Editor's note: This is the second in a three-part series on a pilot program created to address domestic violence in West Virginia.
It's a Thursday afternoon in May and the Kanawha County Domestic Violence Court is in full swing. Though one might expect a nonstop deluge of tears and yelling, the atmosphere is light and relatively bureaucratic.
From behind heaps of files and paperwork, Magistrate Julie Yeager calls up the next defendant, a young man. He's been attending counseling and Alcoholics Anonymous and the prosecution confirms he has no new charges and is on track to complete the program.
"Good, great," Yeager said. "Keep it up, you hear me?" She asks a few perfunctory questions, tells him to be back in July for monitoring and then he's gone.
Next.
The process is quick, and it has to be, with DV Court seeing several hundred cases every month. It seems extraordinarily simple just sitting in the courtroom, any given defendant is only before the magistrate for a few minutes barring complications, but like the problem it seeks to solve, DV Court is a complex machine with many different parts.
"We have hundreds and hundreds of cases in DV Court," Yeager said. And there's just as many ways for people to come into contact with the court, but for most, it's either because they've committed a crime or they're afraid of a crime being committed against them.
Yeager spends a portion of the day hearing domestic violence petitions, or DVPs. Basically, a DVP is a civil order that prohibits a person from interacting with another person during situations where domestic violence is a threat.
In essence, it's a lifesaver judges can toss out to people who fear for their safety from someone they're in a relationship with. It includes prohibitions against purchasing firearms or contacting the petitioner as well.
The protective orders eventually time out and fall completely off the individual's record, unless they're violated. Violating the order is a crime that will land you in Yeager's court.
"That's one of the reasons that, before this, we started the domestic violence registry," said Steve Canterbury, administrative director of the West Virginia Supreme Court. The domestic violence registry is a real-time list of the state's domestic offenders operated through the West Virginia State Police in conjunction with the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
"What's happening is, as soon as a magistrate puts up a domestic violence order, it's immediately put online," said Lisa Tackett, director of the Division of Family Court Services. Her office was instrumental in organizing the framework upon which DV Court was established.
The registry is accessible to all law enforcement and certain other agencies, and it gives them the ability to determine if someone is a domestic offender. It seems like a paltry bit of information, but it helps prevent domestic offenders from slipping through the cracks at the point of contact.
"We have stopped people that have walked out of court and tried to buy firearms at Walmart in another state," Canterbury said.
The registry isn't like the sex offender registry, however, in that offenders don't necessarily stay on it for life. If, for instance, a domestic violence petition expires or is lifted, the individual's name is immediately stricken form the record.
The domestic violence registry and protective orders are especially effective at helping women come forward when they're victims of domestic abuse. Women make up the vast majority of domestic abuse victims, and often the most dangerous time for them is when their abuser thinks they're going to break free.
"It's a rare woman that the first time she gets hit, she goes to the police," Canterbury said, adding it's usually 10 or 15 times before the police are notified. "There are all kinds of reasons why, but it's rarely the first time."
The Procedure
Victims are connected with a victim advocate through the victim services unit as soon as possible. The advocates primarily endeavor to acclimate victims to the judicial system and get them to trial.
"They're tired, they're scared and they just want it go away," said Caroline Carte, a Kanawha County victim advocate. She works closely with the felony domestic cases that come across Yeager's desk.
She's been on the job 18 years.
"When I started, DV cases were with the regular magistrate court docket," she said.
It's often much harder to get victims of domestic violence to court than victims of impersonal crimes like robbery. When those victims don't show for trial, Carte said, cases get dismissed.
Having a centralized domestic violence court has made it easier for her office to connect with those victims, as well as connect them to the treatment or counseling services they may need.
"I'm really proud right now of where we are in this DV program," Carte said.
Helping the victims of domestic violence is an obvious necessity, but where the domestic violence program stands out is its treatment of the (predominantly male) perpetrators.
Domestic violence isn't a cut-and-dried type of crime. Writing off every perpetrator as habitually violent and filing them away in prison is easy, but not necessarily a solution.
"Punishment is one way," said Joyce Yedlosky, team coordinator with the West Virginia Coalition Against Domestic Violence. Yedlosky acts as a liaison between the coalition and the press and Legislature, among other duties.
Education, she said, is the other. Studies of domestic violence show it's often a learned behavior, and if a behavior can be learned, it can be unlearned, or supplanted with a new behavior.
"Just because someone grew up in a home with domestic violence doesn't mean they will become an offender," she clarified. But it is a risk factor.
That in mind, the domestic violence court does its best to keep what offenders it can out of prison. Some offenders are offered the opportunity to be released under supervision while they undergo rehabilitation.
Offenders are monitored by programs like the sheriff department's Day Report.
"I supervise clients mainly from magistrate court, mainly the domestic violence cases," said Matt Cleer, a Day Report officer. "It's an alternative to being sent to jail, where they come report to me."
Day Report is basically what it sounds like. Offenders report on a specified days and are tested for drugs and work with an officer on their rehabilitation plan.
"Right now I have close to 30 clients that see me and I see them two to three times per week," Cleer said. "If they don't show up for their classes, if they don't pass drug screens, I report that to the judge and they issue a capias."
Capias is an arrest warrant for people who violate court orders.
Day Report is a cost-saving alternative to incarceration. Offenders pay for their own living expenses and they're not isolated from society, which allows them to keep their jobs.
During the program, offenders go through programs like the YWCA's Batterer Intervention/Prevention Program, or BIPP. The program focuses teaching batterers to recognize their violent behavior and its effect on others.
The risk is that offenders aren't monitored continuously, and might re-offend.
Cleer estimated about two of every 10 of his clients don't do what they're supposed to.
"A lot of the people I graduate, I haven't seen them back," he said. "I've had a good success rate."
"If y'all gotta do it, do it, it ain't that bad," said Jesse Holt, 33, of South Charleston. Yeager considers Holt one of her best success stories.
Holt went through domestic violence court after a few altercations with his father.
"Me and my family just don't get along," he said. Holt was nearly imprisoned over violating a domestic order by calling his father.
Holt has a 10th-grade education, and by his own admission, a history of violence. He'd even been charged for street fighting, but those charges were always dropped.
"I had this class thing," he said. "It was my second time, and a lot of people don't finish those things."
"I done it for two months and then I violated and had to do nine months," he said. He was put on probation and started BIPP.
They taught him to control his anger, he said.
"They took a boy and turned him into a man," Holt said. "I just turn away instead of fighting everybody."
Holt's story has a positive ending, but Yeager admits that's not always the case.
"There's a lot of people that come in and they go out in handcuffs," she said.
The last of this three-part series details the future of domestic violence court, what it takes to keep it going and how people are trying to affect changes in West Virginia's domestic violence program at a legislative level.
Contact writer Tyler Bell at 304-348-4850 or email him at tyler.bell@dailymailwv.com.