Legal System, Civil Court Remedies for Intimate Partner Violence

Over the course of the past 3 decades, state legislatures have enacted civil laws that address violence against women. Unlike criminal legal remedies, which are guided by the state and focus upon the offender, civil remedies are controlled by the survivor and are intended to serve the survivor’s particular needs. Civil legal remedies now exist for a wide range of issues faced by survivors. Civil legal remedies seek to prevent future abuse, enhance victim physical safety, minimize the coercive power of perpetrators over victims, offer the resources necessary for survivors to live independently of the perpetrator, provide restitution to victims for losses resulting from the violence, prevent discrimination, enhance access to justice, and facilitate survivors’ ability to self-direct their lives.
Shortcomings of the Criminal Justice System

Since the beginning of the violence against women movement, advocates have agitated for the enactment and enforcement of criminal legal responses to domestic violence, sexual assault, and stalking. Faced with a history of state nonintervention in private affairs, they organized to encourage the criminal justice system to respond to domestic violence with the same level of commitment as other crimes. These efforts resulted in a groundswell of change aimed at increasing arrests and prosecution of batterers and rapists, including mandatory arrest and no-drop policies, as well as enhanced penalties for these crimes. However, although the criminal justice system has provided critical assistance for many survivors of domestic violence, fostering batterer accountability, it has often failed to meet the varied, complex, and comprehensive needs of battered women and their children.

The criminal justice system has led to dangerous outcomes for many battered women, particularly women of color. Battered women are often arrested when they act to defend themselves, when a police officer makes a dual arrest, or as a result of false accusations by batterers who attempt to manipulate the system against their partners. Many victims are charged with failure to protect their children, based solely upon their victimization. The collateral consequences of criminal intervention are wide reaching and include deportation (for immigrant women), loss of child custody, and barriers to employment and housing. All of these harms reflect a loss of agency for women and the communities in which they live.

Even when these harms do not occur, the nature of criminal justice remedies prevents battered women from directing the process. Because mandatory criminal legal interventions are controlled by the state, battered women are left without the ability to determine their own course based upon their individual needs. Indeed, studies have shown that the main reason for battered women’s lack of satisfaction with the criminal justice system rests with their lack of control over the process.
Agency and the Material Needs of Survivors

A woman-centered advocacy model suggests that survivors must be actively involved in identifying their particular needs and crafting strategies that address those needs. Survivors of domestic and sexual violence have a wide variety of needs, which depend upon their particular circumstances and extend far beyond the remedies offered by the criminal justice system. Examples of these needs include the following: housing, education, employment, transportation, health care, social support, financial assistance, and material goods and services.

Access to material resources is a critical factor in the short- and long-term safety of battered women and their children. Research has shown that the best predictors of whether a survivor will be free from intimate partner violence include access to childcare, access to transportation, and access to an independent source of income. Perpetrators of domestic and sexual violence inflict enormous economic harms upon their victims. The civil legal system offers survivors of domestic and sexual violence an array of tools for recouping the damages resulting from past harms and for garnering resources needed for future safety and restoration.

Types of Civil Legal Remedies

The following are civil legal remedies available to survivors.

Civil Protection Orders

The grandparent of legal provisions, the civil protection order (also known as a protective order or a restraining order), is the most common form of civil legal relief accessed by survivors. It is also the most immediate and perhaps most accessible relief available to survivors of domestic violence. Available in every state and territory, civil protection orders provide abused persons in statutorily defined relationships with the ability to petition the court for injunctive relief. Examples of relief include orders for temporary custody of children-in-common, temporary child support, eviction of the perpetrator from the residence of the abused, restitution of medical expenses and property damages incurred as a result of the abuse, stay-away orders that direct the abuser to stay a specified distance from the victim and the locations she frequents, no-contact orders that direct the abuser to refrain from contacting the petitioner and/or direct others to contact the petitioner on his behalf, and catch-all provisions that enable the judge to order relief geared toward future safety. Unlike criminal cases, civil protection order cases are filed and litigated by the petitioner as opposed to the state. If the respondent violates a protection order, the petitioner can file for civil or criminal contempt; some criminal codes include violation of a protection order as a misdemeanor criminal offense.

