Speaker DeLeo and Attorney General Coakley Announce Domestic Violence Bill

(BOSTON) – House Speaker Robert A. DeLeo and Attorney General Martha Coakley today announced a comprehensive domestic violence bill which creates new criminal offenses and elevated penalties, boosts prevention efforts and seeks to empower victims.

The legislation establishes a first offense domestic assault and battery charge that will allow officials to immediately contextualize charges as domestic in nature and take appropriate punitive action. It also creates a separate and specific charge of strangulation and suffocation, actions that statistically indicate an abuser is more likely to commit domestic violence related homicide in the future. 

“We, as public officials and as a society, must do everything in our power to stem the tragic tide of violence against women,” House Speaker Robert A. DeLeo (D-Winthrop) said. “This legislation represents some of the strongest, most comprehensive domestic violence legislation in at least a generation. I thank Attorney General Coakley for her collaboration on this bill and offer my sincere gratitude to the advocates and individuals who so courageously shared their experiences.”

“This bill will better protect our families by strengthening our laws against abusers and providing victims with the support they need,” said Attorney General Martha Coakley. “We must do better to break the cycle of intimidation and violence committed by serial abusers. With this bill, we will.   I want to thank Speaker DeLeo for his partnership and unwavering commitment to address domestic violence in a comprehensive and meaningful way.”

The bill gives law enforcement officials, attorneys, judges and medical professionals updated resources to help balance prevention and punishment. By streamlining and standardizing records it ensures key decision-makers have the most accurate information and that parties across the jurisdictions have access to an offender’s complete history. Additionally, under this legislation judges must evaluate whether domestic violence was a predicate or concurrent factor to certain crimes.

The bill abolishes the antiquated practice of allowing accord and satisfaction in domestic violence cases and establishes the below crimes:

• Domestic assault or domestic assault and battery near a court house;
• Domestic assault or domestic assault and battery with the intent to intimidate or prevent access to courts.

In an effort to consistently improve prevention efforts and find effective solutions to combat domestic violence the legislation establishes enhanced training programs and creates Domestic Fatality Review Teams to investigate domestic violence related fatalities. The state-level review teams will serve as a tool to establish best practices and help officials understand any shortcomings present in current protocol.

The bill also includes the following provisions:

• Delays the issuance of bail for offenders to provide the victim with time for safety planning and authorizes the revocation bail in certain cases;
• Establishes employment leave for victims of abuse;
• Increases victim confidentiality by prohibiting information regarding domestic violence complaints from being included in daily police logs which are public record;
• Establishes fees for domestic violence offenses which are deposited in the newly created Domestic Violence Prevention and Victim Assistance fund and requires a judge who waives the fee for an indigent defendant to impose 8 hours of community service;
• Broadens court authorization to issue limited custody and support orders;
• Requires law enforcement agencies to provide information on batterer’s intervention to defendants when serving them with a Chapter 209A restraining order.
• The legislation also promotes innovative approaches such as multi-disciplinary high risk teams and a grants program to provide assistance to victims of domestic violence.

Section by Section Summary

AN ACT RELATIVE TO DOMESTIC VIOLENCE

SECTION 1. Amends the municipal police training committee curriculum to include specific training on lethality factors and information sharing.  Requires the training committee to periodically include DV training as part of in-service training, which was previously optional.

SECTIONS 2 & 3. Provide for standardization of the BOP records by specifically making records of dangerousness hearings part of an individual’s Criminal Offender Record Information (CORI).

SECTION 4. Establishes state and local domestic fatality review teams.  The state team is housed within EOPPS and acts as a steering committee, providing model protocols, rules and training to the local review teams, reviewing the local teams’ reports, and providing an annual report to the governor and legislature. The 11 local review teams are led by district attorneys and investigate particular fatalities randomly assigned to them by the state team.

SECTIONS 5 & 6. Increase confidentiality protections for DV victims by prohibiting information regarding DV complaints and arrests from being included in daily police logs, which are public record.  Entries related to DV will be kept in a separate log, as reports of rape and sexual assault are currently maintained.

SECTION 7. Directs various health care related boards of registration (e.g. medicine, nursing, and social workers) to develop and administer standards for licensure that require training and education on DV.

SECTIONS 8 & 9. Establish employment leave for DV victims, providing up to 15 days of leave within a year for employees to address issues related to domestic violence, including obtaining medical attention, accessing the courts, and receiving counseling and support services.

