A failure to protect: Resolving the battered mother’s dilemma

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A Failure to Protect. Resolving the Battered Mother's Dilemma
Evan Stark
ll Forest Trail
Woodbridge, CT. 06525
203-393-5515; e-mail EDS203@juno.com
Draft:12.27.99

INTRODUCTION
On September ll, l992, based on injuries observed on the
hands of 7 year old Daniel Lazarra, the principal of the Sandy
Hook school reported a case of suspected child abuse to the
Newtown police department and the Connecticut Department of
Children and Families (DCF). Further investigation revealed
numerous bruises on the boy's back, buttocks, legs and arms.
Daniel told police that he had been struck recently with a belt
and slapped by his mother, Lavonne Lazarra, and her life-in
boyfriend, Miguel Sabastian, after he was found playing with a
B.B. pistol.
When Daniel failed to return home as usual, Lavonne called
the school and was told he had missed the bus. Shortly
afterwards, the police arrived at the house, accompanied by a
caseworker from Connecticut's DCF. Lavonne's four other children
were taken into custody, including a new born, and she and Mr.
Sabastian were placed in the back of a police car and taken to
the station for questioning.
The same DCF investigator had visited the home a week
earlier. She found the baby in the basement washroom. The picture
painted in her report had the poignancy of Victorian melodrama.
The baby, Candy, age l year, was lying on the mattress with
a bottle in her mouth. She had a variety of blankets around
her. She was noticeably dirty, has a smell about her. Diaper
(cloth) soaked completely. A small bowl with bits of food on
it lay on the mattress next to her. She cried a bit. Advised

mother that child can't be left alone down here....Mother
said "Ok, I respect your opinion, if that's what you think,
then I'll take her out." When the mother didn't move...I
moved aside the bed frame and mattress and lifted the baby
out.
Most tellingly, the cellar was only accessible from an outside
bulkhead. The caseworker accompanied Lavonne around the house and
into the first floor. Here again, she described the squalor in
Dickensian terms.
In the one bedroom, door closed, 3 year old Maria was playing in
closet. She appeared fairly clean and dressed. The room was
dark, with dirty smell, dirty sheets and bunk beds. Smelled
of feces, although none were visible. Mother acknowledged
she could not provide for Candy's needs.
No action or services were recommended.
At Waterbury Hospital, an examination of the children
revealed numerous bruises on the 3 and 4 year old girls, almost
certainly due to physical abuse. Particularly appalling were the
marks on the back and legs of the 3 year old girl, Maria.
During questioning by detectives, Lavonne admitted hitting
Daniel with a belt in the B.B. gun incident. She was the only one
to "discipline" her children she insisted, defending her actions
as "how I was treated when I was a girl." Miguel also admitted
hitting the children and using a belt on Maria. The couple was
charged with four counts of risk of injury to a minor, offenses
related to the alleged abuse of Daniel, Stephanie and Maria
Lazarra and the neglect of Candy Lazzara.

By the time the public defender contacted me to assess
whether domestic violence played a role in Lavonne's criminal
acts, she had made bail and was staying at a battered woman's
shelter. Lavonne's five children were in foster care, including
the newborn whose father was Miguel. Mr. Sabastian had been
sentenced to "time served" (75 days) and deported back to Mexico.
Lavonne's charges carried a possible sentence of eight years. The
State's Attorney was offering three.
Even before I became involved in the case, my eye had been
drawn to a news headline declaring Lavonne a "Modern Day Medea."
I reviewed the grissly photos of the children's injuries, then
searched medical records, police reports, witness interviews and
DCF files, hoping to find references to domestic violence. What I
did learn was that each of her five children had been fathered by
a different man, the four youngest by illegal immigrants from
Mexico. An earlier apartment had left in complete shambles. When
her water had been turned off, according to a neighbor, Lavonne
had stolen water.
The pictures in my mind were not pretty. What scenario could
justify the harms these children had suffered? I thought of Hedda
Nussbaum. When Lisa Steinberg was murdered by her adaptive
father, Hedda was widely condemned for failing to protect the
girl even though, at the time of her death, Joel Steinberg's
abuse had rendered her barely recognizable ( ). Once, after
Steinberg had ruptured Hedda's spleen, she had literally crawled
out of the apartment to catch a cab to the hospital. Despite the
abuse, the feminist idol Susan Brownmiller ( ) wrote a semi-

fictional track portraying Hedda as a moral monster and she was
treated like a pariah by large segments of the battered woman's
movement. Prosecutors ultimately withdrew the murder charge
against Hedda, allegedly because of her appalling physical
condition ( ). But insiders guessed the real motive was to use
her as the chief witness against Michael Steinberg. Steinberg was
convicted of the child's murder, but never charged with
assaulting Hedda.
But Lavonne Lazarra's case was different. For one thing,
Hedda had never abused her child. And where there was extensive
evidence that Hedda had been abused in police and CPS reports,
apart from a brief police notation, there was nothing in the
official records to support the public defender's hope that
Lavonne would benefit from a battered woman's defense. If the
medical findings, Daniel Lazarra's statements to police and
Lavonne's admission of guilt held up, she would be well advised
to accept the plea bargain.
*******
This article uses the history of Lavonne Lazarra to provide
a narrative framework for cases where domestic violence and child
abuse and/or neglect are involved. Although Lavonne suffered
atypical levels of physical abuse and her partner was an
unregistered alien, her story typifies the patterns commonly
found in such cases. My analysis contrasts the current approach,
which emphasizes physical abuse and psychological victimization,
with an emphasis on the deprivation of personal liberties through
coercion and control.

Background
Society's response to violence against women by their
partners has been revolutionized since the first battered women's
shelters opened in the l970's1. A problem that was hidden from
public view for centuries is now an important hub for a broad
range of health, justice and social services. There are now over
one million arrests for domestic violence crimes annually; an
even larger number of women and children are being serviced
annually by community-based shelters; and countless numbers of
men, women and children are involved in administrative, civil or
family court proceedings in which domestic violence is an issue.
In addition, each year hundreds of thousands of persons are
charged with crimes in which domestic violence may be a
mitigating factor, including prostitution, embezzlement, drug
sale, larceny, risk of injury, assault and homicide. With an
estimated prevalence at somewhere between 20 and 30% of the
female population, domestic violence is the single most important
source of police calls (Bard, l969); the major cause of injury
for which women seek medical attention (Stark & Flitcraft, l996);
and a significant contributor to divorce, homelessness,
absenteeism and other problems in the workplace, as well as to
substance use, suicidality and a range of other behavioral or
mental health problems. These facts make domestic violence an
important concern of attorneys whatever their venue.
A vast knowledge base about domestic violence has developed
1 For an excellent summary of these developments, see R. & E.
Dobash, Women, Violence and Social Change, Routledge, l992.

alongside the network of services for battered women, including
an extensive legal literature.2 Although much has now been
written about the co-occurrence of domestic violence and child
abuse, there is no consensus about how best to approach these
cases ( ). In addition to the obvious problem of deciphering and
organizing a complex set of facts, the human drama of situations
where victimized mothers may also have victimized their children
tests our emotional and moral fortitude. Punishing someone who
commits a criminal act in the throes of their own victimization
offends our sense of justice. And yet, as the reaction to Hedda
Nussbaum suggests, we are wont to remove all culpability for
wrong-doing from a caretaker whose charge is seriously harmed on
her watch, regardless of the circumstances. In the norms judges
and juries bring to bear in such cases, these conflicting
feelings converge with confusion about when, if ever, women's
rights to safety and autonomy supercede their responsibilities as
mothers. Lacking an objective standard to weigh the relative
2 For example, see "Spouse/Partner Abuse: A categorized
bilbiography and reference list" compiled by R. Geffner, M.G.
Milner, K.A. Crawford and S.K. Cook 3rd printing (l990) updated
annually.available from Family Violence & Sexual Assault
Institute, l3l0 Clinic Drive, Tyler TX 7570l. For recent legal
views on the problem, see in particular: Ann Jones, Next tinme,
she'll be dead, Beacon:Boston, l994); Daniel J. Sonkin, ed.
Domestic Violence on Trial: Psychological and legal dimensions of
family violence Springer, NY l987; Mrtha A. Fineman and Roxanne
Mykitiuk, The public nature of private violence, Routledge:New
York, l994; Donald A. Downs, More than Victims:battered women, the
syndrome society and the law, U. of Chicago, l996. Ronald E. Cohen
and James Neely, ed., Lawyer's Manual on Domestic Violence:
Representing the victim, Supreme Court of the State of NY,
Appellate Division, First Department. 2nd edition, l998. E. Buzawa
and Carl G. Buzawa, Domestic Violence: the criminal justice
response 2nd edition, Sage, l996).

degrees of moral responsibility, legal accountability and justice
in these cases, we are left with subjective factors to confront
our own ambivalence, let alone ambivalence in a finders of fact.
Until recently, the wife batterer was presumptively seen as
a good and loving father in custody proceedings, even when the
spouse had killed the children's mother.3 By contrast, over
three-quarters of the states now have statutes making domestic
violence at least a factor in deciding which parent should be
given custody and every state now has case law allowing courts to
consider domestic violence in their custody decisions (DV Report,
l:l, l995, p.3).4 But if it is no longer necessary to point out
that children are harmed by domestic violence, the progress in
this area has been uneven.5 Domestic violence services typically
3 Only a few cases decided before l983 held that a father's
violence towards the mother was even relevant in determining
custody of their children. See, for examples, Runsvold v.
Runsvold, 6l Cal. App.2d 73l (l943); George v. George, 266 Ala.l90
50 Sol 3d 744 (l95l); Thames v. Thames, 233 Miss. 24, l00 So. 2d
868 (l958); McCurry v. McCurrym 223 Ga, 334m k55 S.E.2d 378
(l967); George v. Anderson, l35 Ga. App. 273m 2l7 S>E>2d 609
(l975); In Re Welfare of Scott, 244 N.W.2d 669 (Minn., l976);
Williams v. Williams, l04 Ill. App.3d l6, 432 N.E.2d, 375 (l982).
4 For example, North Dakota Cent. Code $ l4-09-06.2(l)(j)
(l993) which was amended in l993, creates a rebuttable assumption
in child custody cases that a parent who has perpetrated domestic
violence may not be awarded sole or joint custody of a child. In
Heck v. Reed 529 N.W. 2d l55 (N.D., l995), the North Dakota
Supreme Court reversed the lower court's award of custody to a
father who had abused the child's mother and held that the recent
amendment significantly heightened the burden of proof required
to rebut the presumption against awarding custody to an abusive
parent.
5 For example, few states provide protections for battered
women who flee domestic violence situations, particularly if they
take their children with them (Zorza, Protecting a battered

include support for children, domestic violence education for
family court judges is increasingly widespread and CPS workers
workers are increasingly expected to assess for domestic violence
and to provide appropriate services.6 But how these changes have
affected the status of battered mothers or their children is
unclear. Juvenile or family courts, child protective services and
other agencies statutorially responsible for children's safety
get little guidance on how to respond from existing accounts of
how child abuse fits into the overall pattern of woman battering.
The empirical evidence on how the problems overlap has not been
matched by a conceptual map that allows the chain of causation to
be clearly delineated and shaped into the sort of intelligible
'story' that guides intervention and legal judgement ( ). As
importantly, even assuming appropriate training, CPS, law
guardians, other child or family-oriented professionals, filter
the information they receive about domestic violence through the
relatively narrow child-focused missions for which they are
woman's whereabouts from disclosure, DVR, l:l, p.3) Moreover, in
states where there is neither a statutory presumption or
requirements that domestic violence is a statutory factor in
custody determinations, appellate courts are reluctant to disturb
discretionary custody rulings. For instance, in Whitman v.
Whitman, l995 Ohio App. LEXIS 206 (l995), the court affirmed the
award of custody to the father in a divorce action despite
evidence that the mother was the primary caretaker and the father
was convicted of domestic assault against her.
6 Nass. employs domestic violence advocates in their regional
offices. Michigan has developed a separate track of family
preservation services that work closely with the state's domestic
violence shelters and innovative programs for "dual" victims
(mother and child) have been initiated in New Haven, Ct., Dayton,
Ohio and in the state of Washington.

publicly accountable. The result is that, when domestic violence
and child abuse occur in the same context, the overriding issue
remains the danger the battering poses to children and whether
the mother is capable of buffering the threats posed ( ). If the
child has not been physically harmed, cases are typically closed
and the mother's predicament minimized, whatever the overall
level of violence or coercion in the home ( ).7 Where a risk to
the child is identified with domestic violence, the emphasis
remains on placement of the children rather than support for
"dual victims." 8 CPS workers routinely use their acquired
knowledge of domestic violence to require mothers to separate
from their abusive partners or find other means to end the
violence as a condition for keeping her children while courts
generally support petitions to place these children or terminate
parental rights when battered mothers fail to comply with these
'contracts.'9 Intervention focuses on 'mothers' even when they do
7 But cf. Courtney v. Courtney, 60 LW 2484, February ll, l992
where the West Virginia Court of Appeals held that a child can
recover damages for severe emotional distress, in the absence of
physical injury to him, as a result of the child witnessing the
father's verbal and physical abuse of the mother.
8 . Despite judicial notice of domestic violence, the same
standard is still used on the civil side to determine whether a
man who has battered his partner should get custody or visitation
of his children. The fact that O.J. Simpson had not hit his
children was the strongest argument he had for custody in his suit
against the parents of his murdered ex-wide Nicole Brown.
9 Ironically, child-savers at the turn-of-the-century
routinely saw violence against women and children as part of a
single pattern flowing from the power of the abusive male and
recommended his arrest or removal from the home (Gordon, l9 ). But
by the l920's, abuse had been "pathologized," i.e. turned from a
male crime into a female "sickness," and re-educating mothers

not know about the abuse or are absent when the abuse occurs.10
Gender bias shapes the entire spectrum of research, writing
and intervention in the child abuse field. Despite compelling
evidence that fathers or father surrogates are responsible for
the vast majority of serious child assaults and homicides, for
example, males are virtually invisible to researchers and
practitioners in child protection, at least until there is a
serious injury or death( ).11 There is no evidence that this
situation has changed since the early l980's, when Martin's
(l983) review of the child abuse literature uncovered only two
and/or removing children had become the order of the day. In the
l960's, when the states assumed responsibility for child
protection, domestic violence had all but disappeared as a
concern. In the Nussbaum case, for instance, CPS investigators
responding to a report of possible child abuse by school personnel
found Lisa safe, though they noted without further comment "a dark
figure huddled in the corner" of the Steinberg apartment, i.e.
Hedda Nussbaum ( ).
10 . See Marie Ashe and Naomi Cahn, Child abuse: a problem fro
feminist theory. In Fineman and Mykituik. supra nota p.l8l-l84.
Prosecutors are given broad discretion criminal cases involving
child protection by statutes such as the one in the District of
Columbia where an abused child is defined as: a child whose
parent, guardian or custodian inflicts or fails to make reasonable
efforts to prevent the infliction of physical or mental injury
upon the child. (DC Code Ann $l6-230l (23) (Supp. l990)
11 . The exception is child sexual abuse (CSA), a specialized
subarea in CPS. In the l970's, under pressure from Rape Crisis
Programs, CPS acknowledged that fathers and father-surrogates were
the primary offenders in CSA, not strangers. Importantly, like
CSA, woman battering is a power crime, is highly gendered (i.e.
the typical perpetrator is a male, the typical victim is female),
both involve extreme levels of manipulation, and the typology of
the sexual abuse perpetrator closely resembles the typology of the
batterer. Although research has yet to establish the link, it is
likely that CSA, like child abuse generally, often falls on a
continuum that begins with coercive control over the mother.

