Tales from Kentucky Lawyers

18. Physical Abuse

18 PHYSICAL ABUSE The narratives in this category discuss abuse-occurring at home and in public places-which sometimes results in homicidal activities. The general public and members ofthe legal profession typically view physical and verbal abuse as something that should never take place. 222. "WOMAN INSISTS SHE WAS CONSTANTLY ABUSED" There was one case we had in which this lady lived with a fellow. Whenever she'd get mad at him, she'd come in and swear out a warrant that he'd beat her: jumped on her, threatened her, or something. The judge would give her a restraining order against him for coming around her. Then she'd be back with this man within a week, and two weeks later she'd be back with another warrant. Then, she'd dismiss the charges when it came to trial. The county attorney at that time was Bernard Hargett. They got tired of her coming in so much. He said to her, "If you come one more time, we're going to try it. We'll put you on the stand for you to tell what happened. Ifyou don't, I'm going to get you for contempt of court." Again, she got another warrant out. Hargett said, "You got the warrant out, so we'll have to try it." She said, "Okay." So they arrested the man and it came to trial. She wanted to dismiss the charges again. The county attorney said no. So they put her on the stand, then asked her what happened. She responded, "Your Honor, I just don't remember a thing." 186 Tales from Kentucky Lawyers The district judge looked at her and said, "Elizabeth, you've done this too many times to this court. I'm going to dismiss this charge, but ifyou ever need reliefin the future, you'd better go to the aspirin bottle, because you're not going to get it in this court." Well, it wasn't more than two weeks until they were back together. One afternoon she got mad at him. He was lying in bed asleep, so she got a gun and shot and killed him. We had to try her for murder. She said that he gave her a gun and told her, "Here, ifyou want to kill me, kill me." She went on to say that the gun went off accidentally and shot him. That opened the door I thought to the conversation he had with a whiskey store dealer. When he went in to see him that morning, he told the dealer, "I've got to get out ofthere. That damn bitch is going to kill me." So we thought that indicated that he would not have handed her a gun with this feeling. She was convicted for murder and got about twelve years for it. That's something that they all have trouble with. Some judges will not let the abused spouse drop the charges. They do that all over the state. They'll get charges against their husband or boyfriend and then want to drop the charges. Then they'll bring the charges back up next week, but they'll want to drop them again. That's just a waste of the court's time. It's still going on. They're trying to set it up so if they don't get a warrant out, they don't proceed with it. Woodson Wood, Maysville, February 20, 2002 223. "ASKING ONE QUESTION Too MANY" About twelve years ago, I was representing a minister in Elliott County who, in fact, had committed the crime he was charged with. He professed , however, that he had not. Well, I took great pride in representing the U.S. Constitution; everybody has got a right to be tried before they go to prison. So, by golly ifwe wanted to try the case, we would try it. Everybody told us that he was such an eccentric man-that he was sort of adrift. I didn't pay much attention to that, as he obviously knew what he had to do to defend himself. So, we called and we corresponded , but we never could get together to really get his defense put together for some reason. He was always busy, like his schedule required that he go visit some ailing person in the hospital. Well, I got directions to his place. Directions are always hard to [18.119.131.178] Project MUSE (2024-04-26 08:55...