Victims Of Domestic

In the messy world of domestic violence cases, often complicated by a lover's willingness to forgive, this one had a promising twist for prosecutors: Though the woman refused to testify against her boyfriend, a police officer said she had witnessed the attack in a Laurel gas station parking lot. But Anne Arundel County Circuit Judge Paul Harris, in a decision that has victims' rights advocates crying foul, acquitted the man charged with second-degree assault...

Victims of domestic violence or sexual assaults in Carroll County should soon benefit from a new hospital program that uses nurses trained to examine battered or abused women, preserve forensic evidence and become expert witnesses for the state in prosecuting offenders, authorities say.Five nurses at Carroll County General Hospital have completed training to become a Sexual Assault Forensic Examiner (SAFE), said Janet Steakin, one of the nurses who has been trained."October is Domestic Violence Awareness Month, and it's fitting that last October we attended the SAFE training conference, and we are just about ready to begin it here," Steakin said.

LAWMAKERS around the country have begun to rethink laws governing divorce. Now, Maryland's General Assembly joins that debate in considering a bill that would make getting a divorce easier for victims of domestic violence.In a misguided effort to preserve marriages and strengthen families, the legislature defeated a similar bill last year. So far this session, the measure sailed through the House of Delegates, but it now goes to the Senate, where it foundered before. Reforming Maryland's often painful and punitive divorce laws is an important issue, and this bill deserves approval.

As part of a statewide initiative to combat domestic violence, the Carroll County state's attorney's office will receive five cellular phones for abuse victims to use in emergencies.The phones are part of a state effort to get businesses involved in helping to protect victims of domestic violence, officials say.Partners Against Violence: The CEO Challenge, announced last month by the Attorney General's and Lieutenant Governor's Family Violence Council, is designed to confront domestic violence in the workplace by enlisting employers in the fight.

The boys didn't know the man who played basketball with them had been to prison. By the time he was locked up again, Warren C. "Ice" Berry had molested a 13-year-old and raped and stabbed to death an 11-year-old he befriended in Baltimore.Maryland Attorney General J. Joseph Curran Jr. recalled the terrible time Berry was free yesterday while pushing for a new law to keep violent sex offenders confined longer.Under the proposal before the state House of Delegates, sexual predators -- convicted rapists, stalkers and others -- could be committed to a psychiatric hospital upon release from prison.

A $28,030 federal grant will help keep Family and Children's Services of Central Maryland operating in Carroll County this fiscal year.The money is provided through the S*T*O*P Violence Against Women Grant Program and administered by Carroll County government.Most of the funds will be used to pay the salary and benefits for Nicole White, a crisis counselor who works closely with the Westminster Police Department to aid victims of domestic violence.The grant was announced by Westminster Common Councilman Damian L. Halstad, who sits on the council's public safety committee.

The Howard County state's attorney's office has been awarded state grants for programs that will assist victims of domestic violence and juvenile crime, as well as alert parents to the dangers of drug, alcohol and tobacco use in children.The grants will fund the salaries of a part-time prosecutor who will specialize in domestic violence cases and a staff member who will supervise volunteers helping victims of domestic violence and juvenile crime.Howard County State's Attorney Marna L. McLendon said she is "grateful that we have added the positions to better focus on the issues of domestic violence and victim assistance in juvenile cases -- the largest growing group of cases in the county."

As part of a statewide initiative to combat domestic violence, the Carroll County state's attorney's office will receive five cellular phones for abuse victims to use in emergencies.The phones are part of a state effort to get businesses involved in helping to protect victims of domestic violence, officials say.Partners Against Violence: The CEO Challenge, announced last month by the Attorney General's and Lieutenant Governor's Family Violence Council, is designed to confront domestic violence in the workplace by enlisting employers in the fight.

Even before Susan Grimm's former boyfriend was charged with stabbing her 13 times in October, Grimm had taken every legal step to protect herself against what she said were the ex-convict's repeated abuse and threats.She got a court order barring Robert B. Faidley from contacting her -- and filed criminal charges accusing him of ignoring it and stalking her. Assuming he would be arrested, she told a court commissioner about his unrelenting threats and his conviction for attempted murder in a separate case.

Lessons learned at last month's National Conference on Domestic Violence in Dallas may prove valuable to victims of spousal abuse in Carroll County, a local prosecutor says.The four-day conference afforded opportunities to discover how other jurisdictions prosecute domestic violence and deal with victims, said Melissa O. Hockensmith, an assistant state's attorney who heads Carroll's domestic violence unit.Hockensmith, who attended the conference with investigator Gary W. Cofflin and domestic violence case coordinator Latisha Mayne, said that spousal abuse among the elderly, for example, must be treated differently than abuse among younger people.