individual case reports about males. In New York, Connecticut and
other states, child abuse cases are classified under the mother's
name even if she is deceased. Amazing as it may seem given the
link of battering to child abuse, apart from therapeutically
focused interventions for men who commit child sexual abuse,
there are virtually no programs in the U.S. for male perpetrators
of child abuse. Throughout the field, "parents" is used as a
euphemism for "moms" and typical recommendations involve
parenting services for the mother, irregardless of who is hurting
or threatening the child.12
Gender bias extends to how cases involving children are
ajudicated. When they force their partners to chose between their
own submission and subjecting their children to risk--an example
of the dilemmas battered mothers face-- batterers exploit legal
expectations that women will place their children's well-being
before their own.13 Statutes like the one used to prosecute
Lavonne Lazarra define an abusing parent as one who "allows to be
created a substantial risk of physical injury to the child"( ),
theoretically applying equally to men and women. But, the general
impression is that they are "gendered," i.e. used almost
12 A marked exception is a program for abusive fathers run by
the Victim Services Agency in New York City.
13 The experience of Terry Traficonda is hardly an isolated
one. That his threat should be taken seriously is suggests by
Johnny Satterwhite, a 37 year old millworker from Laurens, South
Carolina who shot his son and 3 step-children after his wife of l5
years finally left him. He then called to tell his wife he had a
"package" for her.

exclusively against women14.15( ) Battered mothers are held to
the standard of strict liability simply because they are aware of
the child's abuse. In hundreds of jurisdictions, women are
regularly prosecuted for "allowing" a child to become a co-victim
during a domestic violence assault on themselves.16 In the
lexicon of child protection, if a man harms the child, this is
because the mother is not present when the child returns from
school, because adults other than the mother care for the child
14 A recent Connecticut case is instructive. Santos Miranda,
moved in with his girlfriend and her two children in September
l992. Four months later, he called 9ll when his girlfriend's 4-
month-old daughter was choking on milk. At the hospital, it was
discovered the baby had broken ribs, two skull fractures and other
injuries. Miranda's girlfriend was sentenced to 7 years in prison
under a plea deal. The trial court found that Miranda had a
resonsibility to protect the children from abuse and he received a
l0 year sentence for risk-of-injury and a 30-year prison sentence
on six counts of assault in the first degree. But the state
Appellate Court threw out the assault charges and sentence
concluding that Miranda's constitutional rights to due process had
been violated since "he couldn't be expected to know he was
violating the law when he failed to protect the bvictim, secure
medical attention for her or to report the situation to
authorities."
15 . An important exception is the Honorable Arnold Hauser, a
judge in Fairfield County Superior Court in Connecticut. Judge
Hauser routinely insists that, if a child is present when a
batterer assaults his partner, he be charged with "risk of injury"
as well as "domestic violence."
16 This action is based partly on the fact that state statutes
criminalize omissions: only l2 states require an overt act to
constitute child abuse ("commission statutes"). And only three
states (Minnesota, Iowa and Oklahoma) have statutorily adapted an
affirmative defense to the charge of failure to protect a child,
based on the parent's reasonable fear of severe injury to him-or-
herself or to the child (E. Pualani Enos, Prosecuting battered
mothers: state laws' failure to protect battered women and their
children, l9 Hav Women's L. J. 229, l996.

when ill, because she made unsatisfactory care arrangements when
she is working or because she has become involved with abusive
men (Garbarino & Sherman, l980; Robertson & Juritz, l979).17 In
Connecticut, where "live-in" boyfriends who were also battering
the mother were responsible for 8 of l7 child homicides in a
recent yeari, the Attorney General is only one of many who have
asked the legislature to extend the definition of child abuse to
include domestic violence and to impose tougher penalties on
mothers who "allow" their partners to hurt their children ( ).
Implicit in this reasoning are poorly supported psychological
theories of women's distinctive character and/or of mother-child
bonding which ideologically bolster normative views of women's
appropriate role. In addition to biasing professional assessments
of children in cases involving domestic violence, these attitudes
may shape a courtroom atmosphere in which the existential
dilemmas confronted by women like Lavonne Lazarra or Hedda
Nussbaum carry little weight.
The Battered Woman's Defense
At present, whether the case is civil or criminal, legal
representations of battered women are constructed to show that
17 . This approach characterizes England as well. In a London
survey, Moore and Day (l979) are explicit"
In the 20 cases where the father or step-father had hit the
child, the following pattern emerged...In 7 of these cases, the
mother's behavior acted as a trigger for the assault. Either she
had provoked her husband in some way and then made sure--perhaps
by going out--that the child got the full weight of the anger
produced, or she had complained to her husband about the child's
behavior (sometimes, perhaps, to take the spotlight off herself in
an explosive situation). (quoted by Martin l983, p.300)

physical abuse has elicited specific psychological consequences,
usually summarized as "battered woman's syndrome" (Walker,
l979)18. This "traumatization model" offers a diminished standard
of liability in failure to protect and other criminal cases if
one or both of two conditions are met: the domestic violence was
severe enough to prevent a "normal" mother from acting on her
children's behalf and/or so traumatized the woman that she was
rendered incapable of acting on her own or her childrens' behalf
by battered woman's syndrome, PTSD or a similar syndrome.
The the seriousness of assault is typically supported by
evidence of injury, police reports, medical records or personal
testimony using a 'calculus of harms:' the more severe the
injury, the worse the battering. Evidence of psychological
victimization, meanwhile, may be offered through expert
testimony, test results, or testimony from treating
counsellors.19 In its classic formulation by psychologist Lenore
Walker (l979;l989), the battered woman's syndrome consists of two
primary components: the 'cycle of violence' and 'learned
helplessness.' According to Walker, domestic violence passes
18 Alternate frames include "revised battered woman syndrome"
(Dutton) "post-traumatic stress disorder" ( ) or "complex post-
traumatic stress disorder,"(Hermann )
19 States have used different criteria to determine who
qualifies as an expert on battering and what types of testimony
they may offer ( ). Although a broader range of professionals--
including shelter staff-- may qualify if testimony is limited to
general facets of the syndrome rather than a specific mental
health assessment of battered woman's syndrome, as a general rule,
the witness should derive their expertise of domestic violence
from specialized training or case exposure.

through repeated cycles in which a period of tension buildup is
followed by an explosive episode of abuse and then by a period
when the batterer apologizes, promises to reform, and begs for
forgiveness. In this "honeymoon phase," a battered woman may drop
charges, reverse earlier testimony, misrepresent the source of
her injuries to helpers or authorities and, most important,
decide to stay in the abusive relationship. As the cycle is
repeated, the victim develops a form of depression known as
'learned helplessness:' subjected to repeated acts of severe
violence, she 'learns' there is no escape, shifts her attention
to sheer survival, and suffers sustained feelings of helplessness
that lead her to exaggerate her partner's power and to resist or
refuse help even when it is offered. Walker's work rests on an
extremely weak empirical foundation and has been the target of
increasing criticism (Downs, l996), particularly since her
service to the defense in the O.J. Simpson cases. But if the
battered woman's syndrome and is no longer universally accepted
as the sole model for understanding domestic violence by experts
in the field, it has been enshrinted as the mainstay of how
battered women are represented in court in numerous appellate
decisions.
Domestic Violence and Child Abuse
The same traumatization model has been applied to harms
suffered by children exposed to domestic violence or when
battered women harm their children or allow them to be
harmed( ). The calculus of physical harms suffered by the mother
provides a convenient guage for how to weigh the children's risk

as well as to balance it against the mother's culpability when
children are also hurt. Learned helplessness has also been used
to explain why a mother delays reporting child abuse or fails to
seek help for her child as well for herself( ).
The literature on children emphasizes three sources of risk
in domestic violence situations: direct physical abuse,
witnessing partner violence, and modelling or what is sometimes
called 'the intergenerational transmission of abuse." (Jaffe,
Stark, Edelson, etc.). 20
Children are co-victims of deliberate and/or inadvertent
violence in an estimated l7% of domestic violence episodes,
though the extent of injury in these instances is unclear. 2122
Extrapolating from the estimated prevalence of woman battering to
20 Also see Rohan v. Rohan 623 N.Y.S.2d 390 (l995) where the
Appellate Division overturned a family court's award of custody to
the father, holding that father's acts of physical abuse should
have been accorded significant weight because such behavior
demonstrates his unfitness to be a parent and provide the child
with moral and intelligent guidance. The court was concerned the
child might become a victim of his father's abuse or may learn to
become an abuser himself.
21 The data on how domestic violence affects children is
generally of very poor quality and almost always based on second
hand sources such as population surveys with adults, adult record
reviews, police files, interviews with mothers in shelters and
child protective service reports. There are only a few control
studies which compare outcomes among children exposed and not
exposed to domestic violence and none of these consider the
differential effects of nonphysical strategies of coercion. There
are no longitudinal studies tracking the unique effects of
domestic violence (or coercive control) over time.
22 In an early study of l00 battered women in a British
shelter, 54 of the women charged the husband had extended the
violence to the children and 37 mothers admitted that they were
discharging frustration on their offspring. (Gayford, l975).

to how many children are at risk at a given time suggests why we
can confidently identify domestic violence as the single most
common context for child abuse.23 A Yale study (Stark &
Flitcraft, l986) also revealed that, in the typical case,
domestic violence percedes the onset of child abuse and the male
partner is abusing both mother and child( ). Although male
partners are responsible for the vast majority of child
homicides, battered women are more likely than nonbattered women
to abuse their children as well( ).
Virtually all children of abused partners are exposed to the
ongoing stress of witnessing physical abuse, the widely
documented second source of children's risk in battering
relationships ( ). It remains unclear whether witnessing
violence against their mother causes more psychological damage to
children than actually suffering physical abuse. What research
does show is that witnessing is associated with low self-esteem
in girls, aggression and behavioral problems in boys and girls
and reduced social competence, depression and anxiety. Reported
emotional and psychological disturbances suffered by children
whose mothers are abused by their partners include feelings of
helplessness, powerlessness, fragmentation, depression, anger and
anxiety. Problems differ depending on the age and developmental
23 A study at Yale-New Haven Hospital revealed domestic
violence as the background in 45% of all child abuse cases, a
finding that has been replicated in Boston ( ). Meanwhile,
studies of the CPS records in New York City suggest that battering
is present in 60 percent of these cases ( ).

stage at which witnessing occurs( ). 24 Children exposed to
severe and/or ongoing violence may evidence trauma-related
syndromes or attempt to salve their sense of impotence with
denial that any abuse has occurrences. Importantly, many of these
problems abate after a woman and her children enter a shelter for
battered women or are offered ongoing and genuine safety from the
batterer( ).
Modelling is the third frequently identified source of risk
to children whose mothers are battered. Perhaps as many as a
third of the children who are abused or exposed to abuse in the
context of domestic assault become abusive adults ( ). In the
shorter term, according to longitudinal research by Cathy Spatz
Widom (l989), abused children are also more likely than nonabused
children to become "delinquent" as teens, though differences are
small and the progression is by no means automatic. Indeed, the
belief that intergenerational transmission is the primary cause
of adult violence remains widespread despite two well established
facts: the vast majority of abused children (at least 70%) do not
24 Preschool children in particular are frightened and sometimes
terrified, are almost always confused by the violence, and express
their insecurity through clinging, crying, nervousness and a
constant vigilence over where their mothers are. They display a
range of somatic problems including insomnia and other sleep
disorders, eating disorders, bed-wetting, ulcers and chronic
colds. Preschool children have also been found to suffer from a
failure to thrive, developmental delays and socialization
deficits. By contrast, adolescent witnesses may become runaways,
act out sexually or with violence, or, as in several instances in
my caseload, transfer their fear of the batterer to their mother
(because she 'causes' the problem) and "identify with the
aggressor", e.g. by adapting his view of their mother, seeking his
protection or by playing the "good child" to magically protect
themselves or their mother from abuse.

become violent adults and the vast majority of men who batter
their partners (80% or more) were neither abused or exposed to
abuse as children ( ).
The Limits of a Traumatization Model
Major weaknesses of legal strategies based solely on
traumatization models have become apparent in both conventional
domestic violence cases and in those involving children.
To start, traumatization models greatly exaggerate the
extent to which domestic violence renders victims passive or
helpless and so incapable of making rational choices to protect
themselves and their children. The problem is magnified when
'leaving' an abusive relationship or failing to report the
problem to authorities is used as a litmus test for the victim's
protective capacity, autonomy or even her 'sanity.' Courts (as
well as CPS) have interpreted evidence that battered women suffer
BWS or PTSD to explain why they fail to leave the abusive
relationship--and will return to the abuser in the future--why
they fail to report child abuse or otherwise collude in harm to
their children ( ). Additionally, the concept of learned
helplessness has been used to justify placement of her children (
).
A single case example must suffice. J.B. Wilson beat and
tried to sexually abuse his daughter.ii On the first occasion,
the mother, Mary Wilson, reported the abuse to the appropriate
agency, but she did so only after a delay of several days,
because she could not get away from J.B. wilson. On another
occasion, when she interceded, she was beaten and threatened with

a knife. Nevertheless, the West Virginia trial court found that
Mary Wilson failed to protect her children by failing to keep
J.B. Wilson away and by not separating from him. Her perceived
inability to break from the pattern of abuse was described by the
court specifically in terms of Walker's theory. Its decsion read,
in part:
Men who abuse their wives classically follow that pattern and the
family follows that pattern. A man beats his wife, makes
promises and they kiss and make up, and there is a period
psychologists call 'the honeymoon.' At some point following
the honeymoon, there is a cycle of abuse and the cycle
starts over again.
Believing that Mary W. was suffering BWS, the court concluded she
would continue to reconcile with her abusive husband, thereby
further endangering her children, and placed the children in
foster c0are. Fortunately, the West Virginia Supreme Court
overturned the case on appeal ( ).
The equation of women's failure to separate and to report
with their 'helplessness' is equally problematic. In fact, most
battered women separate from their partners on multiple
occasions, hoping against the odds that this will ameliorate the
situation. More important is mounting evidence that formal
helping encounters are of limited use, that the risk to women
remains unchanged or even escalates when they leave their abusive
partners, and that women who reject formal protectiions often
utilize informal resources quite effectively ( ). That the
offender's continued access to his partner is the issue, not her

dependence, is highlighted by the fact that 75% of abuse occurs
when women are single, separated or divorced. The picture of
battered women as helpless obscures the nuances of rational
choice involved in thousands of relationships where victims
calculate the risks involved in reporting, leaving or staying and
select what they believe to be the best option (and often the
safest for themselves and their children), a situation I have
called "control in the context of no control" ( ).
The emphasis on severe violence in the traumatization model
contributes to the picture of 'women who stay' as irrational or
helpless. In fact, while many battered women are subjected to
periodic explosions of severe assault, the vast majority of cases
involve routine, relatively minor force (pushing, shoving,
grabbing, holding, slapping and the like) that is insufficient to
elicit the symptoms of traumatic disorders, even when the
intimidating effects of chronic, low-level abuse are considered.
In all probability only a small percentage of battered women
suffer trauma-induced syndromes.
The reliance on traumatization models can effectively deny a
battered woman's defense to women who have not experienced life-
threatening violence, the cycle of violence, learned helplessness
or other post-traumatic reactions. In New Jersey, for example, a
woman must have experienced the 'cycle of violence' at least
twice to qualify as a battered woman on the civil side25 ( )
25 In a recent Connecticut case, my client alleged that her
former husband had extended the physical abuse during the marriage
through numerous strategems designed to constrain and control her
afterwards, offering extensive documentation to support her

