person the order is against to go somewhere the person holding the order is expected to be?

[(Anonymous)]

Nope. It is only a violation if they are actually in the same place and the person the order is against fails to leave.