SECTIONS 10 & 11. Allow district and municipal courts to modify existing support and custody orders from the probate and family court, for a limited duration of 45 days. The probate and family court that issued the original order receives immediate notice of the modification and retains final jurisdiction.

SECTION 12. Requires law enforcement agencies to provide information on batterer’s intervention to defendants when serving them with a c. 209A restraining order.

SECTION 13. Prohibits the court from granting visitation rights to a parent convicted of rape, unless the child is old enough to assent to the visitation and that assent is determined to be in the best interests of the child.

SECTION 14. Requires the chief justice of the trial court to provide biannual DV training to trial court personnel, which specifically includes training on lethality factors, information sharing, and the availability of DV support services.

SECTION 15. Establishes concurrent jurisdiction of district and superior courts for the crimes of strangulation and kidnapping.

SECTIONS 16 – 21. Increase the existing victim and witness assessments by $20, and create a new, specific, DV victim and witness assessment for violations of protective orders or crimes involving abuse.  Amends the option to waive assessments to allow for structured payment and, in DV specific cases, to provide the alternative of community service.

SECTIONS 22 & 45 – 47. Establish the Domestic Violence Prevention and Victim Assistance Fund, to be administered by MOVA to fund a 3 year pilot program for innovative practices to prevent DV and provide assistance to DV victims.

SECTION 23. Increases the criminal penalty against those committing DV against the elderly or disabled.

SECTION 24. Creates the first offense of domestic assault and battery.

SECTION 25. Creates the new crime of, and specific penalties for, domestic assault and battery within a certain distance of a trial court or domestic assault and battery with the intent to prevent or deter someone from accessing a trial court.

SECTION 26. Creates the specific crimes of strangulation and suffocation, with increased penalties for strangulation and suffocation in special circumstances.

SECTIONS 27 – 30. Require, for any DV offense, a 6 hour delay to admit a person to bail (with an 8 hour cap) and that a written assessment of safety factors (similar to the factors used in a dangerous evaluation) be issued before the person arrested may be admitted to bail or personal recognizance. If no factors assure the safety of the victim or the community, the offender may be transferred for a 58A dangerousness hearing.  Information on batterer’s intervention programs must also be given to anyone charged with a DV offense, prior to admitting them to bail.

SECTION 31. Prohibits the use of accord and satisfaction agreements in cases involving DV.

SECTION 32. Requires a judge, in crimes against the person or property, to make written findings of fact regarding any DV occurring immediately prior to or in conjunction with the crime for which the person was charged.  These written findings of fact cannot be considered for the purposes of the crime charged, are not included on a CORI, and are not public record, but would go into the statewide DV record keeping system, which judges consult during restraining order hearings.

SECTIONS 33 & 34. Require, for any DV offense, a 6 hour delay to admit a person to bail (with an 8 hour cap) and that a written assessment of safety factors (similar to the factors used in a dangerous evaluation) be issued before the person arrested may be admitted to bail or personal recognizance. If no factors assure the safety of the victim or the community, the offender may be transferred for a 58A dangerousness hearing.  Information on batterer’s intervention programs must also be given to anyone charged with a DV offense, prior to admitting them to bail.

SECTIONS 35 – 40. Amend the dangerousness hearing statute to: (1) require a 6 hour delay to admit a person to bail (with an 8 hour cap) for a person subject to a dangerous hearing pursuant to a DV offense, (2) allow for detention beyond 90 days but no longer than 180 days, in certain limited situations involving new information, (3) require a defendant make a good faith showing in order to summons an alleged victim or a member of the victim’s family as a witness at the dangerousness hearing, (4) direct judges to consider hearsay evidence at a dangerousness hearing, (5) require judges to issue written victim safety determinations in all cases involving DV offenses, and (6) provide for standardization of the BOP/CORI by requiring the inclusion of information on dangerousness hearings.

SECTION 41. Allows for bail revocation and detention upon the violation of any condition of release on personal recognizance. 

SECTION 42. Requires EOPPS and the chief administrator of the trial court to work together to adopt rules and regulations to standardize the BOP/CORI information to ensure that judges, DA’s and defense counsel are receiving complete and uniform information regarding a defendant.

SECTION 43. Requires various law enforcement agencies and service providers to work together to develop and implement, subject to appropriation, a program for disseminating information on DV prevention services to victims, defendants, and parties subject to various protective orders.

SECTION 44. Requires DESE to develop materials on DV and teen dating violence to distribute to high school students as part of the current health curriculum on safe and healthy relationships.