Conforming to the prevailing stereotype of battered women as
dependent, passive and helpless is even more difficult if victims
have employed violence themselves and or belong to a group jurors
are likely to stereotype as innately "aggressive" (e.g. African-
Americans, hispanics).
A related set of problems arises because BWS, PTSD and other
trauma induced reactions are widely understood as mental health
problems. At best, an ecologically minded expert will describe
the syndrome as a time-limited adaptation which any normal person
would develop if exposed to similar oppression. But the majority
view, reflected in the description of PTSD in DSM IV, is that
post-traumatic syndromes are chronic psychiatric dysfunctions
whose symptoms include emotional, perceptual and behavioral
problems that can undermine good parenting or an accurate
presentation of events( ).
From Domestic Violence to Coercive Control
Given the absence of empirical evidence supporting
traumatization models of woman battering, the pragmatic problems
they raise for legal strategy suggests the need for an
alternative representational strategy.
The types of cases involving battered mothers and children
differ markedly. Like Hedda, the mother (and, very occasionally,
the father as well) may be charged because s/he failed to protect
from harm someone for whom s/he has legal responsibility. As in
claims. Testifying for the husband (though without interviewing
either party), Dr. Walker argued that, since my client was
representing herself in the case, she obviously lacked the learned
helplessness essential to proof of battering.

Lavonne's case, the battered mother may have hurt the child
directly. Or the mother may attempt to protect her child and be
seriously hurt or killed as a consequence. Illustrating this last
circumstance is the following sketch of a wrongful death suit
against the city of Waterford, Connecticut in which I was
involved.
On the evening of June 3rd, l989, Philip Traficonda chased his
wife Terry across their yard to a neighbor's house, where
she took refuge with their infant son. He had been drinking
heavily all afternoon. Philip started back home, changed his
mind, then turned and approached the modified mobile home to
which his wife had escaped. He peeked in several windows,
walked around the house once, then burst through the screen
door into the neighbor's kitchen. "Get home," he commanded.
When she sat still, he grabbed their son from her arms,
carried the boy back across the yard, got into his pickup
truck and peeled out of the driveway. Terry called "9ll."
She told the dispatch operator her husband had "kidnapped"
their child, was drunk, driving at a dangerous rate of
speed, and that she wanted police to return the child. The
operator sent two police officers to the address, but
continued to question Terry about her relationship with
Philip. During this conversation, Philip Traficonda
returned, having just driven a short distance, and took the
child into the house. Fearing he might hurt their son, Terry
suddenly became "hysterical" and begged the operator to
recall the police. "If they come, he'll kill me," Terry

reportedly said, more than once. Whatever her exact words,
dispatch now instructed the police officers they were no
longer needed. Terry ended the call and returned to her
house. Two hours later, at 2 am, she was fatally shot in the
head. She was found on the couch, naked from the waist down.
At the trial, Philip Traficonda claimed he and his wife were
watching a film about hunting, Terry asked how it was done,
he had shown her the shot-gun and it had gone off
accidentally. In addition to two bullet wounds, the
coroner's report identified numerous bruises on Terry's
arms, legs and back. Nick Traficonda was convicted of murder
and sentenced to life in prison. However, during the
sentencing, the judge lectured Terry in absentia for
"staying with this brute so long."
Different strategies may be required depending on the
client, the acts alleged or the type of proceeding involved.
Despite these differences, three common dynamics are shared in
most dual victim cases: "coercive control; "the battered mother's
dilemma," and "tangential spouse abuse."
Coercive control refers to the overall course of conduct
batterers use to subjugate their partners and includes, at a
minimum, strategies of domestic violence, isolation, intimidation
and control. In marked contrast to cases involving simple
domestic violence, where the degree of physical assault, fighting
and associated fears and injuries are the primary issues,
coercive control strategies infringe on a range of personal
liberties and can induce a murderous rage or, alternately, a

hostage-like state of material and psychological dependence. Even
where physical abuse is frequent and severe, as it was in
Lavonne's relationship with Miguel Sebastian, isolation,
intimidation and control may be the most salient issue for the
victim and offer the best explanation for her behavior. Coercive
control may disable a woman's capacity to mother, contributing to
neglect as well as abuse. Additionally, it highlights the need to
look at the overall level of power and control in a relationship
to assess children's risk, not merely at physical abuse.
The battered mother's dilemma, one consequence of coercive
control, refers to the choice many victims are forced to make
between their own safety and the safety of their children. While
the offending partner is the major source of these dilemmas, they
are often reproduced and extended by the agencies to which the
victim turns for help, particularly those responsible for child
protection. A dilemma may be brought into sharp focus by a
particular event--as it was on the night of the Traficonda
homicide. Typically, however, it describes an ongoing dynamic in
the abusive relationship where it may be confounded by
alternating feelings of dependence, love, hope (that the
relationship will work, e.g.) and fear. In most (though not all)
cases where a battered mother decides to hurt her child or allow
her child to be hurt, she perceives the alternative courses of
action as equally or even more dangerous to herself or the child.
In responding to the 'battered mother's dilemma, the victim
attempts to preserve her rationality in a world where choices
have been severely constrained.

Finally, tangential spouse abuse identifies the harm
threatened or inflicted on children as an extension of the
strategies of coercive control directed at their mother, e.g. as
spouse abuse by means of child abuse. Contextualizing the child's
risk as a function of the mother's allows for global assessments
(e.g. where the risk to either is determined by the overall
pattern of entrapment) and helps the court link (or understand
why a mother links) protective strategies for herself and her
child into a single safety plan.
The alternative narrative built from these components
reframes woman battering from the standpoint of its survivors as
a course of oppressive conduct calculated to dominate them
(coercive control), limit their options by playing their safety
off against their child's (the battered woman's dilemma), and
further hurt and control them by extending coercive control to
children (tangential spouse abuse). This framework subdivides
what is commonly called domestic violence into cases where
hitting or fighting by either or both parties is the primary
dynamic and risk factor for children ("simple domestic
violence"), and true battering. True battering subordinates women
to an alien will by violating their physical integrity ("domestic
violence"), denying them respect or autonomy ("intimidation"),
depriving them of social connectedness ("isolation") and
appropriating or denying them access to the resources required
for personhood and citizenship ("control")others, including their
children.26 Taken together, these strategies make woman battering
26 The pattern of coercive control evident in true battering

a liberty crime that is closer in its dynamics and effects to
indentured servitude and hostage taking than to assault and
objectively disables a woman's capacity to effectively protect
herself or others in her charge without resort to acts that fall
beyond the pale of what our community can or should tolerate.
While true battering can most assuredly have devastating and
long-lasting psychological effects, its most dramatic consequence
is that the victim is forced to survive in a universe where
choice is constrained by the objective denial of basic rights and
resources. This emphasis stands in marked contrast to the
traumatization model because it assumes that the deprivation of
liberty (a situation called "entrapment") is the source of
women's vulnerability to escalating violence, to the range of
psychological and behavioral problems identified
disproportionatley among battered women, and to the harm of her
children. In place of a woman suffering a 'learned helplessness'
that distorts her perception, the coercive control model presents
the victim as a rational decision-maker (indeed, often hyper-
rational) faced with a devil's choice in which all alternative
courses of action may have disasterous consequences. Recognizing
that the child abuse in battering situations is really
'tangential spouse abuse' clearly identifies accountability with
the offender, an issue which the syndrome defense skirts.
situations appears to be gender specific. At present, there are no
reports in the literature of any substantial subpopulation of
women who isolate, intimidate, control and physically abuse their
partners or of men who suffer the complex profile of physical,
psychological and behavioral problems associated with true
battering.

Analysis of the Lazarra will illustrate how an emphasis on
coercive control reshapes our approach where children are
involved. Currently, dual victim cases typically hinge on the
narrow evidentiary issue of whether a child has also been abused
or exposed to physical abuse and by whom 27. This approach often
penalizes battered women because domestic violence may be deemed
irrelevant to custodial assignment or because, where the less
tangible facets of coercion are invisible, a mother's behavior
(or the child's fear) may seem "exaggerated" or inexplictable
given little or no documented instances of severe abuse. 28.29
27 See Whiteman v. Whiteman op. cit
28 In a recent custody case in which I assessed the mother, for
instance, an 8 year old boy was arrested, handcuffed and taken to
a shelter for homeless and delinquent youth until he agreed to
cooperate with court orders to visit his father. Since the couple
had been separated for over a year, the court appointed
psychologist concluded that the mother had instilled an extreme
fear of the father in her boy, causing his "parental alienation
syndrome." She recommended giving custody to the father. I was
prepared to testify that the mother's fear was a realistic
response to a range of intimidating and coercive acts by her
former husband, that these were as much a part of his "battering"
behavior as his physical assaults during the marriage, and that
these acts of coercive control affected the boy as well as his
mother. I might have broadened the judge's understanding of
domestic violence. But, it was equally likely, the woman's
attorney felt, that the court would interpret the mother's
testimony as a sign that she was uncooperative and vindictive,
thereby providing grounds for the psychologist's naive conclusion.
29 In several divorce cases in which I have been involved,
judges have awarded custody to the battering husband based on
expert psychological testimony that the child suffered "parental
alienation syndrome" (PAS) as a result if the mother's hostility
towards her ex. Evidence of PAS was that the child's fear of the
father seemed exaggerated given the incidents of physical abuse
witnessed. In fact, the children's fear in these cases, like the
mother's, reflected nonviolent dimensions of the battering not

A Failure to Protect? State of Connecticut vs. Lavonne Lazarra
My preconceptions of Lavonne Lazarra left me unprepared for
the tall, striking, impeccably dressed and articulate 27 year old
woman who was waiting at the Women's Center in the working class
valley town of Shelton. Like me, she brought negative
expectations to the encounter.
Lazarra: My therapist holds you in very high esteem. To be
honest, I thought "another psycho guy." I had a really bad
outlook after dealing with Dr. Johnson.
During her court ordered evaluation at the Yale Child Study
Center in New Haven several weeks earlier, the psychiatrist had
refused to interview Lavonne unless Miguel Sabastian was also in
the room. Her excited description of the encounter revealed a
deep-seated anger at professionals (could this have been
directed at her children?) and a surprising level of critical
judgement.
Lazarra: He said Miguel would be handcuffed to the chair. I
said "I don't care if he's handcuffed to the wall." And I told
him in no uncertain terms that I didn't even want to be in the
same building with this man. It was already court-ordered that it
be separate. I made him call my attorney...I spoke to him on the
phone...and he told him "they are to meet separately." So, the
psychiatrist changed his tone.
Lavonne was anxious that Miguel would return--an accurate
fear as it turned out-- and extremely upset about the loss of her
children. But there was no symptoms of depression, delusion or
considered relevant by the court.

other psychiatric disorder. The mystery was how this strong-
willed 27 year old woman could have deteriorated to the point of
stealing water from neighbors, abusing Maria, beating her son
Danny with a belt or abandoning a one year old in a basement to
which there was no access from the house.
(a) Family Background
The youngest of three children, Lavonne Lazarra no longer
saw her father, an alcoholic, whom she remembers telling her "I
had my son and daughter. I didn't need you." Her mother still
lives in the area, but their relationship is also tense. Lavonne
left home at l4, when her parents moved "yet again," this time
out of town, and completed high school while living with her
boyfriend's family. She remains close to this family despite the
fact that the boyfriend raped her and persisted in forcing
himself on her sexually. She completed school without telling the
family what had happened, then moved out.
At l8, when she met Joe, Danny's father, she was living
independently in a condo, had a car, was working at a bank in the
affluent town of Westport, earning $400 a week, and caring for
her sister's daughter. The couple discussed marriage, Joe put a
deposit on a ring, then he walked out, in January, l985. Lavonne
learned she was pregnant, though she was on birth control pills.
Shortly thereafter, apparently because of the pregnancy, she lost
her job and moved back home. She decided to have the baby because
she was opposed to abortion on religious grounds. But this wasn't
the only basis for the decision.
Lavonne: Religion was part of it. That and I thought if I

don't have Joe, at least I have a part of Joe. And when I told
Joe, he said well that's your problem. And I said I wasn't asking
anything of you. I just wanted you to know you're going to be a
father whether you're happy with it or not.
Lavonne suffered from toxemia and her son was born two
months premature.
Lavonne's mother and sister worked at a diner where she
frequently brought Danny in the evenings. Across the street was a
rooming house where illegal Mexican workers boarded. Thousands of
miles from their homes and families, the young men gravitated
naturally to the already bilingual mother. Stephanie was born two
years after Danny, in l987, the child of an illegal immigrant
Lavonne met at the diner. Lavonne insisted this pregnancy was
also accidental, since she was using the sponge for birth-
control. Stephanie was also premature and suffered from colic and
a milk allergy that made her difficult to train and moody. Her
father returned to Mexico when she was 3.
When Lavonne became pregnant yet again, this time with a
younger man, his older brother immediately ordered him to return
to Mexico, which he did. He returned shortly after his daughter's
birth and gave her some financial support. The girl was named
Katerina.
When Lavonne met David, Candy's father, her own father had
moved out and she and her children were living with her mother
(who worked nights). Lavonne and David dated for some time, lived
together, discussed marriage and planned to have a baby. Based on
her prior experience, Lavonne insisted that David inform her in

advance if he had to return home. However, shortly after Lavonne
became pregnant, in February of l99l, David left suddenly for
Mexico. Lavonne later learned that he had gone home to break a
prior engagement which he kept from her. When he left, however,
she felt abandoned and angry.
In retrospect, it seems ironic that what attracted Lavonne
most about these men was their gentleness and their interest in
children. Undoubtedly the chaos in her own family of origin
affected her interest in their "family orientation." However, she
did not live with either Danny or Stephanie's fathers.
Stark: So when you say 'family,' what do you have in mind?
Lavonne: I guess the family I was trying to create. Trying to
establish. And that's the first thing that started me talking to
most of these people is they started talking to my children and
doing things for the children.
An element of rebellion against her father also prompted
Lavonne's relationships with the Mexican men. Her father had
embraced Joe as a "perfect Italian boy,"--even the beer that was
always in his hand felt familiar-- but was openly contemptuous of
Hispanics and blacks, the men to whom Lavonne was subsequently
drawn. In addition, Lavonne relies heavily on external cues to
establish trust (the 'wedding ring' she and Joe picked out; the
'words of love' spoken by the men in her life). This too reflects
her home environment. Lavonne's father was a quiet drunk and she
has no memory of his being rowdy or violent. Nevertheless, with
her mother, "it was either absolute silence or I'm going to sit