Child Custody

Survivors of domestic and sexual violence who share a child in common with the abuser often face substantial hurdles in accessing legal custody of their children. After separation, batterers often use custodial access as a mechanism for maintaining control over their partner. In response to the dangers that battering parents pose to women and children, state legislatures have developed statutory provisions requiring courts to include domestic violence as a factor in custody and visitation determinations. Many state statutes contain a rebuttable presumption against awarding custody to the abusive parent. In addition, many state custody statutes require that the court make findings of abuse and include language explaining how the custody or visitation arrangement ordered by the court is tailored to address the particular safety of the abused parent and the children.

Torts

Criminal conduct may give rise to civil tort claims, which offer survivors a mechanism for obtaining economic compensation or punitive damages for past harms. Tort cases can be brought against the perpetrator for his abuse. Common tort claims include assault, battery, intentional or reckless infliction of emotional distress, false imprisonment, and wrongful death. Tort cases may also be brought against third parties (e.g., employers, landlords, retailers, police officers) for playing a causative or collusive role in the abuse either through their acts or their omissions.

Immigration

Battered women who are immigrants face unique challenges. Perpetrators of domestic and sexual violence often use their partner’s immigration status to entrap them and to facilitate their coercive control. The Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) provides immigrant victims with several mechanisms for obtaining legal status without having to rely upon their abusive partners. VAWA immigration remedies include the following: self-petitioning, VAWA cancellation, battered spouse waivers, U-visas, T-visas, and asylum.

Other

Additional civil claims may lie in housing law, employment law, privacy law, consumer law, and civil rights law, to name only a few. The potential civil legal remedies are as varied and expansive as the prior harms and future needs of individual battered women and sexual assault survivors.

—Erika A. Sussman

Entry Citation:

Sussman, Erika A. “Legal System, Civil Court Remedies for Intimate Partner Violence.” Encyclopedia of Interpersonal Violence. 2008. SAGE Publications.

Vernetta’s story will be featured on Nightline on tonight (Monday) March 22nd at 11:35 EDT:  “When Restraining Orders Cannot Stop a Killer.”  One of the issues the piece addresses is the effectiveness of GPS monitoring.

A Baltimore County judge has been reassigned after pausing the trial of an accused batterer to marry him to his alleged victim so she could avoid testifying against him.

Judge Darrell Russell Jr., the Baltimore County District Court judge assigned to the non-jury trial, performed the wedding ceremony in his chambers for defendant Frederick Wood and his girlfriend. Prosecutors say they were powerless to stop it.

“It’s very frustrating. We view very seriously the crime of domestic violence,” Deputy State’s Attorney Leo Ryan said. “We understand that very often the nature of this crime means the victims are reluctant to testify.”

As a parting comment, according to an audio recording of the proceedings, Russell left the new groom with these sentiments:  “Mr. Wood, I found you not guilty, so I can’t sentence you as a defendant in any crimes … but earlier today, I sentenced you to life married to her.”

A spokeswoman for the Maryland Judiciary Office of Communications and Public Affairs confirmed today that Russell has been indefinitely reassigned and will no longer be allowed to preside over domestic violence cases.

“Effective today Judge Russell has been reassigned to chambers meaning he will not be hearing any cases at all, and the work that he’ll be doing in chambers is reviewing motions and civil cases,” Angelita Plemmer said.  The reassignment was ordered by District Court Chief Judge Ben Clyburn.

Both Wood, 29, and his girlfriend, a 27-year-old mother of two young sons whose name is being withheld, were in court last week for Wood’s trial on a misdemeanor second-degree assault charge stemming from a Nov. 29 incident at their home.

According to police reports, the woman told police that Wood picked a fight with her at 4 a.m., smacking her in the face and kicking her in the side. As the alleged assault continued, she told police, Wood banged her head into the wall and dragged her though the house before she was able to flee.

Domestic Violence Bride Reported That New Husband Tried to Kill Her

The responding police officer “found several visible injuries to victim … including a bloody nose and a swollen left side of her face near her eye.” A long red mark was also photographed on the woman’s neck.  The officer also compiled a report called a “domestic violence lethality screen” in which the woman said she thought he might try to kill her and that he has threatened to kill her and/or her children in the past.

She also answered “yes” on several more questions, including whether he has access to a gun, whether he’s ever tried to strangle or choke her and whether he’s ever spied on her or left threatening messages.  The guns, she later told authorities, were hunting rifles kept in a safe.  The screen also noted that Wood is unemployed, controlling and has tried to kill himself.

She was also recorded telling police, “He said he wants to kill me.”  Neither Wood nor the woman could be reached for comment.  By the time the case made it to Russell’s courtroom, however, the couple was outwardly ready to get hitched.

