The Supreme Court and Women's Rights

The Supreme Court of the US has decided to take a very important case for domestic violence victims. Defendants have the right to confront their accuser, despite the trauma this may cause to the victim of abuse. Rape and abuse cases are frequently dismissed because the victim is too traumatized to testify. The case that the Supreme Court has agreed to hear is that of a man who cannot confront his victim because HE KILLED HER. I have attached the official blurb I was sent at work, but I just wanted readers to dwell on this. An abuser kills his victim and then cries "unfair" when he cannot confront her. I hope the Supreme Court decides that if you kill your accuser, you give up your right to confront him or her, but I am pretty disgusted that this case is even being heard.

Here is the official blurb:

The Supreme Court has agreed to hear a case that could clarify the Sixth Amendment's “confrontation clause.” It may have implications for victims of domestic violence.

Giles vs. California is an appeal brought by Dwayne Giles, a California man accused of shooting and killing his former girlfriend, Brenda Avie. Several weeks before the murder, Avie told police that Giles was threatening to kill her. At issue is whether the police officer's testimony about what Avie told him is admissible, since Giles cannot now face Avie in court to challenge her claim that he was threatening her life.

This is not a new issue for the Supreme Court. Its 2004 decision in Crawford v. Washington emphasized the right of defendants to confront a state's witnesses. In that case, the Court ruled unanimously that statements from witnesses who do not come to court and thus cannot be confronted by their accusers should be excluded. It was, at that time, a significant change to existing law.

The issue arose again in 2006, but the Court only partially answered it. At that time, the New York Times reports, “Justice Scalia addressed concerns that victims of domestic violence, who are often afraid to testify in court, might suffer from such a rule. Defendants who 'seek to undermine the judicial process by procuring or coercing silence from witnesses and victims' would forfeit the protection of the confrontation clause.”

“It is therefore likely that the justices accepted the new case, Giles v. California, to make it clear that as long as the victim's unavailability as a witness was a foreseeable consequence of the murder, the Sixth Amendment does not require the state to prove the actual motive for the murder was to make the victim unavailable,” the New York Times reports.

Giles vs. California is likely to be argued in April, with a ruling expected this summer.