here and yell at you." Neither parent was affectionate (indeed,
her father openly rejected her) and from an early age she
hungered for signs that she was loved. It is also common for
children of alcoholics to become hypersensitive to external cues
in order to "keep the lid on."
Nothing in her background explains what happened in
Lavonne's relationship with Miguel, however. Lavonne's need for
affection from men was clearly aggravated by the self-doubts
evoked by her being a single woman with a premade family. But if
she lacked a certain self-esteem, this must be balanced against
the capacity for self-care evident in her determination to finish
school and other signs of independence against formidible odds.
Indeed, Lavonne seemed to have chosen boyfriends whom she could
dominate, at least emotionally, in obvious contrast to her
tumultuous relationship with her father. In any case, Lavonne
cannot be held accountable for the difficulty men have with
commitment, or for structural arrangements that make it difficult
at best for illegal immigrants to remain here permanently. As
Lavonne put it, "unfortunately, the only man who stuck around was
the one I wanted to get rid of."
Apart from having been raped by her teenage boyfriend, up
until she met Miguel, Lavonne had not been struck by a man.
Admittedly, she treated her children as she had seen the children
in her family network treated, using physical punishment to
discipline her older children, including spanking and an
occasional slap. She "over-reacted" when she had difficulty
toilet training Stephanie, yelling at her a good deal, and was

apparently unaware of the physical problems created by her
allergy. Although she wishes she had alternative models of
control available to her, there is no evidence of her having
physically abused or neglected her children prior to meeting
Miguel. Conversely, although Daniel reported having once been
slapped by David, an incident Lavonne cannot confirm, there is no
evidence that the children were hit or otherwise mistreated by
any of the men whom Lavonne dated. To the contrary, the men in
her life treated the children more kindly than they did her.
The Relationship with Miguel
Before David left for Mexico, he introduced Lavonne to his
cousin, Miguel, who began working at the diner. David asked
Lavonne to teach Miguel English and they met almost daily. When
David left, Miguel spent time with the children, attended
birthing classes, and gave Lavonne general support in a difficult
time. She was attracted to Miguel. When David returned in April,
l99l, she kept her distance, not wanting to be hurt again. David
began "harassing" Lavonne, making threatening phone calls and
warning he would come for his baby after she was born. Miguel
offered to move into Lavonne's house to "protect" her, treating
her with "respect" and initially sleeping on the living room
couch. He was, she reports, "my knight in shining armor." Shortly
afterwards, her "knight" moved into her bedroom.
In terms of the battering, Lavonne's relationship with
Miguel can usefully be divided into three phases, each typified
by somewhat different dynamics. During the two years they were
together, Miguel assaulted Lavonne several hundred times. Because

abusive episodes became so common that they form a continuuing
pattern in her mind, detail is provided only of episodes I
believe are particularly significant or typical.
Phase I: The Onset of Abuse April, l99l - September, l99l.
During the first phase of their relationship, Miguel
pressured Lavonne to remain at home and adapt a traditional
female role. There was sporadic violence, often without warning,
usually accompanied by heavy drinking, followed by apologies and
promises to reform.
We have seen that Miguel was initially "respectful" of
Lavonne's feelings, particularly her ambivalence about David.
Lavonne: Actually I think I had an instant attraction to him.
Because he did something for me right off. I met him when he
first came into the country. It was my birthday and I was upset
at David because David wasn't going to spend my birthday with me.
And here we were at the check out. Miguel, who I knew didn't have
anything to speak of, when he found out it was my birthday, he
bought me a rose. Because that's out of custom, because one man
doesn't buy another's man's woman a gift.
Miguel's initial suggestions for Lavonne strengthened her
belief that he was concerned about her and her family.
Lazarra: David was hassling me and he made suggestions about how
to handle it. "You shouldn't really hang around the dinner, it
doesn't look good for you and your kids, you should keep them at
home....Better to have cooked meals at home, than out at the

diner. You'll feel better about yourself if you take care of the
house ...and your kids..".
Stark: So he had a real idea of what a traditional woman was
like?
Lazarra: Yeah.
Stark: And alot of those things did make sense?
Lazarra: Yeah. And I did feel better. Because the kids and I
would be home.
Shortly after they began living together, Miguel suggested
that Lavonne change the name of her daughter Katalina to Maria
(his grandmother's name), a move which her family opposed.
Lavonne now recognizes how this isolated her from friends and her
family. At the time, however, she felt "it made us more like a
family."
The first episode of assault occurred several months later.
She had asked Miguel not to drink around her and he had agreed to
do his drinking at the boarding house where David and the other
Mexican men lived. One evening, when Lavonne went to pick Miguel
up at the boarding house, David also came down and tried to talk
to her. She asked Miguel's permission and he replied "you do what
you think is right." Lavonne was 6 months pregnant at the time.
But an argument ensued during which Miguel told David "she's
mine, she does what I tell her," and ordered Lavonne into the
car. Then, Miguel told David "I can do anything to her and she's
still mine." He told her to relax and stop crying, then suddenly
slapped her across the mouth. Lavonne was shocked. Then, he told
Lavonne to kiss him, which she did. On the way home, he broke

both the dashboard and the windshield with his fist. Miguel
passed out when they arrived home. But the next day Miguel
apologized and blamed his behavior on the alcohol. She told him
if he hit her again, they were through.
Another incident with David led to a repeat assault by
Miguel two weeks later. David called late one night. Although
Lavonne did not talk to him, Miguel began to cry, then became
furious, slapped Lavonne and then hit her with the back of his
hand until she bled. Lavonne called a cab and threw Miguel out of
the house.
After only two weeks, Miguel was calling every day, crying,
telling her he "made a mistake" and promising not to drink.
Lavonne's experience with her brother and uncle, both alcoholics
who become violent when drunk, made Miguel's interpretation of
his "loss of control" credible. She believed he was one of the
few men who really wanted her. So she allowed him to return.
Within days, pushing, shoving and slapping became routine.
The most common context for a fight now involved reports by
Miguel that he had been "hassled" at work by David or other
Mexicans because of their relationship. He was constantly
correcting her behavior and the behavior of the children,
explaining after beatings that "if your father had disciplined
you and raised you to be a decent woman, you wouldn't be where
you are in life today. Somebody has to do it."
Ironically, apart from the abuse, Lavonne felt her life was
generally "calm." Danny and Stephanie were in Head Start and
Lavonne had only Maria with her during the day. She was not going

out "at all" any longer and spent her days cleaning the house and
cooking for Miguel. She was treating him "like a king" and
"giving him what he wanted before he wanted it," following an
exact schedule that he required.
Lavonne and the children were now on AFDC. She would cash
her check, turn the money over to Miguel and he would give her
money, as he thought appropriate, for food or clothes. In
addition to having to account for every penny, she was not
permitted to go to the store alone. If he couldn't go with her,
her mother would do the shopping for her. She was learning to be
a "Senora."30
During this phase of their relationship, Miguel only hit
Lavonne when her mother was out of the house or when she and the
children were in bed. Miguel played no role in disciplining the
children and never hit them. Nevertheless, Daniel and Stephanie
were aware of the fights.
Phase II. The Escalation of Violence and Control September, l99l
- January, l992.
In September, l99l, Miguel raped Lavonne, 8 months pregnant,
shortly after she began spotting. At this point, "fights"
(pushing, slapping, etc.) became less common than "beatings" in
which Miguel punched, kicked, and whipped Lavonne to "discipline"
her. Lavonne's mother, Miguel's friends and the children were now
aware of and exposed to Miguel's abuse of Lavonne. Lavonne's
methods of disciplining the children did not change. But Miguel
30 (though it would be several years after they separated, and
she married, that he would use this term of respect for her.

attempted to control how the children behaved and directed
Lavonne in their discipline. Lavonne grew increasingly depressed,
particularly after Candy's birth, became completely isolated from
her former friends and family and attempted suicide.
Miguel and Lavonne had sex at least once a day, often two or
three times. One night after intercourse, when Lavonne was 7 and
a half months pregnant with Candy, she began to bleed. The doctor
proscribed sex until after the birth. But several weeks later,
Miguel returned from work, demanded sex and, when Lavonne told
him "I can't," he raped her, telling her he didn't care what
happened to "David's baby." Immediately following the assault,
Lavonne experienced contractions and bleeding. Miguel accompanied
her to the hospital, staying with her "even to the bathroom", and
attended the birth. This showed, she felt, that "he loved me more
than anybody ever had." But, when the doctor handed him a girl
"who looks just like his father," he hissed "I'd like to throw
her right in the garbage because that's what she is, just like
you." Within hours of her returning from the hospital after
Candy's birth, Miguel insisted on having sex. From this point on,
he simply demanded sex, forcing her if she refused, then
assaulting her.
There were still "good times." When Miguel and Lavonne went
away for a weekend, they planned to move to Mexico, buy a house
and create a "real family," a dream Lavonne held dear.
Violence escalated one evening when Miguel came home, upset
because someone had taunted him about Lavonne at work. She was
in the process of changing. She knew she would be hit because

"his eyes were black." "When he's like that," she says, "once he
gets started, he doesn't stop." Although she begged him to "just
talk," he pushed her around the bedroom. He punched her and
"backhanded" her. Then he did something he would do frequently in
the future: he removed his belt and began snapping it in a
taunting way. He started off by hitting her lightly with the
belt. Then he hit her harder and harder. When she tried to get
away, he kicked at her, hitting her in the face, blackening her
eye. She fell to the floor and he began to kick her. When her
nose starting bleeding, he stopped. This incident occurred just
one month after Candy's birth.
As a result of this beating, Lavonne had problems with her
ear. She saw a doctor who recognized the injury had resulted from
a beating, but did not counsel her or otherwise intervene.
At this point, Lavonne stopped responding when she was hit,
neither crying nor begging Miguel to stop, both of which had
"infuriated" him in the past. Although Miguel always blamed his
drinking and promised to stop, Lavonne insists he was abusive
whether or not he was drunk. Then, one night, two weeks later,
Miguel and his "best friend" returned home drunk and Lavonne
served them dinner. When his friend asked why Lavonne had a black
eye and was covered with bruises, pointing out that Miguel had
everything a Mexican man could want ('she waits on you like a
king'), Miguel brutally beat the man, "turning the house into "a
holocaust" with blood and broken furniture everywhere. Lavonne
intervened to save the man's life and was herself struck. When
Miguel realized when he had done, they washed the man up and

drove him home. They took him to a doctor several days later.
In November, l99l, when Candy was two months old, Lavonne
found out she was again pregnant, this time as the result of a
rape. That night, Miguel punched her repeatedly in the stomach,
causing her to miscarry. He said the miscarriage was her fault
because she aggravated him. He demanded sex immediately after the
miscarriage.
Lavonne was now completely isolated from her friends whom
Miguel believed were not good for her or else were jealous of
what they had. He had gotten her a car for her birthday which she
taught him how to drive and he occasionally drove himself to
work. In general, however, she drove him to work, picked him up
and drove the children to school, but was not allowed to drive
the car alone or for any other purpose. He carefully monitored
what she and the children ate, where they went, how they dressed,
forcing Lavonne, for example, to only wear dresses, "never
pants."
Miguel had started to spank and slap the children. At first
they argued about whether this was right, Miguel insisting that
since he was their father, he should discipline them. Lavonne
soon stopped protesting.
Concerned about Stephanie not having appropriate clothes,
the Director of Head Start talked to Lavonne about abuse and
warned that it could "overflow" and affect the children.
Apparently the discussion was couched in such vague terms,
Lavonne was not sure what the Head Start Director was talking
about. In any case, her own need for help was not addressed.

Lavonne became increasingly depressed after Candy's birth,
sensing she was "trapped" with Miguel and that "there was no way
out." One night, when he insisted she drink with him, he put a
tatoo of his name on her arm, to show the world she was his "now
and always." That night, she felt completely degraded and cut her
wrist in a suicide attempt, stopping only when Candy, who was in
her room, began to cry. When Miguel saw what she had done, he
grabbed for the knife, they struggled, and her hand was cut. He
called her crazy and bandaged her up. Looking back, Lavonne
realizes that when she attempted to hurt herself, she was barely
aware of the children.
On Christmas day, l99l, Lavonne had Miguel arrested. She had
driven him to work, but he needed to take a cab home because the
brakes on the car were not working. When he returned, she was
leaving to go to her grandmother's house for Christmas dinner
with her mother and brother. Her mother and Miguel fought and
Miguel threatened Lavonne who knew she would be beaten whether
she stayed or left with her family. Then her mother put her in
the car, as a way to protect her she realizes now. Miguel tried
to follow in her new car, but was drunk and wrecked it. He left
the car, then called her to come home, saying he had a knife,
threatening suicide and talking about them both dying. Terrified,
she called the police and returned home. They arrested him for
"evading responsibility" for the accident. But the police also
asked Lavonne to accompany Miguel to jail and to court the next
day to help translate for him. When he was released, Miguel sent
the children to their rooms, turned up the radio and told her

"You said you were afraid--I'm going to teach you to be afraid
now." He beat her severely, then acted "as if nothing had
happened."
Shortly after Christmas, l99l, they moved out of her
mother's into a house of their own.
Phase III. January, l992 - September l992.
Getting their own place completed the process of isolating
Lavonne and her children from potential sources of support. In
the new house, Miguel Sabastian exercised total control over
Lavonne and beatings with objects and threats with weapons
alternated with physical abuse, including burning her with
cigarettes. The birth of Miguel's son proved only a minor
interlude in this escalating pattern of assault and intimidation.
Meanwhile, Miguel extended his abuse to the children both
directly, by slapping, beating, burning and whipping them, and
indirectly, by forcing Lavonne to escalate her own disciplinary
practices. Afraid that Lavonne might leave or kill him, Miguel
ensured that she was never with all the children alone.
Meanwhile, Lavonne became less and less able to function as an
autonomous adult, neglecting basic household chores, losing state
assistance and living for a time without basic comforts. The
focus of her life shifted to sheer survival: living like a
virtual hostage, every element of her life was oriented towards
placating or resisting Miguel, minimizing the hurt he could do to
her and the children. Lavonne reached out for help, investigating
foster care for Candy for example. She also began to save money
to plan their escape.

