Choking or strangulation remains one of the most common offenses in domestic violence, but it is improperly addressed in many states. Over the last decade, about 30 states have passed laws making non-fatal choking a felony. The most recent states to join the list are Iowa, California, South Dakota and Tennessee. Last week, Virginia passed a similar law. New York passed a law in 2010 that also holds that in domestic violence, non-fatal choking can be a class “C” misdemeanor requiring no proof of injury. That law resulted in 11,000 charges within its first 14 months.
The laws against strangulation and non-fatal choking in domestic violence are urged by activists and spearheaded by the National Family Justice Center Alliance. The group helps lawmakers across the country to draft bills, identify witnesses and hold seminars for the police. The executive director of the group, Gael Strack is a former prosecutor. In a recent interview, Strack told the media that when a victim survives strangulation, no one “seeks the blood or the bruising or swelling … it's hard for them to understand that she's just like the victim who was stabbed or shot and survived.”
However, there are people who oppose steps like misdemeanors without proof as in New York, or the government intruding too much into domestic lives that could easily patch up. William Omansky, a former domestic violence prosecutor and defense lawyer told the media, “Domestic violence is always bad, but the way I see it commonly prosecuted, there's no ligature marks on the woman's throat, no evidence of bruising. Just the verbal allegation and all of a sudden, there's a felony charge.”
Taking into account the domestic violence situation, the federal government has provided a $400,000 grant from the U.S. Justice Department to the NFJCA for funding an anti-strangulation training institute. According to the executive director of NFJCA, “The victim needs to be able to get away, and part of that is having the perpetrator be held accountable … the perpetrator needs to know that it's not OK and he's not going to keep getting away.”
Anti-domestic-violence groups seem happy with the efforts of the government and the states in passing new laws, but defense lawyers are still concerned of the creation of felonies that do not require proof.
