Prosecutors say federal gun law backfires in domestic violence cases

Some Western prosecutors say a federal law is forcing them to deal domestic violence cases down to lesser charges. Under the law, passed in 1996, anyone convicted of a misdemeanor crime of violence against a spouse or partner will forever lose the right to own a gun. But in Nez Perce County, Idaho, Prosecutor Daniel Spickler said the federal law clashes with that state’s gun culture and leads many domestic violence defendants to hold out for lesser charges that would not invoke the ban. “A law that is perfectly appropriate for New York City or Los Angeles is probably not equally effective in Lewiston, Idaho,” Spickler said. To keep their guns, people accused of domestic violence plead guilty to disturbing the peace. In return for the guilty plea, prosecutors can force abusers into treatment. Prosecutors make the deals because domestic violence cases are often tough to win at trial, Spickler said. If a flat-out dismissal is the only other option, the deal looks better than nothing. Over the past five years, 121 of 698 of the county’s misdemeanor domestic violence cases, or 17 percent, were reduced to disturbing the peace. A host of obstacles stack up against prosecutors of domestic violence cases. A battered woman sometimes will lose her nerve, change her mind or lie when forced to testify in open court. There may be no witnesses to the abuse, and if the victim fought back, police may have arrived to find both victim and defendant throwing punches. Spickler estimates 85 to 90 percent of domestic violence cases involve an uncooperative victim. The federal law revoking gun rights from abusers only makes matters worse, Spickler said, because people who otherwise might have pleaded guilty to domestic violence to avoid a trial will fight to keep their guns. “A large percentage of the population has an extremely vested interest in their firearms. It is part and parcel of the life in the Intermountain West,” he said. That is no reason to change the federal law, said Kathy Tuttle, a victims’ advocate for the Lewiston YWCA. “Hunting is a way of life in Idaho,” Tuttle said, but “I don’t think I could ever say the gun laws should be relaxed.” It simply makes no sense to allow abusers to keep their firearms, Tuttle said. “Weekly, I hear about guns being used to control, threaten or terrorize,” she said. “To me, domestic violence isn’t just about the injury. It’s about the loss of control in their life.” But the prospect of losing gun rights poses a problem all across Idaho, said retired Magistrate Michael Redman of Twin Falls. Over the past year, he visited 24 of Idaho’s 44 counties, talking to local officials about domestic violence. “If defendants and defense attorneys are well-versed in the federal legislation, then they will be very slow to plead guilty,” he said. “The end result is that it (the gun ban) is providing the opposite result as far as the law is concerned.”