Domestic violence sentencing criticized

VANCOUVER, Wash. – The man held a broken bottle to his girlfriend’s neck and threatened to kill her. When she managed to break away, he chased her out of the house with scissors.

Police eventually arrested the boyfriend, who was charged with assault.

But last week, when Vancouver prosecutor Camara Banfield asked a judge to set bail in the case at $50,000, the judge declined. Bail was set at just $5,000.

And if convicted of a first-time felony, the abuser could get off with a sentence of as little as three months, she said.

It’s a symptom of the way the state criminal justice system regards domestic violence, says Banfield, one of six prosecutors assigned to the Clark County Domestic Violence Prosecution Center.

“Some courts, when they hear the term ‘domestic violence,’ automatically set the sentence lighter,” she said. “There are a couple of judges in the community who still see domestic violence as something that can be taken care of in the home or through marriage counseling.”

Vancouver Police Sgt. Mike Davis, who works with the domestic violence unit, says the problem is pervasive. When it comes to crimes involving domestic violence, “If a stranger were to do it, it would be total shock and awe,” he said. “But if it’s a domestic violence case, often there is not that sense of alarm.”

The state’s current sentencing guidelines reflect societal attitudes toward crimes of domestic violence, critics say. They don’t give judges the option to order a stiffer sentence to an abuser who has a long record of misdemeanor abuse.

Washington Attorney General Rob McKenna and the state’s prosecuting attorneys want to change that.

McKenna introduced legislation in the 2009 session that would increase protection for victims of the worst domestic abusers by requiring courts to consider their full criminal record, including past misdemeanor convictions, at sentencing for felony crimes.

Current state sentencing guidelines do not factor misdemeanor convictions into felony sentences except in traffic crimes.

The law would apply to about 10 percent of domestic abusers – the worst of the worst.

The legislation failed to pass in the 2009 session, in part because of concerns about the cost to the corrections system of tougher sentences for domestic abusers. McKenna intends to introduce it again in 2010.

A long string of misdemeanor domestic violence convictions is almost always a red flag, Banfield said.

“When you see this pattern of behavior, you had better believe there is a lot of abuse going on and it is going to escalate to a deadly level a lot sooner,” she said.

Twenty-five years after the passage of Washington’s Domestic Violence Protection Act, the state’s sentencing laws do not treat domestic violence with the seriousness it deserves, says McKenna, the state’s top law enforcement official.

“Extra sentencing consideration is allowed for serial drug offenders, car thieves and other chronic criminals, but not for domestic abusers,” McKenna said.

As things stand today, the label of “domestic violence” associated with a crime like assault, kidnapping or failure to obey a protection order means nothing when it comes to punishment because it does not increase the sanction imposed, McKenna said.

Not only would his legislation allow consideration of prior misdemeanor convictions, it would also require defendants to plead to the charge of domestic violence and require prosecutors to prove it. That would allow a prosecutor to bring in a defendant’s history of domestic violence at trial and make it more likely that repeat offenders would receive tougher sentences.

Under current law, if the man wielding the broken bottle were eventually convicted of a first-time felony, he would be subject to a sentence of three to nine months, Banfield said. But if he had two prior misdemeanors involving domestic violence on his record, the new law would boost that sentence to between 13 and 17 months.

That, she said, would give the law some teeth.

McKenna’s get-tough sentencing bill may face tough sledding again in 2010 as the Legislature scours the budget to find $2.6 billion in spending cuts.

Banfield says it should be a priority nonetheless.

“There are areas where we need to cut costs. This isn’t one of them. It’s a public safety issue. People will be serving longer sentences. Society will be paying more. But most people would agree these are the people we want to have incarcerated.”