The beating by Miguel when they returned from court
convinced Lavonne that Miguel could easily kill her. She writes:
"After that, I listened to his every command...I shower
the children at certain times. I shower when he allows.
I go to the bathroom when he allows. I have my hair
styled how he wants. I sleep when he wants. Get up when
he wants."
While he was at work in the afternoon, she and the children would
occasionally visit neighbors who report her being frequently
bruised.
Assaults increasingly involved objects and/or weapons and
were characterized by behavior that directly threatened Lavonne's
life and sanity. Miguel would throw knives at Lavonne and
threaten her with a knife. One evening, when he held a knife to
her throat, she kneed him in the groin. She had pushed him away
before, but this was the first time she had physically retaliated
against his assaults. Miguel doubled up and cut her throat with
the knife. He dropped the knife and she picked it up. He told her
"If you're going to use it, make sure I'm down for good."
Miguel put his cigarettes out on Lavonne's hand or arm. He
would touch her skin with cigarettes to taunt her because she was
only allowed to smoke at his discretion. And he hit her with
bottles. The first few times he burned her with cigarettes she
fought back. But then she realized that "if he doesn't get a
reaction, he doesn't win." She bears scars from these types of
assaults.

After she had threatened Miguel with the knife, he became
fearful that she might kill him in his sleep or poison him. He
insisted that she taste all food first, something his father at
taught him. By this time, Miguel had destroyed or disposed of all
possessions that in any way reminded him of Lavonne's past.
Miguel was stricter with the children. He was still
concerned with what they ate, when they slept and that they took
showers. However, he would occasionally hit Daniel, Stephanie and
Maria with his belt. In addition, he instructed Lavonne when and
how to hit the children. She believed that if she did as she was
told, the children would suffer less than if he hit the children.
While they were living on Chestnut Street, Lavonne would
take the children next door after Miguel went to work in the
evenings. Her neighbor, who had been abused in her first
marriage, frequently saw Lavonne with black eyes, cuts and
bruises and understood the situation, though Lavonne was too
fearful to talk to her about it. She never saw similar bruises on
the children, but knew Lavonne was not allowed to go out. In
February, l992, after a beating, Lavonne ran to her house at
ll:30pm, banging on the door to wake her up. But Miguel grabbed
her ("tackled") on the lawn and Lavonne left the children with
her neighbor while they "talked it out." Neighbors had already
complained to DCF and Miguel threatened that the state would take
her children if she left him, because she would be seen as
"unstable." He also threatened to hurt her family and friends as
well as to take the children himself. At this point, Lavonne
lived in fear for her life. But she was also afraid that he might

kill her or her children if she left.
When Lavonne was five months pregnant, Miguel told her to
report David to the police for making harassing phone calls. When
Lavonne was talking to the detective, she mentioned David's name.
Because of this, when she hung up, Miguel beat her with a wooden
board that had metal brackets attached. She still bears the scars
on her back from this assault.
Miguel played a game with Lavonne's mind. He would wake her
up whenever he pleased. Sometimes he would do this by initiating
sex while she slept. On other occasions, he would place his hand
over her face and mouth, so that she would awaken gasping for
air. When she awoke, he would feign sleep, so that she would
think she was sick or crazy. Or he would just slap her suddenly
in her sleep. Eventually, she would only pretend to sleep. As a
result, she was constantly fatigued.
When Lavonne was 7 months pregnant, in August, they moved
again, Lavonne doing almost all of the physical work. At this
point, the house on Chestnut Street in which they had been living
was a shambles. The family that rented the house in which they
stayed described finding filth everywhere, faucets broken, walls
with holes--this from a family whose mother had prided herself in
her homemaking skills.
Shortly after they moved, Miguel beat Lavonne so severely
she went into labor, 6 and a half weeks early. At the hospital,
they gave her medication to control the contractions. She was
"covered with bruises," but no one said anything about them.
Despite the contractions, he continued to push and hit her.

During the second week in August, Lavonne called a DCF
caseworker and asked about foster care, explaining that she
wanted to report someone for abuse. Two weeks later, she called
the caseworker again, this time saying she wanted to place Candy
in foster care because she needed medical help. The caseworker
gave Lavonne the number of a foster placement agency. No
assistance was offered or further information solicited.
In the summer of l992, Miguel worked nights. When Lavonne
drove him to work, he would insist that the children be left
behind to assure she would return home. She knew Danny was too
young to watch his sisters, but rationalized that it might be
better for the children to stay home than watch her get beaten or
be slapped and yelled at themselves in the car. This terrified
Lavonne. After Miguelito was born, he would come with them in the
car. Lavonne believes this was because he was Miguel's son.
When Miguel came home from work in the morning, he wanted
sex. So Lavonne would lie down with him and the children would
"nap" or play in their bedrooms. Then she would get up with the
children and try to keep them quiet. Sometimes the children would
play in the bedroom and he wouldn't mind. But at other times, if
they made noise, he would yell at Lavonne or punish her or the
children. They would usually play outside.
Miguel would call frequently from work, sometimes several
times an hour. Or he would come home suddenly to check on her.
Meals often sent Miguel into a rage. He frequently threw the
food in Lavonne's face. On other occasions, if a meal didn't
satisfy him, he would put hot chili peppers and lots of salt on

the food and force Lavonne to eat it.
When Miguel was sleeping, the children would sometimes come
down to the basement with Lavonne and play when she was drying
clothes. Lavonne was particularly fearful for Candy whom Miguel
regarded as "David's child," because she was the special object
of his anger and because, she felt, she was too young to be hit.
So, if Miguel was home, even if he was sleeping, Lavonne made
sure that Candy was always with her when she went to the
basement.
When she was 8 months pregnant, Miguel tied Lavonne's hands
together and raped her. He would have her shower the children two
to three times a day. When he came home from work the house had
to be spotless. But given Lavonne's state of exhaustion, this was
impossible.
Lavonne's attitude towards her abuse changed. She was no
longer openly resisting. She was deeply depressed. She told
Miguel, "I don't care what you do to me. Just get it over with."
This infuriated him even more, she believes, because he wanted
"reaction."
When contractions were 4 minutes apart, he demanded sex, she
protested and he raped her. When contractions were 2 to 4 minutes
apart, Miguel refused to take her to the hospital, apparently
wanting to make sure the children stayed with him. Lavonne wanted
the children to stay with her mother, but Miguel knew this might
give her an opportunity to escape. He said "Let them stay here.
I'll know where they are. I'll know where you are." But she
insisted.

Once again he accompanied her to the hospital and never let
her out of his sight, even going to the bathroom with her.
Lavonne's extensive bruises, both recent and old, were obvious.
Stark: Let me ask you this. If when you were in the hospital, a
nurse had said to you, "you shouldn't be taking this" or had
asked you questions about what was going on at home, do you think
you could have heard this?
Lazarra: I think I could have.
Stark: Because earlier....
Lazarra: At that point, I think I would have. If somebody had
said, you know there's a way out, I would have.
There were no questions, however.
When Miguel told Lavonne he wanted yet more children ("three
boys and three girls"), she asked to be "fixed."
Miguel had long since stopped apologizing to Lavonne after
he beat her. But he would apologize to the children after he beat
them.
Miguel's excitement about having a son was shortlived. When
she came home from the hospital, Lavonne realized something
fundamental had changed in his attitude towards her and that her
life was now in grave danger. The change was driven home when he
beat her with the 4 day old baby in her arms. Something had also
changed in the way he yelled at the children. She determined to
get out, but felt Miguel could read her mind.
The children simply tried to stay out of Miguel's way. Maria
was particularly fearful and spent hours alone in her bedroom.
This was when Lavonne laid the mattress in the basement for

Candy. At first, the idea was to provide a place for Candy so she
wouldn't crawl on the cement floor while she was doing a wash and
the other children were down there with her. Later, however,
Lavonne began putting Candy there when Miguel wanted her to,
because he wanted her "out of his sight," for instance, or
because he didn't want to be disturbed while he slept, and when
she went to pick up Stephanie at the bus and Miguel was in the
house. On one occasion, according to Danny, when Miguel had been
playing with the children and Candy started crying, "Poppy hit
her with the belt." Lavonne confronted Miguel, but he denied it,
claiming "you think I'm too rough with her because she's David's
daughter." Nevertheless, Lavonne believed Candy was fearful of
Miguel and tried to keep them apart.
Just days after Lavonne returned from the hospital, she
confronted Miguel about his treatment of the children. "They're
not my kids," he told her. It was his day off. They had a fight
and Miguel beat Lavonne. That day, because she was afraid Lavonne
now realizes, Maria refused to come out of her room. Although
Maria had been potty trained for over a year, she had a bowel
movement in her pants. Miguel went into the room and yelled "Your
bedroom smells." Discovering the reason, he determined to "teach
her a lesson," and told Lavonne to undress Maria, clean her up
and put her in the shower. Then, he turned the cold water on.
Lavonne grabbed Maria out and screamed at Miguel "Are you crazy?"
Miguel wouldn't allow Lavonne to dress Maria and started snapping
his belt, something he had only done with Lavonne until that
point. He hit Maria repeatedly with the belt, until you could see

the bumps. Maria said nothing despite the beating and Miguel
yelling at her to "say something." This was how Lavonne had come
to respond to Miguel's assaults. Finally, Lavonne tried to
intervene. At that point, Maria turned to her and said "Mommy,
please make him stop. Tell Pappy I'm sorry." Miguel apologized,
Lavonne and he argued and he hit Lavonne.
This fight prompted a neighbor's call to DCF and a worker
came to the house to investigate on September 4, l992. The DCF
report notes that Lavonne is "overwhelmed," that the children
appeared cared for and that she has a "very supportive ally in
her boyfriend." Another DCF case worker, who had visited earlier
in the year, made a followup visit several days later, submitting
the report excerpted at the beginning of the article. Lavonne
repeated that she felt overwhelmed and could not care properly
for Candy. To reiterate, the worker noted that Lavonne had
difficulty responding to her request to remove Candy from the
basement, that Candy was wet and had a bottle with sour milk and
described Maria's bedroom as having dirty sheets and smelling of
feces. Despite the multiple bruises that were obvious to police
later in the day, many of them long-standing, no questions were
asked about abuse, no attempts were made to interview Lavonne's
"supportive ally" and no protective interventions were
recommended for Lavonne or Candy.
On a previous occasion, Danny had taken some scissors out of
a drawer and Miguel had beaten him with a belt. A neighbor
observed bruises and marks on Danny's arms and legs and reported
hearing the children "scream" at night. Danny had already been

questioned by another neighbor, whom he told "Miguel gets upset
when people ask questions." Miguel had "accidentally" shot Danny
with the beebee gun in the rear when he had mistakenly crossed
the line of fire. A few days later, on September l0th, Miguel
again caught Danny with the beebee gun. He had been told not to
touch it. Miguel was furious. Fearing that he would hit Danny the
way he had beaten Maria, Lavonne hit him twice in the back with a
belt. Lavonne simply wanted to make it to the weekend, hoping
that her mother would give her the money to leave. Miguel took
the belt from Lavonne and told her he would show her "the proper
way to discipline." He hit Danny repeatedly in the back of the
legs. When Lavonne protested and told Miguel to stop, Danny
replied "Its ok mommy, I deserve it." Miguel took Danny over near
the stove. Then, he placed his hands on the electric burner.
It was the next day that Danny failed to return from school.
Lavonne was terrified. Several hours after she was told that
Danny would be driven home by the principal, the police arrived
with the DCF worker who had visited most recently. Lavonne's
first thought was that Danny had been in an accident. The social
worker said they were taking her children and she would see them
Monday. When the police entered the house, Miguel stuck fast to
Lavonne. While she was nursing Miguelito in the bedroom, with a
police officer only yards away, Miguel grabbed her hair and told
her she had better say all the right things or she'd have worse
problems when she was released. The officer passed outside the
open door during this incident, but said nothing. Although the
officer observed the bruises on Lavonne the police put her next

to Miguel in the car. On the way to the station, Miguel
reiterated his threats, telling her what to say and threatening
her (in spanish) if she did anything else.
When they arrived at the station, the detective showed
Lavonne pictures of the children's injuries, told her she was a
terrible mother and that, unless she cooperated, she would never
see her children again. One officer observed multiple bruises on
Lavonne, including bruises on her face, arms, legs and thighs,
and drew the logic conclusion. The children had already told
police Miguel beat them. Instead of charging Miguel with these
assaults, a detective pounded his fist on the desk and demanded
that Lavonne admit Miguel had battered her. The detective then
stood, started pacing, and returned to the table and again
pounded on the desk. Just before a beating, Miguel also would
pound on a table and yell. Lavonne became numb with terror. It
was at this point that she admitted to beating the children,
insisted she alone was responsible for their discipline, that
Miguel was "supportive," and that she had sustained the bruises
during childbirth.
Lavonne's "confession" contradicted what the children had
told the police, what Miguel had already told the police and what
was obvious to detectives who directly observed her physical
condition. But she was arrested along with Miguel and both were
charged with risk of injury to the children. She was then placed
in cell next to Miguel for 72 hours. During this time, he
instructed her on how to behave and what to say and threatened to
hurt her again if she didn't do as she was told.

