In response to Delegate Ward L. Armstrong’s proposed legislation that would allow Virginia judges to require persons who have been served protective orders to wear GPS devices, I offer the letter below, which I sent to Delegate Jennifer McClellan on May 18 and to which I have not received a reply.
But first, in regards to the June 23, 2010, Times-Dispatch article, “GPS with protective orders is urged,” it is worth noting two things: Restraining orders only provide so wide a berth of protection. A person has to be, in relative terms, pretty close to the person against which he is being restrained before it becomes a violation of the order. Given the proximity requirement for violation, how are the police going to arrive on the scene before any nefarious deeds have already been done? The example Delegate Armstrong uses is one where the husband of a woman going through a divorce violated the protective order she took out against him by going into her workplace and shooting her dead. My guess is he was within 90 seconds of her person by the time the order was being violated.
In that scenario, and all others that resemble it, does Delegate Armstrong actually imagine the police leaving the station house before the man has officially entered the no-fly zone, when A) he is still allowed to be where he is; and, B) it may be that the business of his life goes on in that same area, meaning he has legitimate reason to be there and no inferences about hostile intentions can reasonably be deduced from his location? Or does Delegate Armstrong imagine the police leaving the station house and pre-empting a murder or maiming in the 90 second window between when the man crosses that line and when shoots the woman dead?
Does either of these scenarios seem absurd to you, or is it just me?
The following letter to Delegate Jennifer McClellan inquires about the larger angle by which protective orders become symbolic, token gestures of people with law-abiding sensibilities:
THE LETTER--
Hi, Jennifer. Thanks for the update at last night's neighborhood meeting.
I do have a sort of...philosophical question, though, on the subject of restraining orders and any similar such legal instruments, a propos of your mention at last night's meeting of the means of inhibiting stalkers.
My question is this: A restraining order (or the like) is, as I understand it, a legal instrument that aims to keep one person away from another, with specific (but not necessarily harsh) consequences for violation. Why would such an order have any effectiveness, any usefulness at all, if what the Restrainer fears that the Restrainee will do is, by definition, far worse—on the order of murder or maiming—than violating the order itself, thus indicating that if the Restrainee is willing to suffer the consequences of, say, a murder conviction, then the Restrainee would also be willing to endure the much more minor consequences for violating a restraining order?
The underlying logic of restraining orders as legal instruments appears to be formulated from the mental vantage point of the sane and reasonable person; but, by definition, such persons are never the objects of those orders. If I, as a prospective Restrainee, am not afraid to kill---which is what the Restrainer fears---then why would I be afraid to violate the restraining order? Indeed, why would I be remotely inhibited from doing so? The penalty for doing so cannot be so severe as to even physically limit my access to the Restrainer, which means I now have the same grudge that made the Restrainer fearful in the first place, except now my fire has been stoked by the affront. Then what happens? How can such an outcome be any better at its terminus (for the Restrainer) than if the order was never issued?
Are these points considered by restraining orders in a way that I do not see at a glance, or am I right that they offer merely token usefulness at the outset?
Thanks in advance for any thoughts.
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