Ryan said the trial began with Assistant Public Defender Phillip Heller calling for a postponement “for the explicit purpose to allow the victim and defendant to marry so the victim could invoke her marital privilege.”  Maryland law states that a spouse is not legally required to testify against the other spouse. District Public Defender Thelma Triplin declined to comment on Heller’s actions and Heller could also not be reached at his home or by e-mail.

Russell referred all comments to Plemmer’s office.

Ryan, who was not in court that day but has been brief by Assistant State’s Attorney Christina Cuomo, said the defense lawyer at one point asked Cuomo to put the case in a “stet docket,” which essentially renders a case inactive, but not decided.  Cuomo, he said, refused.  “She was adamant about prosecuting the case,” he said.

After Heller made his request, the judge offered to solve the defense attorney’s problem.  “He told the defense attorney that there was no need to postpone the case,” Ryan said. “That they could go to Towson, get a marriage license and come back and he would marry them that day.”

Judge Marries Alleged Victim, Puts Her on Stand Minutes Later

Wood and his betrothed were excused for the 25 minute drive to the Towson court to get a marriage license and were married back in Russell’s chambers a short time later.  Once the trial reconvened, his new bride was immediately put on the witness stand.  “She invokes her marital privilege so there’s no evidence in the case.  And the judge finds him not guilty,” Ryan said.

Whether anyone files a complaint against Russell remains to be seen. A spokesman for the Maryland Commission on Judicial Disabilities said complaints against any judge are confidential until that judge is publicly charged.

There are no public actions on record for Russell.

By Eileen King
Silver Spring
Sunday, March 14, 2010; C05

The Maryland House Judiciary Committee has a reputation for being not only a place where good bills go to die but also where witnesses can expect little sympathy for having suffered from violent or sexual crimes. The committee’s worst tendencies were in evidence once again during a Feb. 25 hearing on a bill to help keep victims of domestic abuse safe from their abusers.

The bill, sponsored by Del. Sue Hecht (D-Frederick) and Sen. Jennie Forehand (D-Montgomery), would have changed the burden of proof from “clear and convincing evidence” to “preponderance of the evidence” for final orders of protection, the same standard in place for the vast majority of other civil actions in Maryland, including tort actions for large damage awards, child abuse determinations and custody decisions. Maryland hangs on obstinately as the only state to adhere to this high standard of proof.

Predictably, the bill was killed by the committee.

Our witness was Amy Castillo, a Montgomery pediatrician who did everything she could to protect her three children, including getting a temporary protective order on Christmas 2006 after her husband, Mark, told her that “the worst thing he could do to me would be to kill the children and not me.” On March 29, 2008, Mark Castillo followed through on this threat, drowning Anthony Castillo, 6, Austin, 4, and Athena, 2, in a hotel bathtub.

Amy Castillo came to Annapolis to tell the members of the committee about her unsuccessful attempts to get a final protective order against Mark Castillo. She told them about his behaviors, threats, mental health problems and refusal to get the help he needed, and about her grave fears for her and her children’s safety.

This testimony was met with something worse than indifference. Referring to a transcript of the final hearing on her request for an order of protection, Del. Luiz R.S. Simmons (D-Montgomery) attacked the rationale for the bill, stating that Judge Joseph A. Dugan Jr. had substantial problems with Amy Castillo’s credibility. In tones that were anything but kind, Simmons declared that he wouldn’t read verbatim what the judge said because he didn’t want to “embarrass” Castillo. The exact nature of this “embarrassing” information — presumably the fact that she submitted to her estranged husband’s demand for sex, something not uncommon in such cases — was left to the imagination of those present.

In his zeal to discredit the mother of three murdered children, Simmons seemed to forget that Dugan had been tragically wrong when he disregarded Amy Castillo’s fears for her children’s safety and bought the arguments made by Mark Castillo and his lawyer. Simmons’s flawed logic: The judge found reason to question Amy Castillo’s credibility, so it was her fault that she didn’t get the protective order. Simmons expressed doubt that Castillo could have met even the preponderance standard, suggesting that changing the legal threshold wouldn’t have helped save her children. And this is why other at-risk or abused children should be denied protective orders?

Amy Castillo’s case illustrates a point made by Joan S. Meier of the Domestic Violence Legal Empowerment and Appeals Project at George Washington University Law School: “The higher the burden, the more the risk of error is placed on the alleged victim or protective parent. The burden is a direct reflection of whether you believe the majority of petitioners are lying, or not. If you don’t, this burden is inappropriate because it privileges abusers over victims.”

