The details of the crimes in the small Russian city were as grisly and shocking as any on the streets of Baltimore: a wife, long abused, who bludgeoned her spouse with an ax; another, beaten to death by her slovenly drunken husband; or another woman, who refused to testify against her abuser.
Although she had come as an adviser from more than 4,000 miles away, the crimes had a familiar ring to Maryland first lady Catherine Curran O'Malley, a Baltimore District Court judge who often handles aspects of such cases.
O'Malley and a delegation of local and federal law enforcement officials spent a week in the shadow of St. Petersburg on a State Department-sponsored trip, advising judges and prosecutors in the city of Tosno on their burgeoning domestic violence legal system.
"A good part of what we were doing was learning about what progress they had made, as opposed to talking down to the different people," O'Malley said in an interview Thursday in her chambers at the Baltimore District Courthouse. "They really have come a long way."
The visit was organized by the Russian American Rule of Law Consortium, a group from several states that has fostered relationships with Russian cities in an effort to promote reform in their judicial systems. The U.S. Agency for International Development paid for the trip.
Former Maryland Attorney General J. Joseph Curran Jr., O'Malley's father, was a key player in the effort, which began more than a decade ago while Russia was beginning its experiment with democracy and creating a criminal justice system almost from scratch.
Late last year, several Tosno officials visited Maryland to begin the focus on domestic violence initiatives, even observing a docket in O'Malley's court.
The Russians were fascinated by the concept of restraining orders and how they can deter abuse or at least provide prosecutors with another tool, O'Malley said. She also spoke to them about prosecutions in cases when the victims of abuse refuse to cooperate with investigators, something she had experience with as a Baltimore County assistant state's attorney.
While there, she and the other members of the delegation - which included U.S. District Judge Richard D. Bennett, Montgomery County police Chief J. Thomas Manger, Montgomery County Circuit Court Administrator Pamela Harris and Assistant State's Attorney Patrick Mays from that county - witnessed court proceedings in several major domestic violence cases.
