{"id":16511,"date":"2012-02-14T16:30:02","date_gmt":"2012-02-14T21:30:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/?p=16511"},"modified":"2013-01-17T10:45:44","modified_gmt":"2013-01-17T15:45:44","slug":"love-and-violence-valentines-day-edition","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/2012\/02\/love-and-violence-valentines-day-edition\/","title":{"rendered":"Love and Violence: Valentine\u2019s Day Edition"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>On Monday, February 6, Florida couple Joseph Bray and his wife Sonja got into a fight because, she says, he failed to wish her a happy birthday.\u00a0 According to the arrest affidavit, the fight escalated; Joseph Bray pushed Sonja Bray onto their couch, grabbed her neck, and raised his fist to hit her, although he did not strike her.\u00a0 Joseph Bray was arrested and when he appeared in court on a domestic violence charge, you can be sure the judge issued appropriate sanctions.<\/p>\n

Or not.<\/p>\n

Judge John Hurley ordered in lieu of posting a bond that Joseph Bray get his wife flowers and a birthday card, take her to Red Lobster for dinner, then take her bowling.\u00a0 And he ordered the couple to see a marriage counselor.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Judge Hurley called the incident \u201cvery, very minor.\u201d\u00a0 Given Joseph Bray\u2019s \u201cotherwise clean record,\u201d Judge Hurley believed his order \u201cwas a better resolution than the other alternatives.\u201d<\/p>\n

(You can read the story here<\/a> and here<\/a>.)<\/p>\n

Now, I don\u2019t know this judge and I don\u2019t know these people.\u00a0 I haven\u2019t personally read the arrest affidavit.\u00a0 But I do know that being shoved onto a couch and having someone put his hands around my throat and make a physical gesture that threatens to cause me physical harm is not \u201cvery, very minor.\u201d Even if no one was actually physically injured (as Sonja Bray even testified).<\/p>\n

On one site, a video of the hearing is posted along with the story.\u00a0 In the video, Judge Hurley questions Sonja Bray about what happened that evening.\u00a0 At one point Sonja Bray begins sobbing. \u201cI love my husband,\u201d she said.\u00a0 She wanted him to come home.\u00a0 The judge\u2019s voice is kind as he asked her questions. As he said, \u201cI have to determine how serious this is.\u201d\u00a0 Sonja Bray said she was not afraid of Joseph Bray harming her.<\/p>\n

And so, Judge Bray issued his order for a romantic date night, even though one of the first things Sonja Bray told him, in response to his question, is that she had called the police on her husband at least once before.<\/p>\n

I believe that Judge Hurley believes he is doing the right thing.\u00a0 He\u2019s giving Joseph Bray a little slack, a little lesson on how, perhaps, a husband should treat his wife on her birthday.\u00a0 But what his order does is trivialize the threat of violence that Sonja Bray experienced, a threat significant enough to her to make her call police.\u00a0 Even worse, as the judge stated his conditions, people in the courtroom began to giggle.\u00a0 When the judge ordered Joseph Bray to take his wife bowling, a man I think might be Joseph Bray\u2019s lawyer quipped, \u201cDoes he have to let her win?\u201d<\/p>\n

Part of the problem seems to be that when there is no actual violence, we diminish the threat as something \u201cvery, very minor.\u201d As if one must have physical bruises to be considered abused.\u00a0 And even if there are physical bruises, we sometimes still consider the incident minor, an aberration perhaps brought on by something the victim must have done. This is especially so if the batterer is contrite after the incident, as most usually are.\u00a0 That domestic violence is minor, that it\u2019s an aberration in certain relationships, brought on primarily by some other trigger other than the abuser\u2019s own conduct \u2013 these are the fictions we like to tell ourselves.<\/p>\n

And what makes matters worse is when we, as a society, embrace the batterer.\u00a0 R&B singer Chris Brown<\/a> is a case in point.\u00a0 In February 2009, he bit, beat, and choked his then-girlfriend, R&B singer Rihanna.\u00a0 Brown was charged with two felonies, assault likely to cause great bodily harm and making criminal threats. He entered a plea agreement that put him on probation for five years and required him to perform six months of community service.\u00a0 Last Sunday, three years later, Brown performed at the Grammy Awards for the first time since that incident.\u00a0 According to an editorial on The Western Front<\/a>,<\/p>\n

Grammy Executive Producer Ken Ehrlich told ABC [N]ews, \u201cI think people deserve a second chance, you know.\u00a0 If you\u2019ll note, he has not been on the Grammys for the past few years and it may have taken us a while to kind of get over the fact that we were the victim of what happened.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

As the editorial writer succinctly states, \u201cLet\u2019s make one thing completely clear:\u00a0 the Grammys was [sic] not the victim of Chris Brown\u2019s raging fists, Rihanna was.\u201d However, there seems to a line of women who would not call Rihanna a victim at all; in fact, these women seem eager to be in her place.\u00a0 One blogger<\/a> collected a disturbing number of Twitter posts from women who all said pretty much the same thing:\u00a0 \u201cChris Brown can beat me up any day.\u201d\u00a0 For example, @briquirkk tweeted:\u00a0 \u201cI\u2019d let chris brown punch me in the face.\u201d\u00a0 Tweeted @_anniegregg, \u201cEveryone shut up about Chris brown being a woman beater\u2026[Expletive] he can beat me up all night if he wants.\u201d<\/p>\n

Domestic violence<\/a> is the leading cause of injury to women, and most incidents go unreported.\u00a0 We need to think carefully about the messages we send about domestic violence not only as men and women in relationships but as lawyers and other players in a system that is meant to deal with it. It is a serious crime<\/em> and should be treated as such.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

On Monday, February 6, Florida couple Joseph Bray and his wife Sonja got into a fight because, she says, he failed to wish her a happy birthday.\u00a0 According to the arrest affidavit, the fight escalated; Joseph Bray pushed Sonja Bray onto their couch, grabbed her neck, and raised his fist to hit her, although he 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