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

[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.)