*****
From Domestic Violence to Coercive Control
The experience of being battered takes unique meaning from
the particular strategies the batterer employs "behind closed
doors." For this reason, a positive outcome requires that finders
of fact (judges, jurors, experts and other professionals) "walk
in the shoes" of the victim. But how can we garner this level of
empathy given the many obstacles that discourage identification
with the victim or, conversely, which encourage empathy with a
child whose best interests may be defined in direct opposition
the mother's?
At first reading, Lavonne's the prevailing statutory
emphasis on physical violence seems justified. A calculus of
harms could array Miguel's assaults along a continuum of
increasing severity, from slaps to cigarette burns, kicking and
beating with the board. This emphasis creates several problems,
however. Lavonne's experience was that Miguel's abuse was
"continuous" ("every day," with "one incident flowing into
another") a marked contrast with the statutory emphasis on
discrete episodes of violence. In this respect, Lavonne's
experience confirms interview and crime data showing that in an
estimated 75% of all cases, victims accumulate an "adult trauma
history," i.e. the abuse continues after an initial episode, and
that approximately 40 percent of these cases involve "serial"
abuse, where an offender assaults his partner once a week or more
over a considerable period ( ). The idea that domestic violence
is typically ongoing is gradually taking hold in the issuance of

permanent restraining orders, increased penalties for second or
third offenses, and in the admission of expert testimony on the
"history" of domestic violence in a relationship.31 Without a
specific crime that involves a course of abusive conduct,
however, judges frequently exclude evidence of past abuse as
irrelevant to the immediate problem before the court.32
A second problem involves basing the seriousness of the
abuse claimed on the level of violence inflicted and the presence
of injury, the equation that currently dominates every decision-
point in the legal and criminal justice process. While even a
single assault by a partner technically constitutes a domestic
violence crime and may harm children present, a justice system
31 Since the victim is assumed to be a formally free adult,
however, a strong counter-tendency persists to attribute repeat
assaults to a woman's psychological propensity to 'stay' rather
than to the crime itself or, more immediately, to the failure of
the criminal justice system to effectively deny a known abuser
continued access to his victim. Whether we focus on the offender's
continued access, the victim's psychological state or the actual
pattern of criminal conduct has important implications for
custodial and protective service decision-making as well as for
how defenders and/or victims are charged and defended.
32 In Zack v. Zack, l84 Cal App. 3D 409, 229 Cal. Rptr 3l7
(l986), the California Supreme Court held that when the defendant
is charged with a violent crime and had a previous relationship
with the victim, prior assaults upon the same victim are
admissable when offered to prove disputed issues, such as
identity, intent or motive. However, subsequent to Zack, the
Supreme Court decided People v. Ewoldt 27 Cal. Rptr.2d 646 7 Cal.
4th 380, 867 O,2d 757 (l994) holding that evidence of prior
offenses had to be sufficiently similar to the charged offense to
support the inference that they were part of a cvommon scheme or
plan. People v. Linkenauger 32 Cal. App. 4th, l603, 38 Cal.
Rptr.2d 868 (l995), the California Supreme Court affirmed the
admission of domestic violence evidence against a defendant on
trial for the murder of his wife.

desensitized by repeated exposure to serious harms is unlikely to
be impressed by the generally low level of abuse that
characterizes most battering episodes.33 Against the imagined
background of "real trauma," courts frequently misinterpret the
cumulative terror claimed by victims of chronic low-level
physical intimidation as "exaggerated" or, worse, an example of
their psychological weakness.34
As an expert defense witness in the Lazarra case, the court
allowed me to testify in detail about Miguel's frequent and often
appalling assaults on Lavonne. Using a "dangerousness assessment"
scale to classify the abusive incidents in Lavonne's case, I
argued that she had experienced most of the factors that
predicted risk for homicide, including serial violence, sexual
assault, violence with objects, alcohol abuse, threats to kill,
violence in public or against others, and violence during
pregnancy. Extending from his initial assault on Lavonne within
months of their living together to the day the couple was
arrested, Miguel pushed, slapped, punched, choked and kicked
33 The combination of low level domestic violence and the
episodic focus helps explain why only a minority of incidents
result in police calls, only a tiny proportion of calls (certainly
fewer than 5%) result in arrest, and why the vast majority of
criminal charges are nollied or dropped, even where mandatory
arrest policies in place. Ironically, the emphasis on severe
violence against women that helped to mobilize public sympathy has
also helped turn the average case of woman battering into a second
class misdemeanor, virtually guaranteeing that most offenders will
have continued access to their victims, hence that the battering
will be ongoing.
34 But see NYS Appellate decision, op. cit. where evidence of
abuse taken to indicate mother did not willingly consent to child
living with father.

Lavonne. He pulled her hair, stomped on her, "beat her up," threw
food in her face, and forced fed her "hot" food. He threw knives
at her, cut her with a knife, whipped her with a belt on numerous
occasions, burned her with cigarettes, hit her with bottles and a
board and put his hand over her nose and mouth until she gagged
while she slept. These assaults occurred during sleep, in the
car, during dinner and before, and during and after sexual
intercourse. Miguel assaulted Lavonne throughout her last three
pregnancies, dozens of times, punching her in the stomach,
burning her, and raping her just before and just after she
delivered. Because he regarded Candy as "David's child," his
assaults during this pregnancy were particularly vehement. On one
occasion, when Lavonne attempted to escape form Miguel with the
children, Miguel "tackled" her on the lawn outside. Miguel beat
Lavonne in the presence of David, her mother, her children and
beat his "best friend" for questioning his violence. Rape was a
common facet of Miguel's assaults on Lavonne. The first rape
occurred in September, l99l, while Lavonne was 8 months pregnant
with Candy. A similar episode occurred just prior to the birth
of Miguelito when he tied her hands behind her back with a belt.
Miguel demanded sex once or twice a day, regardless of Lavonne's
wishes or physical condition. Thus, Miguel "had his way with her"
when she was 4 centimeters dilated, immediately after she
returned from the hospital and at night, while she was sleeping.
While these assaults may not have technically consituted rapes,
they dramatized Miguel's claim that he could "do with you what I
want," a threat she knew meant that he could take her life. Prior

to many of these assaults, if not the majority, Miquel had been
drinking. When she and Miguel were arrested, I concluded, Lavonne
was suffering a slow death to which she might eventually have
succumbed.
There was little evidence corrorborating my assessment,
however. Miguel pushed Lavonne and pulled her hair while police
were in the house and threatened her on the way the police
station and while they were in adjacent holding cells. During her
questioning by detectives, police berated Lavonne for not naming
Miguel as the source of the recent bruises they observed on her
body. Neighbors, family members, police, DCF case-workers,
hospital staff, and the teacher at Head Start all observed the
physical results of Miguel's assaults. Lavonne has several
permanent marks and scars from Miguel's assaults with objects.
The miscarriage she suffered shortly after Candy's birth and the
hospital visit for labor six and half weeks before Miguelito's
birth both followed beatings. Lavonne sustained black eyes,
bruises, abrasions, contusions and burns. Despite this, Miguel
was never charged or arrested for battering Lavonne, domestic
violence was mentioned only once in police reports (see below)
and not at all on her medical records, and the children had not
mentioned Miguel's violence when they were interviewed. In fact,
apart from speculation by neighbors and several helping
professionals about the source of Lavonne's physical symptoms,
there was no direct evidence whatsoever that Miguel ever laid a
hand on Lavonne Lazarra. Lavonne's description of Miguel's
frequent and varied assaults met the standards for both internal

and external validity. Still, she had visited a doctor only after
Miguel injured her ear by kicking her in the head and sought no
medical treatment even after she cut her wrist in response to an
attack.
A related dilemma was created because Lavonne lacked frank
psychological symptoms consistent with widely accepted models of
traumatization. She described herself as having been depressed
and had refrained from sharing her situation with the Head Start
teacher, hospital staff or police. But she was not depressed when
I interviewed her and her failure to seek professional help was a
situationally appropriate reaction to the threats she and her
children faced as well as to the response when she had sought
help from police and DCF. The court was willing to believe that
Miguel had beaten Lavonne. But the relevance of this for the
crimes with which she was charged was unclear. If the abuse had
been severe, why were their no obvious psychological
consequences? Conversely, if she was in command of her rational
faculties, how could we explain, mitigate or excuse the bizarre
series of events for which she was indicted?
Reframing the Failure to Protect
Lavonne Lazarra presented the same enigma as Hedda Nussbaum
and the thousands of less dramatic cases where battered mothers
are charged with hurting or failing to protect their children.
Why would a reasonably intelligent and otherwise normal woman
commit, tolerate and/or confess to these heinous crimes? The
mystery is solved only by rooting the logic behind Lavonne's in
the dynamics of coercive control.

Absent the threat posed by documented severe violence, one
wonders whether the victim's personality or family history
predisposes her to stay in an abusive relationship.35 Lavonne
lacked such commonly cited predisposing factors as witnessing or
experiencing abuse as a child or a previous abusive relationship.
Still, her dysfunctional family history nurtured a romantic ideal
in which she played housewife, mother and caretaker to a nuclear
family with Miguel at the center.36 At first, she writes, he
worked twelve hours a day and spent all of this free time with
her and her children. She continued:
"...by mid-May, he and I had a complete relatonship, friendship,
intimacy; he was helping me with my children, he started
making suggestions that he felt were beneficial to us, I
shouldn't hang around the diner, keep the house cleaner, the
ways I fed the kids and what I fed them, the times they went
to bed. (I promised no contact with David since he was no
good for me and the kids and only upset me.). I had never
felt so loved and cared for as I did then."
In hindsight, Lavonne's realizes that Miguel's "suggestions" were
the initial steps in her entrapment. Still, he continued to play
a role in her ideal long after the abuse began. Even his
jealousy, resentment of David (whom she also loved) and his
35 Such a history may be offered to disprove the claim that
current problems were caused by the abusing defendant (to limit
damages in a civil dispute, e.g.), though though offender may be
liable if he knowingly exploited a pre-existing vulnerability.
36 . Richie (pp.56-58) describes the commitment of battered
women to this ideal part of "gender entrapment."

difficulties with alcohol seemed plausible explanations for his
"outbursts." But while Lavonne's ideas of romance may have been
distorted, she responded to each of the problems Miguel posed in
a rational and strategic way: demanding he drink only at the
boarding house, promising not to see or talk to David, eliciting
promises of reform, and forcing Miguel to leave when he broke his
promise and assaulted her a second time. Lavonne appreciated the
dilemmas their relationship created for Miguel among his Mexican
friends and hoped to compensate for the embarassment her
pregnancy with "David's baby" caused him by ending her
questionable social behavior and providing other proofs of
loyalty. When Miguel cried and begged for forgiveness, she was
convinced he loved her.
Irrespective of why Lavonne restricted her activities, she
was already isolated from her social network when Miguel returned
to her house after the second assault. Now, in place of
"outbursts," he initiated a regime of routine, but relatively
minor physical assaults, pushing Lavonne or shoving and grabbing
her for instance, supported by dramatic acts of intimidation:
Miguel smashed the car windshield and dashboard, removed and
snapped his belt as a warning, beat his friend "bloody" and
called from work at all hours to check up on her. He also
destroyed objects that had personal significance for Lavonne.
Since he often smashed things as a preamble to assault, when he
broke her property, she was terrified, even when no physical
attacks followed.
Lavonne's entrapment is inconceivable apart from Miguel's

physical abuse. Yet, what made the ongoing domestic violence
possible, what made her ultimately 'a battered woman,' was her
prior isolation from her mother, sister and friends at the diner
and his assumption of control over every facet of her life, from
her means of survival and support through the microdynamics of
everyday existence.
Control
Building on the substructure of isolation and fear, Miguel
used control over such basic resources as money, food, and
clothing for personal support and to impoverish Lavonne and
increase her dependence. Lavonne was receiving AFDC when she met
Miguel, getting a small supplement from Maria's father and
sharing household expenses with her mother. Since Miguel knew
"best" how to reorganize her life, he took her monthly check and
dispensed only what he thought she needed. Like many other women
in my caseload, Lavonne was regularly questioned about all
expenditures, never allowed to go shopping alone and hit if
Miguel thought she spent money frivilously. When they moved out
of her family home, Lavonne also stopped receiving state
assistance and the couple survived on Miguel's meager wages,
reduced substantially by his expenditures for alcohol. A letter
from the new tenants at Chestnut street reveals there was no
running water in the bathroom, no heat, broken windows and little
electric. Illustrative of their desperate state is a neighbor's
accusation that they were stealing bottled water and the alarm at
Head Start over the children's clothes.
Miguel's control over food and clothing was particularly

significant since these areas of decision-making were identified
with her ideal role as housewife. Miguel demanded she fix
complete Mexican meals like a "Senora."37 When he was
dissatisfied with the food, he threw it on the floor, hit Lavonne
in the face with it or else spiced it hot and forced her to eat
it. When he became convinced Lavonne was trying to poison him, he
forced her to taste everything first. Miguel determined how
Lavonne and the children would dress, telling her what to put on
when he was home. Because he disapproved of women wearing pants,
she could only wear dresses. He also told Lavonne how to wear her
hair.
Miguel's control extended to Lavonne's basic bodily
functions, including eating, sleeping, sex, going to the bathroom
or moving about the house. In addition to the mental games he
played while she slept, he regularly interrupted her sleep by
calling her from work throughout the night, returning home
suddenly or awakening her on his days off or while they were
napping by slapping her, putting his hand over mouth and nose or
by initiating sex. Lavonne became too fearful to sleep while
Miguel was awake. As a result, she was chronically fatigued,
depressed and regressed to an almost childlike state of
dependence.
Miguel demanded sex even when Lavonne was forbidden to have
37 It was only after the couple had been apart for some years
and Lavonne had remarried and ran into Miguel in a store where she
was shopping with her sister-in-law that he first used this term
of respect to address her directly. At that moment, she says, she
felt "vindicated."

sex by the doctor, when she was four centimeters dilated, when
she returned from the hospital having just given birth and when
she began spotting. Miguel demanded sex irregardless of whether
the babies were present. His demands that they take a "nap" when
he came home from work in the morning meant the children too had
to nap or remain unattended, making it extremely difficult to
properly prepare Danny or Stephanie for Head Start or, later,
Danny for school. Miguel enforced his rule over when, where and
how the couple had sex through rape and beatings. Aside from
Lavonne's fear, the most sigificant consequences of Miguel's
sexual assaults were two unwanted pregnancies and the loss of one
baby. Sexual assault (rape) extended Lavonne's sense of physical
violation, undermined her will and was part of the process of
objectification that eventually led Lavonne to attempt suicide.
Miguel told Lavonne when she should or could shower and
insisted that the children take two or three baths or showers a
day. By this time, Lavonne asked permission to go to the
bathroom.
In each case, the particular interplay of violence,
isolation, intimidation and control defines the particular
dynamic and effects of battering. In a homicide case, for
example, my client was made to keep a log book in which she
recorded everything she did during the day, an instance of
control. In an embezzlement case, intimidation and complete
isolation (with minimal violence) were used to enforce a series
of 'rules' about how my client should dress, clean, cook, keep
her apartment, and so forth. Given the complex strategic arsenal

Miguel Sabastian employed to dominate Lavonne Lazarra, it may
seem gratuitious to ask which facet of the battering was most
important. Nevertheless, Lavonne's behavior towards the children
is greatly illuminated when we realize that, alongside violence,
intimidation and control, Miguel's use of isolation most directly
undermined her grasp on reality.
Isolation
From the day he moved in, Miguel pressured Lavonne to stay
home, not go to the diner, cook at home and to stop seeing
friends whom he felt were either no good for her or jealous of
her good fortune. At first, his concern seemed to provide the
organization the family lacked. Lavonne soon realized that she
was restricted to the house. According to an anonymous call to
police, Miguel molested Lavonne's neice (for whom she was
sitting), resulting in a break with her sister. Miguel
interpreted the time Lavonne spent with her mother or other
family members as "disloyalty" to him, the issue that came to a
head on Christmas day, l99l, when he tried following her to her
grandmother's house, wrecked the car, then threatened to kill
himself (and her) if she didn't return immediately. An interview
with a male neighbor reveals that Miguel forbade Lavonne to talk
with other men because this was not something Mexican women did.
she was also forbidden to drive her car except to transport him
to work or the children to school; she was forbidden to shop by
herself; and she was expected to remain in the house all day,
while Miguel was sleeping. Jealousy of David and other Mexican
men played a role in the restraints Miguel placed on Lavonne. His

desire to make her his personal property and servant was equally
important, however.38
A viscious cycle developed in which Lavonne's deteriorating
functioning reinforced her fear of what would happen if others
discovered the battering to isolate her as powerfully as Miguel's
explicit retraints. She initially confused Miguel's
possessiveness with caring, but quickly realized that the best
way to deal with his unpredictability was to restrict her own
activity, irregardless of whether he was present. After Miguel
beat his "best friend" bloody for criticizing his behavior,
Lavonne was terrified of what he would do to her or to family
members or neighbors who intervened. These fears were reawakened
when the Head Start teacher or a neighbor offered to help,
causing her to appear alternately "anxious" or reticient. Lavonne
took the children to a neighbor's in the evening and allowed them
to play in another neighbor's yard. But she was fearful of
talking about her situation. This fear made her increasingly
immobile, until she left the house only to get Stephanie at the
bus or to drive Miguel to work. When the couple moved a second
time, Lavonne's isolation became complete. She now had a car--and
there were often two or three at the house. But she was not
38 Monitoring a woman's behavior by constant telephone contact,
having her wear a beeper, and enlisting others (including family
members) to watch or track her, often extends to the use of the
children to spy on the mother, report on her whereabouts, and
record her telephone calls, particularly after a couple separates.
In one recent case, the battered wife threw a shoe at her teenage
son, causing a bruise on his foot, after she found tapes of her
telephone calls the boy had made at his father's request. The
school reported the injury to CPS and custody was shifted to the
abusive father.