Feeling they have nowhere to turn, parents are condemned to wait helplessly for the next violent or abusive act. Try this thought experiment: Imagine that your child has met the preponderance standard for abuse but a judge says that is not enough for a protective order to keep the child from the abuser. Imagine what it would be like to live knowing that you or your children are at lethal risk but that you can get help only if you or the children are hurt badly enough.

This is not the first time that a House Judiciary Committee witness was treated in a manner that many observers found offensive. It is also not the first time the committee killed a bill that would have increased protection for victims of family violence and abused or at-risk children. From the questions they ask, the anti-victim positions they take and the bills they kill, it appears obvious that the committee’s most outspoken members are aligned with the defense bar.

It is high time for some review and oversight of this committee, its leadership and composition and its commitment to the public welfare of Maryland’s most vulnerable citizens: victims of crime and our children.

Eileen King is regional director of Justice for Children’s Washington office.

Also see:

Joseph F. Vallario Jr. (D-Prince George’s)

Luiz R.S. Simmons (D-Montgomery)

Curtis S. Anderson (D-Baltimore)

Benjamin S. Barnes (D-Prince George’s)

Jill P. Carter (D-Baltimore)

Frank M. Conaway Jr. (D-Baltimore)

Donald H. Dwyer Jr. (R-Anne Arundel)

William J. Frank (R-Baltimore)

J.B. Jennings (R-Baltimore County)

Kevin Kelly (D-Allegany)

Gerron S. Levi (D-Prince George’s)

Tony McConkey (R-Anne Arundel)

Victor R. Ramirez (D-Prince George’s)

Samuel I. Rosenberg (D-Baltimore)

Todd L. Schuler (D-Baltimore County)

Michael D. Smigiel Sr. (R-Cecil)

AS EXPECTED, the Maryland House Judiciary Committee wrongly killed a bill on Thursday that would have made it easier for victims of domestic violence to obtain protective orders. H.B. 700 would have brought Maryland into conformance with the practices of every other state in the country. As an election-year service to voters, here is the 15 to 6 vote:

Chairman Joseph F. Vallario Jr. (D-Prince George’s) did not vote, as is the general practice.

Against:

Curtis S. Anderson (D-Baltimore)

Benjamin S. Barnes (D-Prince George’s)

Jill P. Carter (D-Baltimore)

Frank M. Conaway Jr. (D-Baltimore)

Donald H. Dwyer Jr. (R-Anne Arundel)

William J. Frank (R-Baltimore County)

J.B. Jennings (R-Baltimore County)

Kevin Kelly (D-Allegany)

Gerron S. Levi (D-Prince George’s)

Tony McConkey (R-Anne Arundel)

Victor R. Ramirez (D-Prince George’s)

Samuel I. Rosenberg (D-Baltimore)

Todd L. Schuler (D-Baltimore County)

Luiz R.S. Simmons (D-Montgomery)

Michael D. Smigiel Sr. (R-Cecil).

For:

Kathleen M. Dumais (D-Montgomery)

Benjamin F. Kramer (D-Montgomery)

Susan C. Lee (D-Montgomery)

Susan McComas (R-Harford)

Kriselda Valderrama (D-Prince George’s)

Jeffrey D. Waldstreicher (D-Montgomery)

For decades now, battered women’s advocates have placed the notion of coercive control squarely at the center of their analysis of intimate partner violence (IPV). Indeed, they have defined IPV as a “pattern of coercive control” (Pence and Paymar, 1993) in which the batterer asserts his power over the victim through the use of threats, as well as actual violence. Violence is simply a tool, within this framework, that the perpetrator uses to gain greater power in the relationship in order to deter or trigger specific behaviors, win arguments, or demonstrate dominance (Dobash and Dobash, 1992). Other tools might include isolation, intimidation, threats, withholding of necessary resources such as money or transportation, and abuse of the children, other relatives, or even pets. Explaining the Duluth Model, a widely used batterer treatment program, Pence (1993), one of its founders, wrote that the program “assumes battering is not an individual pathology or mental illness but rather just one part of a system of abusive and violent behaviors to control the victim for the purposes of the abuser” (p. 30). And, in an eloquent description of “battered women’s” responses, Stark (1995) wrote:

Physical violence may not be the most significant factor about most battering relationships. In all probability, the clinical profile revealed by battered women reflects the fact that they have been subjected to an ongoing strategy of intimidation, isolation, and control that extends to all areas of a woman’s life, including sexuality; material necessities; relations with family, children, and friends; and work. Sporadic, even severe violence makes this strategy of control effective. But the unique profile of “the battered woman” arises as much from the deprivation of liberty implied by coercion and control as it does from violence-induced trauma (p. 987).