Last month, Theodore Blandford broke into the Lothian home of his estranged wife, Sheena Blandford, and shot her to death, along with her sister, Cheryl Timmons. Ms. Blandford knew she was in danger; two weeks earlier she had requested a protective order from the courts after her husband threatened to kill her by running over her with his truck and bashing her with a hammer. Ms. Blandford's death was only one of many well-publicized incidents this year that threw a bright spotlight on the problem of domestic violence in Maryland - a problem made more acute by the economic downturn, which has exacerbated the turmoil in troubled families and put thousands more women at greater risk of serious injury or death at the hands of abusive partners.

Sheena Blandford might still be alive if the judge who issued a final protective order against her abusive husband had also confiscated the gun he used to murder her. Ms. Blandford clearly feared for her life when she applied for a protective order in August after her estranged husband, Theodore Blandford, threatened to kill her. But on her petition for court protection she failed to check a box requesting a judge to confiscate her husband's firearms -...

With Baltimore Mayor Sheila Dixon maintaining a public hands-off stance for now, some are waiting to see how she handles assault charges that have been filed by two city officials who previously were romantically involved. Beyond reiterating Wednesday that she has "a no-tolerance level for domestic violence," Dixon declined to comment further on the accusations that Elizabeth C. Smith, a liquor board commissioner, and Demaune Millard, her chief of staff, have made against each other. "This is a private matter - I want to give them that privacy to move through that process as we move forward," Dixon said.

We've said it before and we'll say it again: Firearms and domestic violence don't mix. So why is the Maryland Senate trying to wreck a bill intended to protect victims of abuse by tacking on an amendment that would keep guns on the table in domestic violence cases? This is cynical politics at its worst. The bill, sponsored by Gov. Martin O'Malley, would require judges to confiscate firearms from partners who are under final restraining orders as a result of domestic violence. The rationale is obvious: Given the explosive nature of abusive relationships, the presence of any firearm can quickly turn deadly.

Mary Crawford is alive today because her estranged husband wasn't a very good shot. During an argument in their Carroll County home in 2001, he pulled out a shotgun and twice fired at her and missed. At the time, she had a restraining order against him. But the law did not require that her husband surrender his gun despite his history of threats and abuse. Now, Ms. Crawford is a compelling advocate to change Maryland law to keep guns out of the hands of spouses and others with a record of domestic violence.

As part of what he said would be a strengthened effort to protect victims of domestic violence, Gov. Martin O'Malley announced yesterday that $1.8 million in federal funds have been allocated for 63 agencies and organizations in Maryland that help such victims. The governor, speaking at a news conference in Towson, also announced the expansion of the 21-member Family Violence Council to include Attorney General Douglas F. Gansler, Lt. Gov. Anthony G. Brown, Talbot County State's Attorney Scott Patterson and Vicki Sadehvandi, executive director of Citizens Assisting and Sheltering the Abused, in Hagerstown.

The Howard County state's attorney's office announced that it has received a $45,000 grant to organize a domestic violence unit. The grant, which comes from the Governor's Office of Crime Control and Prevention, will enable the state's attorney's office to create a unit in its District Court division to serve victims of domestic violence, sexual assault, stalking and elder abuse, according to a news release. "This grant allows us to add a new position that will expand and enhance our ongoing efforts to protect the victims of domestic violence from further violent acts, to protect children and the elderly from household violence and to hold offenders accountable for their actions," county state's attorney Dario J. Broccolino said in the statement.

In the messy world of domestic violence cases, often complicated by a lover's willingness to forgive, this one had a promising twist for prosecutors: Though the woman refused to testify against her boyfriend, a police officer said she had witnessed the attack in a Laurel gas station parking lot. But Anne Arundel County Circuit Judge Paul Harris, in a decision that has victims' rights advocates crying foul, acquitted the man charged with second-degree assault...

Family members in El Salvador say a missing woman's husband had a history of hitting her, raising new fears for her safety after the husband was found hanged and their four children dead in a Frederick townhouse, according to a diplomat from the Central American country. Ana Margarita Chavez, El Salvador's consul general in Washington, appealed yesterday on a Spanish-language television station that broadcasts in the Baltimore-Washington area for the woman to contact her. Chavez's message, which included her cell phone number, promised that the conversation between the two would be confidential.

The Department of Justice's highly publicized new findings on domestic violence are good news. Domestic violence appears to have declined by more than half from 1993 to 2004. Unfortunately, misleading press reports and the study's limited methodology have served to further minimize the often-ignored problems faced by male victims of domestic violence. The department's National Crime Victimization Survey was conducted by interviewing members of a representative sample of households regarding crime, including domestic violence.