allowed to drive by herself. When she drove him to work, he
insisted she leave the children (except, later, Miguelitto),
ensuring she would not go anywhere but straight home. If DCF
became involved, Miguel warned, they would find out she was
"crazy" and take her children. This possibility was communicated
to the children--as an interview with a neighbor reveals--and
kept them from honestly discussing the situation with neighbors,
friends or at school.
Lavonne was also isolated by the consistently inappropriate
professional response to her predicament. As domestic violence
became more obvious--because neighbors heard screams or observed
bruises--Lavonne's anxiety increased about what would happen if
Miguel's behavior was disclosed. As a formerly battered woman
herself, a neighbor, Mrs. Rapari, understood the situation and
comforted Lavonne and the children without demanding that they
discuss the abuse. By contrast, police, the Head Start teacher,
the nurses at the hospital and others to whom the abuse was
transparent believed her reticence signalled Lavonne's complicity
in the situation and either did nothing or actively exacerbated
her isolation by insisting she admit to the abuse. After Miguel
beat Lavonne for the first time with a belt, he kicked her in the
head, injuring her ear. The physician recognized the signs of
assault, but did nothing to indicate concern. On the one occasion
when Lavonne might have escaped, when she was with her family and
had had Miguel arrested, the police used her as an interpreter,
leading to a rape and beating. Lavonne had abrasions and bruises
on her face, arms, back, trunk, legs and thighs when she came to

the hospital in premature labor and when she was admitted to
deliver Miguelito. Again, there were neither inquiries about
abuse nor referrals. On September ll, police investigating
allegations of child abuse and neglect observed Miguel pushing
Lavonne and pulling her hair and using coercive language and saw
her multiple bruises. Officer Kehoe's report details the bruises
he observed and concludes "Lazarra was being abused (beaten) by
her boyfriend Sabastian." Although this evidence constituted
probable cause that a domestic violence crime had been committed
and should have resulted in an arrest under Connecticut's policy
of "mandatory arrest," no such charges were filed. Instead,
police placed Lavonne and Miguel together in the back seat of the
cruiser and in adjacent cells (where he continued to intimidate
her), badgered her to implicate Miguel in her injuries and then,
when this failed, told her she was a "bad mother" who would never
see her children again. Finally, there was the response of DCF.
Caseworkers with the Department of Children and Families are
given directives requiring them to assess for domestic violence
in cases of suspected child abuse or neglect. Moreover, Lavonne
had requested help with Candy. During two investigative visits to
the house, however, the caseworker ignored physical and
circumstantial evidence of woman battering and offered no
assistance. Instead, Lavonne was chided for inappropriate
parenting and Miguel was described as "supportive." By denying
the abuse, minimizing its significance and then focusing blame
for both the children's problems and her own on Lavonne,
professionals involved in this case reinforced Miguel's strategy

of isolation, compounded her sense that he could do what he
wanted to her without sanction, and reinforced his warning that
if the battering was exposed, she would be blamed, not him.
Entrapment
Over time, isolation reduced the parameters of Lavonne's
universe to those Miguel defined as real even as the rules he
laid down became her moral compass. Miguel's narrow and obsessive
emotional frame set the boundaries within which it was safe for
her to think about the children. So, for example, she came to
define them as "bad" (or, at least, to conclude punishment was
"for their own good") if they disturbed Miguel's sleep, excited
his ire by violating one of his many rules, or failed to comply
with his beliefs about dress, food, or cleanliness. However,
Miguel's rules were erratic, contradictory and designed to calm
his inner anxiety, gratify an obsession or to create the
appearance of a "family" that conformed to the rigid ideas he had
internalized through his own abuse as a child. This was
illustrated by the "rule" that the children shower and change
their clothes several times a day. What initially felt to Lavonne
like an attempt to create order in her household quickly
degenerated into chaos, weakening any genuine authority she had
had with her children, exposing her and the children to even
tighter (and more irrational) controls by Miguel, increasing her
own anxiety about the consequences of violation, and reducing her
disciplinary repetoire to more extreme forms of punishment.
If Lavonne felt "trapped" after Candy's birth, it was only
just before she entered the hospital with Miguelito (when she

told Miguel "I don't care what you do to me") and when she
returned from the hospital after his birth that she fully
realized he had no regard for her life and would eventually kill
her if she didn't escape. Moreover, when Miguel beat Maria with
the belt and she refused to cry, immitating Lavonne's response,
and burned Danny's hand on the stove, she realized his violence
against the children was following the same path as his violence
towards her. When she was arrested, Lavonne was preparing to
escape with money borrowed from her uncle.
****
Had Lavonne Lazarra killed Miguel Sabastian, we could have
confidently argued that her acts comprised what the criminologist
Marvin Wolfgang (l9 ) calls, somewhat sardonically, "victim
percipitated homicide." Instead, she was charged with harming the
children, not Miguel, and with failing to protect them from his
assaults. How does the fact that Lavonne was deprived of basic
liberties help us reframe the instances of abuse and neglect?
Like so many of the other battered women in my forensic
caseload, Lavonne's predicament at the time of her alleged crimes
became clear when the coercive control model was used to
highlight the progressive erosion of basic liberties she suffered
due to Miguel's battering. Domestic violence contributed to
Lavonne's entrapment. But the duration, frequency and effects of
Miguel's assaults were a direct function of the "nonviolent"
strategies he used to intimidate, control and especially to
isolate her. These strategies deprived Lavonne of the social,
psychological and material resources she needed to protect

herself and her children, not merely of the opportunity to do so
without risking grave harm to herself.
The Battered Mother's Dilemma
Lavonne's case illustrates how the 'story' woven to
prosecute battered women in child abuse cases is a peculiar mix
of gender bias and compassion for children. The child protection
narrative is framed so as to exclude the male batterer (an
example of sexist bias). But once the unifying source of power
and subjugation is erased, any compassion caseworkers feel for
children is displaced to reinforce their anger at the battered
mother as the primary cause of harm to the child. Without
understanding how Miguel's coercion and control constrained
Lavonne's choices, the DCF workers drew what seemed a natural
connection between the sorry state of the household (symbolized
by the odor of feces in Maria's room), the pathetic condition in
which Candy was found in the basement, Lavonne's psychological
state and her capacity to parent. To set the stage for outside
intervention, the report reconstructed a dialogue in which
Lavonne validated the classic vignette of the abusive mother as
"depressed" and "overwhelmed." Referring to the basement, the
caseworker wrote:
"Advised mother that child can't be left alone down
here...Mother said 'ok, I respect your opinion. If that's what
you think, then I'll take her out." When mother didn't move...I
moved aside the bed frame and mattress and lifted the baby out."
To the caseworker, Lavonne's decision to keep Candy in the
basement was irrational and her reluctance to remove the child

when advised to do so was a sign she was generally sluggish,
overwhelmed, depressed and unable to cope. In reality, of course,
Lavonne was 'frozen' not by depression but by the dilemma
described above: should she follow the worker's dictate and put
Candy at risk from Miguel or should she refuse and be defined as
a "bad mother" by the worker? There was another facet as well to
Lavonne's dilemma at this moment, whether to reveal Miguel's
abuse--and risk both his rage and the caseworker's punitive
response-- or to appear "crazy." Lavonne could not protect Candy
unless she was protected herself. But if she asked for protection
for herself, her child might be removed and she--or the
children--might be badly hurt. In the matrix of power in which
she found herself, Lavonne chose a dangerous gambit: she sought
aid by drawing attention to her problems with Candy although
given the range of problems in her life at the moment (including
the probability she would be killed), these were not the most
significant. By projecting an image of herself as "unable to
cope," she hoped to accommodate the preconceptions of child
protection and so, indirectly, to garner the supports needed to
protect herself and her children.39 Lavonne strategically used
her depression to seek resources for her daughter, an example of
'control in the context of no control.'
The police posed an identical dilemma to Lavonne when they
demanded she accuse the man they had put next to her in the squad
car and in an adjacent cell. When she refused to comply with this
39 . This may seem too deliberate. To the contrary, battered
women are often expert at reading what others expect of them, even
if they decide not to comply.

untenable request, they became abusive and threatening, telling
her she was a "bad mother" and that "you will never see your
children again." Since this was the same argument Miguel used to
get his way, Lavonne understood instantly that 'being depressed'
was of no strategic use. Besides, the gambit had failed with
child protection.
The agencies designed to provide protection and support
often reinforce the battered mother's dilemma by placing women
like Lavonne in what psychiatrists call a "double bind." In the
classic case, a parent makes their love contingent on the young
child assuming a disorted sense of reality. To avoid the pain of
separation implied by the withdrawal of love, the child adapts a
"false self" in accord with this distortion. Since implicating
Miguel evoked an unbearable sense of existential risk, Lavonne
assumed the "false self" of "bad mother" that was projected onto
her by the police and DCF.40 In the psychiatric literature,
communication that put children in a double-bind was traced to
pathology in the so-called "schizophrengenic" mother. In
Lavonne's case, the pathology that infected communication derived
from the gendered frame within which she was perceived and the
children's abuse was interpreted. With the major source of
external constraint, Miguel's coercive control, obscured, the
40 Importantly, once Lavonne was out of her relationship with
Miguel, the anxiety dissipated and she was able to frankly discuss
her dilemma and avoid being placed in a double-bind. Thus, when
the psychiatrist assigned to assess her case at the Yale Child
Study Center insisted on interviewing her with Miguel present, she
unhesitatingly explained the situation this put her in. When the
psychiatrist was incredulous, she called her attorney to ensure
she would be kept safe.

scope of plausible interpretations of why the children had been
harmed was considerably narrowed. A third alternative, asking for
help, had ended disasterously, confirming Miguel's warnings about
what would happen if she "talked." Thus, when Lavonne was
arrested, the power of CPS and the police converged with Miguel's
coercive control to narrow the cognitive frame through which she
was perceived by the world and through which she perceived
herself and the world around her, including her children. To this
extent, the institutional response became part of her entrapment.
Closing the Safety Zone
In a pioneering study, Elaine (Carmen) Hilberman identified
a "homicidal rage" in many of her battered mental health clients.
Ideally, we would like a battered parent to separate their
commitment to nurture a dependent child from the mounting rage
they feel as their needs for autonomy, personal power, empathy,
and social connection are denied or supressed by a malevolent
other. Family attorneys and judges dispair of clients who use the
courtroom to "spew their venom" at one another. But this is
clearly preferable to taking the anger out on the children, an
all too common alternative, or somatizing it in depression or
other psychiatric symptoms.
In terms of psychic economy, to control or appropriately
discharge anger, persons require a "safety zone," a private and
relatively conflict-free space in their lives where they can
reflect objectively on their situation, experience a reality that
they recognize as uniquely theirs, or express feelings they have
about their lives with a minimum of risk. Such spaces may be

social, involving work, school, religion, friends, children or
other family members for instance, or 'private,' involving
diaries, collections, photos or other artifacts that symbolize a
life before or outside the relationship, or even rituals (e.g.
vaccuuming, putting on makeup, watching a favorite TV show,
making the bed, practicing piano, exercising, eating, having sex)
during which victims can 'space out' to temporarily remove
themselves from the situation. An important difference between
'true battering' and 'simple domestic violence' is that, in the
former, direct expressions of angry thoughts or feelings with the
partner put the victim at extremely high risk and so must be
constantly censored or repressed and displaced. This suggests the
importance of safety zones for abused women. Lavonne came close
to expressing her rage at Miguel only once, when she held the
knife, but would have had to stab him to prevent further harm,
something she wisely chose not to do. Batterers typically
perceive the safety zones their partners establish as
threatening, monitor their appearance, and will do everything in
their power to make them unavailable. Men in my practice have
climbed trees, followed their partners with their headlights off,
hidden under beds or in closets to spy on their partners,
forbidden partners to go to gym or church, called them repeatedly
or stalked them at work, listened to the answering machine and
returned calls to persons they don't recognize, pulled out
phones, ransacked drawers, read through or stolen diaries,
destroyed photo albums, burned address books, cut up their
clothes (so they couldn't go out), blocked in their car, stolen

their keys, and so forth.41
After she stopped going to the diner and Miguel had
destroyed the personal objects she had in the house, Lavonne
sought to meet her need for a world apart in the relationship
with the children and by maintaining her household to the "real
family" she hoped for. As Miguel undermined any sense of self
derived from household work, Lavonne's attempts to maintain
autonomy became increasingly limited to and confused (or fused)
with her childcare. Gradually, her relations with the children
became the only safe place to express a range of needs and
feelings denied expression by Miguel, including her anger.
Lavonne continued to care for her children. But her caring was
increasingly filtered through the dynamics of Miguel's battering
until it too became a function of his coercion and control, an
example of what I have called "patriarchal mothering." In
Lavonne's case, this pattern was quite direct, as when, behind
threats and intimidation, Miguel commanded her to discipline the
children in specific ways. But patriarchal mothering also
occurred indirectly, as when Lavonne hit the children or took
other inappropriate measures (such as leaving Candy in the
41 The 'battle' over the 'safety zone' is often the watershed
even in an abusive relationship, determining when a woman finally
leaves for good or when a homicide occurs, for example. In one
case, a trucker would come home from a long trip in the middle-of-
the night, awaken his partner, insist on sex and food, then beat
her in a jealous rage. But it was only when he forbid his wife to
go to church that she finally left. In the well-known case of 'the
burning bed,' Francine Hughes set the fire that killed her husband
after he burned her school books. For Hughes, school was a safety
zone because it allowed her to think of a life beyond the
relationship and to make friends.

basement) to 'protect' them from more severe punishment by
Miguel. There were also times when Lavonne took out the fear and
anger evoked by the battering on the children. Ironically,
contrary to the belief that she had abandoned her interest in
parenting, in these instances, she had defined motherhood as the
only viable arena for self-expression.42 That Lavonne's efforts
to protect Candy from Miguel took on the perverse form of
"neglect" was a function of objective constraints over which she
had no control.
Child Abuse as 'Tangential' Spouse Abuse
Ironically, the same women who are defined as "helpless" or
"overwhelmed" by CPS are nonetheless held fully responsible by
the criminal law for harms their batterers inflict on their
children. This is possible because state statutes criminalize
omissions; only l2 states require an overt act to constitute
child abuse ("commission statutes"). Note the irony implied by
the omission standard. The law implicitly requires that a woman
act to protect her child, even if the result may be that she is
disabled or killed, thus depriving the children of even more
fundamental protection. Only three states (Minnesota, Iowa and
42 . From the beginning, the most progressive elements of the
Battered Woman's Movement have insisted that women become better
mothers when they are treated as independent adults with needs of
their own. The contrasting view, commonly promoted in the child
psychology and child protection literature, is that mother's who
seek personal gratification or seem to put their own needs before
the needs of their children are "narcisstic" or otherwise self-
indulgent. It is hard to novice caseworkers to imagine the
resentment women feel (towards their children as well as
providers) when they are offered resources to meet their
children's needs, but not their own.