Yet, despite this common assumption, borne out every day in the horrific stories told by battered women throughout the country, surprisingly little work has been done to conceptualize and measure the key construct of coercive control. In the absence of a clear conceptualization, measures of coercion, usually embedded within broader measures of psychological abuse, are neither comprehensive nor internally consistent. Researchers have variously included behaviors ranging from verbal put-downs to intimidation to kidnapping under the rubric of coercion. For a number of reasons, detailed below, the need for a tighter conceptualization and operationalization of this notion has gained new urgency in recent years.

Hey, Luiz Simmons, John Edwards called….he wants his hair back!

The dialog is continuing on the shameful treatment of Amy Castillo during testimony with the Maryland House Judiciary Committee, in particular by batterer-lover Delegate Luiz Simmons.  Maybe it has been a while since Delegate Simmons has been laid, because he seems pretty preoccupied by it. He appears to relate sex to some kind of marital duties apparently, with him introducing a bill this session being haled by some as a bizarre “no sex = divorce” law.  We do know he loves to protect batterers:

Tuesday, March 10, 2009

Luiz Simmons’ Abuser Expungement Bill (Updated)

Delegate Luiz Simmons (D-17), who is a trial attorney, has introduced a bill enabling accused domestic abusers to expunge their court records. No, folks, we are not making this up.

Citizens of Maryland, do you really want a pig like this representing you?  Do you want to have your daughter and grandchildren murdered because she couldn’t get a protective order against an abusive husband?   Call your delegate now, today, and express your outrage at what happened in the House Judiciary Committee, and let them know you won’t stand for pigs on the Judiciary Committee, or in the legislature at all.  Call House Judiciary Chair Joseph F. Vallario, Jr., (410) 841-3488, (301) 858-3488, and tell him you won’t stand for people stinking up the committee.

This is from today’s Washington Post:

Md. General Assembly owes victims of domestic violence better protection

Thursday, March 4, 2010

MARYLAND once again has the chance to do what every other state in the country does in affording protections to victims of domestic abuse. A proposal that would relax the rigid standards for obtaining protective orders is being debated in the General Assembly. Unfortunately, its prospects are not good. We hope, though, that lawmakers wake up to the reality that their refusal to put in place common-sense safeguards endangers lives and makes Maryland a national disgrace.

The House and Senate are considering bills that would change the standard of proof needed to grant a final protective order. The bills, H.B. 700 by Del. C. Sue Hecht (D-Frederick) and S.B. 823 by Sen. Jennie M. Forehand (D-Montgomery), would replace the current standard of “clear and convincing evidence” to a “preponderance of the evidence.” Maryland is the only state that uses this higher standard when victims — and generally they are women — seek orders to protect themselves from their alleged abusers. In all other civil matters, Maryland courts require only a preponderance of evidence.

Contrary to the fears of some opponents, this would not open up the floodgates to capricious decisions based on false charges. Judges would still be able to judge the credibility of any claim, but they would have more discretion in reaching a decision. Instead of being bound by there being no doubt about a petitioner being in danger, the court would be able to use the more reasonable standard of there being a good chance of danger.

We can’t help but wonder what the outcome might have been had this standard been available to the judge who denied the request for a protective order from Amy Castillo. Ms. Castillo’s three children were drowned by a father whose threats about killing the children were deemed insufficient for a protective order. Ms. Castillo evoked her tragedy last month as she testified for easier access to protective orders before the House Judiciary Committee, a body notoriously hostile to this and other reforms sought by advocates for victims of domestic violence.

The committee has scuttled similar bills in previous years, and judging by the reception it gave Ms. Castillo, chances don’t seem much improved this year. What else to make of the argument that no problem exists because only (their emphasis) 14 percent of protective orders are denied because the standard of proof isn’t met? That’s not much of a consolation for Ms. Castillo or the others who make up that 14 percent. As Ms. Castillo told the committee: “When you’re in fear of your life and for your children, and you make that move to step out and do something about it, and then you go to get a protective order, and you don’t get it, it’s just really devastating. . . . It’s like a discouragement to make a change in your life that needs to be made.”

