Empty chairs, broken chairs

The most powerful moment of Gov. King’s State of the State address Monday was his closing passage on domestic violence. The sight of 12 empty gallery seats representing the 12 Maine women and children who died last year at the hands of batterers was moving, as was the fire in the governor’s voice as he urged Maine lawmakers and citizens to end this scourge.

It is heartening that this component of the governor’s speech already is going beyond the talking stage. The Commission on Domestic Abuse is preparing a comprehensive plan that will be presented to the next legislature. In the current Legislature, the Criminal Justice Committee is working to combine several proposals into one comprehensive bill to be considered this session.

One proposal, by House Minority Leader Thomas Murphy, would make it a crime for anyone to intentionally damage household property while another member of the household is present. The Kennebunk Republican correctly observes that too often, “Broken bones follow broken furniture.”

It’s a good point, one that any police officer who has responded to domestic violence calls can back up. And although such a law would be difficult to enforce and prosecute, it would perform several valuable functions: It would give the potential victim of abuse one more reason to call for help; it would give the responding officer one more tool with which to remove the potential abuser from the scene; and if the situation did escalate to violence, the additional charge would be an aggravating circumstance that could lead to a stiffer penalty.

But perhaps the most valuable element the bill is that it makes distinctions. The basic domestic destruction offense would be a Class E crime, the lowest level, punishable by no more than six months in jail and a $1,000 fine. If, however, a child under age 16 is present when the chair gets thrown or the dish smashed, it’s a Class D, with a penalty of up to a year and $2,000.

This acknowledgment of differing circumstances is needed throughout the body of law pertaining to domestic violence. One of the most common precursors to domestic violence is the violation of a protection from abuse order. Maine has a stalking law designed to prevent harassment and intimidation. Both are Class D, probably sufficient to deter someone from being a nuisance, but not nearly enough to stop someone bent upon causing harm.

As an example of making distinctions based upon intent and outcome, lawmakers need look no further than the statutes regarding assault — the range of charges, from misdemeanor assault to assault to aggravated assault, makes the necessary distinction between the shoving match, the fist fight and the attack with a tire iron. The range of penalties appropriate to the offense helps gain convictions, it helps restore public confidence in the criminal justice system, it may even cause potential violators to think twice.

But beyond creating new domestic-violence laws and fixing old ones, legislators must be willing to back up their resolve to end what Criminal Justice Committee Chairman Rep. Edward Povich calls “Maine’s own crime” with some money. The ability of police officers to effectively respond to domestic violence calls still is severely hampered by their lack of 24-hour access to a statewide data base on protection orders. The use of probation as a sentencing option will work only when Maine has enough probation officers to match the increasing workload. The measure of the Legislature’s commitment to this cause will be the number of empty chairs at next year’s State of the State.