Here's an update from San Gabriel Valley/Whittier NOW on their work to restore the domestic violence program at West Covina's Municipal Court. The following letter was sent to District Attorney Steve Cooley from SGV/W NOW, you can use it as talking points to compose your own email, or fax the office at (213) 974-1484.
Dear Mr. Cooley:
The model Domestic Violence program at West Covina’s Citrus Municipal Court must be restored! Once an exemplar, Citrus Municipal Court’s domestic violence division has devolved into a training ground for new deputy district attorneys, to the detriment of its core mission and the peril of the people it serves. I am writing to ask for your active support of its restoration, for the good of the people it serves and of the wider community.
Judge Patrick B. Murphy in his 1999 article (attached in its entirety), eloquently defined the model domestic violence court: “What is a domestic violence court? A model domestic violence court is presided over by a judge who is specially trained to handle the intricacies and complexities of domestic violence cases. These cases are prosecuted
by a specially trained and experienced district attorney.”
Referring to the dismantled court in 1999, Judge Murphy says (on page 4), “Even more problematic the district attorneys who are handling these cases have no specialized training whatsoever in these complex and highly emotional cases. As a matter of fact many of the deputy district attorneys at Citrus Municipal Court are relatively new and inexperienced and handling a complex domestic violence case may be one of their first jury trials.” (The Los Angeles Board of Supervisors, and a former Los Angeles County District Attorney supported the reinstatement of the model court in 1999, and moved by a large community effort, and help from the media, the court was reinstated in 2000.)
Recent Comments