Also see: Attention Maryland: You Have Some Pigs Loose in the Legislature

This is the twelfth annual Family Violence in Canada report produced by the Canadian Centre for Justice Statistics under the Federal Family Violence Initiative. This annual report provides the most current data on the nature and extent of family violence in Canada, as well as trends over time, as part of the ongoing initiative to inform policy makers and the public about family violence issues.

Each year the report has a different focus. This year, the focus of the report is a profile of shelters that provide residential services to women and children fleeing abusive situations. Data for this profile come from the Transition Home Survey, a biennial census of residential facilities for female victims of family violence in Canada.

In addition, using police-reported data, the report also presents fact sheets, data tables and figures examining spousal violence, family violence against children and youth, family violence against seniors (aged 65 years and older), and family-related homicides.

Police-reported spousal violence in Canada

1. In 2007, nearly 40,200 incidents of spousal violence (i.e., violence against legally married, common-law, separated and divorced partners) were reported to police. This represents about 12% of all police-reported violent crime in Canada.
2. Police-reported spousal violence has steadily declined over the past 10 years, decreasing 15% between 1998 and 2007.
3. The majority of victims of spousal violence continue to be females, accounting for 83% of victims.
4. Spousal violence is twice as common between current partners (legally married or common-law) as ex-partners.
5. Accounting for nearly two-thirds of offences, common assault was the most frequent type of spousal violence according to police-reported data, followed by major assault, uttering threats and criminal harassment or stalking.
6. Police laid charges in more than three-quarters of spousal violence incidents reported in 2007. Incidents involving female victims were more likely to result in charges being laid than those involving male victims.

Police-reported family violence against children and youth

1. Police-reported data for 2007 indicate that children and youth under the age of 18 were most likely to be physically or sexually assaulted by someone they know (85% of incidents).
2. Nearly 53,400 children and youth were the victims of a police-reported assault in 2007, with about 3 in 10 incidents of assaults against children and youth perpetrated by a family member.
3. When children and youth were victims of family violence, a parent was identified as the abuser in nearly 6 in 10 incidents.
4. Girls under the age of 18 reported higher rates of both physical and sexual assault by a family member than boys. In 2007, the rate of family-perpetrated sexual assault was more than 4 times higher for girls than for boys.
5. Male family members were identified as the accused in a sizable majority of family-related sexual (96%) and physical assaults (71%) against children and youth.

Family homicides

Spousal homicides

1. Rates of spousal homicide, which involve persons in legal marriages, those who are separated or divorced from such unions, and those in common-law relationships, declined over the 3 decades from 1978 to 2007. In 2007, the spousal homicide rate of 4 per million spouses was the lowest in over 30 years.
2. Women continue to be more likely than men to be victims of spousal homicide. In 2007, almost 4 times as many women were killed by a current or former spouse as men.
3. During the most recent decade, between 1998 and 2007, about 41% of spousal homicides involved common-law partners and more than one-third involved legally married persons.
4. Spousal homicide rates were highest for persons in the 15 to 24 year-old age group.

Family homicides against children and youth

1. Homicides of children and youth (under the age of 18) represented about 9% of all homicides in 2007. Most child and youth homicide victims were killed by someone they knew. In 2007, 41% of child and youth homicides were committed by a family member, 27% by someone known to the victim but other than a family member, 20% by strangers and the remaining 13% of child and youth homicides were unsolved.
2. Parents were the perpetrators in the majority of child and youth homicides committed by family members. Fathers (54%) were more likely than mothers (34%) to be the perpetrators.
3. Infants under the age of one experienced higher rates of family homicide compared to older children. From 1998 to 2007, baby boys (35 per million population) had somewhat higher rates than baby girls (27 per million population).
4. In family homicides of infants, half of victims (51%) were killed by their mother and 47% by their father, whereas in family homicides of older children fathers were the most likely perpetrators.

Family homicides against older adults

1. The overall homicide rate was lower among adults aged 65 years and older (9 per million population) compared to persons under 65 years of age (23 per million population). However, rates of family-perpetrated homicide for seniors (3.8 per million population) and non-seniors (4.5 per million population) were comparable.
2. Senior female victims killed by a family member were most commonly killed by their spouse (40%) or adult son (36%). In nearly two-thirds of family homicides of senior men, an adult son was the accused killer.
3. Most often, frustration, anger or despair was the apparent motive for family-perpetrated homicides against seniors. In contrast, financial gain was the most commonly identified reason behind senior homicides committed by non-family members.

As a final note, domestic violence against anyone is just WRONG.