Florida judge slammed for jailing domestic violence victim

[jnelsoninjax]

SEMINOLE COUNTY, Fla., Oct. 8 (UPI) -- A Florida judge is attracting criticism for the way she handled a court hearing in July in which she verbally scolded a domestic violence victim for missing a previous court date, dismissed her explanation and ordered her to jail.

Seminole County Judge Jerri L. Collins sentenced the woman to three days in jail for contempt of court for her failure to appear during her abuser's trial, WFTV-TV reported Thursday.

"You may testify as to why the court should not hold you in contempt of court for failing to appear, as summoned," Collins said at the start of the hearing. "You refused to come to court ... you had indicated [to prosecutors] that you were not going to show up, knowing that you were under subpoena."

"I can sentence you to jail," she added.

Standing before Collins, the woman attempted to explain her reasons for missing the trial.

"I am very sorry for not attending," the woman replied, as she began to cry. "I've been dealing with depression ... my anxiety is like, this is every day for me."

The woman then tried to explain that she had been trying to separate from her abuser and that she had experienced recurring distress during the trial proceedings. In trying to communicate, the visibly and audibly emotional woman had some difficulty formulating sentences.

"Why didn't you show up to court?" Collins asked.

The woman again cited anxiety when Collins interrupted with, "you think you have anxiety now? You haven't even seen anxiety."

"We had a jury -- six people there ready to try [the defendant], who has a prior criminal history of domestic violence. You were required to be here by court order. You disobeyed a court order knowing that this was not going to turn out well for the state," Collins continued.

The judge then asked the woman if her allegations against the defendant were true. When she replied it was, Collins said, "then why didn't you come to testify?"

"I have tried to move on with my life," the woman explained, still sobbing. "I'm, like, homeless now. I'm living at my parents house. Everything has been shut off. I had to sell everything I own. I'm just not in a good place right now."

Collins then ordered the woman to jail.

http://www.upi.com/Top_News/US/2015/10/08/Florida-judge-criticized-for-scolding-jailing-domestic-abuse-victim-for-missed-court-date/5781444352573/

[techbeck]

Saw the video on this.  Judge was just uncaring and mean.  Yes, she was in contempt technically but as I understand it, a deal was already made without her needing to testify and looked like the judge was on a power trip.

[xendrome]

Subpoena to show up, knowingly don't show.. contempt of court... It's really that simple. The circumstances doesn't really matter. We can't just allow everyone to have an excuse or reason not to show.

[macrosslover]

Saw the video on this.  Judge was just uncaring and mean.  Yes, she was in contempt technically but as I understand it, a deal was already made without her needing to testify and looked like the judge was on a power trip.

The deal they made was likely a weaker deal they could have made if she had showed up.  I feel no remorse for her.  The court system is tired and exhausted with people like her, domestic violence victims, who continually cry out for help, get someone arrested, and then continually fail to show up to trial to get the charges dropped, which causes the entire process to start over again.  The judges, prosecutors, and the police are frustrated that they are trying to help the victims, but they don't take the help and sadly in many cases lose their lives.

Right now, we have no way of knowing if this woman had a history of making allegations of domestic violence and then dropping the charges later, but I don't feel any sympathy for her having to spend three days in jail for contempt.  The flip side of the argument is that if you lied about the allegations or knew you were not going to pursue charges anyway, why did you even call the police.  Your actions caused this man (in this case, but more often than not in general) to spend time in jail that he otherwise wouldn't have spent.

There's an upside and a downside to this decision.  The upside is she will now know the court is serious when they say be in attendance.  The downside is that when she's a victim of domestic violence again (not if), she likely won't call out for help anymore because of the response she received this time.