Oklahoma) have statutorily adopted an affirmative defense to the
charge of failure to protect a child based on the parent's
reasonable fear of severe injury to him-or herself or to the
child.iii
Earlier, we reviewed the weaknesses of countering 'risk of
injury', 'failure to protect', and related charges by arguing
that severe, long-lasting physical abuse caused a mother to lose
her capacity for protective action or decision-making.
Interestingly, the picture of Lavonne constructed by the DCF
caseworker and used as one basis for removing her children
closely resembled the portrait of learned helplessness suggested
by traumatization theories. Given this framework, it is unclear
whether the response by police, CPS and other professionals
involved in the case would have changed substantially had the
domestic violence become an explicit part of the case. The police
were clearly aware of Lavonne's condition, for example, but
continued to berate her as a "bad mother." Even had there been
evidence of severe physical injury and long-lasting psychological
damage, the ingrained normative assumptions about mothering and
the extent of child abuse before the court make the evidentiary
standard employed to assess her battering very difficult to
satisfy. Presenting an impressive image of victimization was less
the problem in the Lazarra case than providing the court with a
conceptual framework that both mitigated Lavonne's culpability
and provided a clearer picture of how the children could or
should have been protected. Without such a 'story' neither CPS

nor the courts have any incentive to treat a battered mother
differently than any other mother who fails to protect their
children, withholds medical care, or willingly exposes them to
the untoward influences of violence, drugs or alcohol.
To reiterate: the narrative built from coercive control
shifts the focus of legal attention in failure to protect cases
from the physical harms and psychological trauma the woman has
suffered to objective restraints on liberty which have deprived
her of her rights to autonomous (self-protective) decision-making
and effective action (to prevent harm to her child). To this
extent, it offers a more exacting variation of the duress
defense. If Lavonne perceived her options as limited and made a
choice that harmed her child, this was, first and foremost,
because her options had been limited to the battered mother's
dilemma by Miguel's strategies. In place of psychological
dysfunction and victimization, we seek 'justice' by emphasizing
that Lavonne repeatedly made the best, the most protective
choices available to her. The court is not offered a victim, but
asked to imagine what it took to reduce this strong, intelligent,
independent woman to the sorry state in which she was found. The
last step in constructing the argument is to provide a more
credible depiction of exactly why and how child abuse or neglect
emerge as part of the dynamics of woman battering.
In contrast to conventional empirical accounts of how
domestic violence and child abuse 'overlap,' the concept of
'tangential spouse abuse" establishes the sequence of child abuse

in relation to other coercive strategies, fixes accountability
with the batterer and explains why child abuse occurs when and
how it does. We have already cited the research showing that the
onset of child abuse or neglect typically postdates the onset of
domestic violence;43 and that the battering partner is the
typical child abuser. We must return to the case material to
illustrate how these facts interrelate.
In "tangential" spouse abuse, hurting the children is
secondary to dominating their mother. The child abuse and woman
battering may begin together. More often, as with Miguel, the
batterer extends his coercive control to the child in response to
a woman's threats to leave or other signs that direct forms of
control are no longer effective in subordinating her will. The
key is that the types and extent of child abuse the batterer
employs are shaped by their effects on the partner rather than on
the children. What is true of woman battering generally is also
true here: the harms children suffer because of intimidation,
isolation and control directed at them or their mother may be as
great as the effects of violence. Thus, the risk to children in
battering relationships is a direct function of the absolute
4314. Unfortunately, the sample selection process Dr. Flitcraft and
I used to study battering among the mothers of abused children at
Yale-New Haven Hospital precludes any definitive conclusions about
the relative onset of these events overall. In the 45% of the
child abuse and neglect cases where domestic violence occurred, it
preceded the onset of identified harms to the child. However,
because our study involved a retrospective record review of cases
"darted" by the hospital staff, we have no way to know whether
domestic violence occurred in other cases after the study period
ended.

level of coercive control irregardless of the immediate
presentation of injury or neglect by the child.
Like woman battering generally, it is helpful to conceive of
tangential spouse abuse as a staged experience which unfolds in
tandem with the strategies used against the mother. In most
abusive relationships where children are present, the mother's
relationship to her children is a primary arena for her sense of
selfhood, hence an early target of the batterer's control. Common
themes in this first stage are the batterer's obsession with his
partner's loyalty and his jealousy of alternative attachments,
including those she feels towards her children as well towards
future children during pregnancy. Violence during pregnancy
illustrates child abuse as tangential spouse abuse. Tangential
spouse abuse, like battering generally, can be conceived of as a
staged experience which unfolds in tandem with the strategies
used against the mother. In most abusive relationships where
children are present, the mother's relationship to her children
is a primary arena for her sense of selfhood, hence an early
target of the batterer's control. Common themes in this first
stage are the batterer's obsession with his partner's loyalty and
his jealousy of alternative attachments, including those she
feels towards her children as well towards future children during
pregnancy.
In the early phase of their relationship, Miguel showed
little interest in the children's discipline. Instead, he used
the children's care as a pretext to isolate and control Lavonne
and to support her transformation into a traditional "senora."

Miguel suggested Lavonne not take the children to the diner, the
major source of her social connections, and, at home, managed how
she dressed, fed and cleaned them.
The second phase of tangential spouse abuse involves holding
the mother accountable for the children's behavior. Because of
intimidation and fear, the battered woman attempts to enforce the
partner's wishes, however irrational they may be. Because he is
also gradually disabling her, her accountability to the batterer
for the children is a pretext for escalating violence and
control.
Lavonne adapted Miguel's suggestions because she believed
they showed he cared about them as a "family." In Miguel's mind,
compliance signified Lavonne's consent to "rules" that had the
force of domestic law. The transition to the second stage
occurred when Miguel wanted Katalina's name changed to Maria, his
grandmother's name. A secondary function of the name change was
to further isolate Lavonne from her mother, who refused call her
granddaughter anything but Maria. The first assault occurred
shortly afterwards. Now, Miguel directly oversaw her enforcement
of "rules" for how the children should dress, behave, eat and
wash, what they should say and to whom they should talk. Miguel
would yell at the children occasionally or order them about. But
when they failed to meet the standards he set, Lavonne was the
primary target of his anger, not the children. Lavonne, in turn,
attempted to regiment the children's behavior according to
Miguel's rules, adapting new means of discipline that conformed
to a new level of required domestic order which she initially

thought reasonable. Since Miguel's expectations and rules were
constantly changing, however, consistent enforcement was
impossible and discipline futile.44 Lavonne's "failure" to
control the children quickly became an occasion for Miguel to
further intimidate and isolate her. To the extent that there were
real and serious consequences for Lavonne if children violated
Miguel's rules (e.g. made noise while he slept), she had a
profound self-interest in assuming his disciplinary project as
her own. In fact, Miguel's coercive behavior had little to do
with how the children behaved. As this became clearer to Lavonne,
her discipline became less rather than more flexible because
'anything might set him off.'
The third phase of tangential spouse abuse is characterized
by two concurrent and contradictory themes, pressure on the
mother to escalate her discipline of the children and use of the
children to intimidate the mother. If the mother separates or
shows other signs of independence, the children may be enlisted
in the mother's intimidation or isolation through 'spying', may
be held 'hostage' either literally or indirectly or may be
intimidated and isolated directly. In the latter cases, the
batterer may initiate physical abuse of the children.
Shortly after Candy's ("David's child") birth, Lavonne
stopped reacting to Miguel's assaults and even fought back on
several occasions. In response, Miguel escalated the rules she
was to enforce with the children--requiring that they wash three
44 Note, this is the opposite of traditional family situations
in which rules are set, consequences of violation are clear, and
one parent is expected to be the enforcer.

times daily for instance. He also demanded that Lavonne
discipline the children more harshly, leading on one occasion to
Lavonne hitting Danny on the back with a belt. In addition,
Miguel used the children against Lavonne, asked them about her
whereabouts, presented them with "proof" that she was crazy, and
restricted her access to them unless he was present. Each of
these maneuvers further undermined Lavonne's authority, making it
necessary, for her own safety, to escalate discipline. While some
of the earlier forms of discipline orchestrated by Miguel seemed
merely pointless, the choices now confronting Lavonne involved
steps she viewed as wrong, even dangerous, though not obeying
Miguel could be even more so. For example, Miguel insisted that
Danny (who was 7 at the time) was old enough to watch Candy,
Stephanie and Maria while Lavonne took the baby and drove him to
work. Lavonne knew this was "crazy," but she acquiesed
nevertheless, rationalizing that it was better than if the
children saw her assaulted in the car or were hit themselves. She
had few alternatives, since Miguel insisted on being driven and
wanted to separate her from the children so she would not try to
escape. Danny claims Miguel also hit Candy during this period,
though this was never confirmed.
In the final stage of tangential spouse abuse, the batterer
extends the full force of coercive control to the children to
enforce their loyalty and obedience. This may include escalating
or serial physical abuse, the cycle of violence, frequent
threats, the micromanagement of their everyday lives, including
their relationships to friends and family, their sexuality, and

deprivation of vital resources, including food, clothing, sleep
or money. Frequently, the batterer now defines mother and
children as a single unit in opposition to himself and interprets
signs of independence (from children or their mother) or mutual
affection between mother and children as betrayal. If the mother
succeeds in separating, the batterer may respond with a dramatic
act of violence that includes the children (burning the house,
e.g.) or, as often, attempt to completely alienate the children
from their mother, often with the court's assistance.
After Miguelito's birth, Miguel reenacted with the children
the same cycle of violence and apology that initially typified
his abuse of Lavonne. His assault on Maria has already been
described. Importantly, the hospital stay served as a safety zone
for Lavonne, giving her space to think about her life. Not only
was she able to get the hysterectomy he opposed but, when she
returned home with 4 day old Miguelito in her arms, she
confronted Miguel about his mistreatment of the children and he
beat her, terrifying Maria. Still, when Miguel turned on the
cold water in the shower, Lavonne pulled Maria out and again
confronted him. Miguel undoubtedly now saw Maria and Lavonne as
part of a joint resistance and so turned the anger at Maria he
had only shown to Lavonne until now, snapping and using his belt.
Maria too sensed the affinity with her mother and, like Lavonne,
refused to cry or say she was sorry. It was only after Lavonne
intervened and Miguel turned to hurt her that Maria conceded,
telling her mother to "tell pappy I'm sorry."
By his own admission, Miguel had beaten Danny with the belt

on a previous occasion for taking some scissors out of a drawer.
A neighbor observed bruises and marks on Danny's arms and legs
and reported hearing the children "scream" at night. These
"fights" were often provoked when the children resisted Miguel's
rule that they shower three or more times daily. Miguel also
admitted "accidentally" shooting Danny in the rear with the
beebee gun when the boy had mistakenly crossed "the line of
fire."
Lavonne's loss of control over the children and basic
household maintenance was certainly aggravated by her depression
and exhaustion. But it was the sheer number and absurdity of
Miguel's rules that ultimately made it impossible to devise a
general code of behavior for the children, even a very strict
one. Since the only external reference for the rules was Miguel's
perception of how they controlled Lavonne, the children could not
have followed them even if they had set their minds to doing so.
In order to ensure her own and the children's safety, therefore,
Lavonne was forced to focus her discipline on obedience for its
own sake, no matter how irrational the dictate, and to
micromanage their every move, an impossible chore even had their
been no new born and Miguel had not required continual
servicing. The result was that Lavonne simply let the children do
as they pleased, fulfilling Miguel's accusation that she was a
bad mother, and only intervened when the children's behavior was
extreme or Miguel threatened to intervene himself. In these
situations, hitting seemed appropriate either to protect the
children from Miguel's even harsher punishments or because,

unable to control Miguel, she struck out at the only other source
of chaos she could safetly blame, hoping to "keep the lid on"
until she had the money to escape. A third motive, to protect
herself from being hurt, remained beneath the surface. The older
children recognized that their being hit by their mother had
little to do with their behavior and that the alternatives were
worse.
Fearing that Miguel would beat Danny the way he had beaten
Maria, Lavonne hit him in the back twice with the belt. Miguel
was not satisfied. He took the belt from Lavonne, said he would
show her "the proper way to discipline," then hit Danny
repeatedly in the back of the legs. When Lavonne protested and
told Miguel to stop, Danny replied, hoping to protect his mother
in the only way he knew how. "Its ok mommy." he said. "I deserve
it." Miguel then took Danny to the stove and placed his hands on
the electric burner.
Conclusions
Unlike the traumatization model, the coercive control
perspective does not require an assessment of parenting skills to
reframe situations in which woman battering coexists with child
abuse. The working assumption is that the battered mother
possesses the "average level of parental competence" needed to
care for and protect her children, but that this competence,
expressed only indirectly into the poor choices she is forced to
make, fully emerges only when she is protected from coercion.
From this assumption, two things follow.
First, unless proved otherwise, where battering is present,

child abuse and neglect are assumed to arise because of the
domestic violence, intimidation, isolation and control strategies
of the batterer, whether the mother or the children have been
their primary focus. Thus, while Lavonne left Danny home to care
for his younger sibs, this was not her choice, but Miguel's, to
ensure she would return home promptly after dropping him at work.
When restraints on the mother's liberty are recognized as the key
element in battering, accountability for harming the children
falls squarely with the batterer and is "shared" only if there is
a history of child abuse prior to the onset of coercive
control.45
Secondly, the assumption of "average maternal competence"
helps the court reframe behaviors that appear dysfunctional (or
malevolent) as protective of self and child given the limited
range of realistic choices afforded in the battering situation.
In marked contrast to the "learned helplessness" theory of Lenore
Walker, we have identified a psychologically healthy logic of
maternal resistance to battering underlying even such apparently
pathological behaviors as attempted suicide. In Lavonne's case,
this helped us reframe the decision to take Candy to a basement
room that was inaccessible from the house while Miguel was home.
What appeared to the DCF worker as clear evidence of "neglect"
45 . Thus battering offers a history of coercive control as an
affirmative defense for the battered mother charged with "failure
to protect". This is not meant as an absolute standard, however,
since there are cases where evidence of harms to the children is
grossly disproportionate to the level of constraint on the woman.
In a subsequent book, I plan to deal with the implications of this
framework in civil proceedings involving child placement or
custody decisions.

was, within a context governed by Miguel's jealous rages, the
best way Lavonne could imagine to protect "David's child". That
Candy's health might have been jeopardized in the damp cellar was
preferable to exposing her to Miguel's anger.
The law focuses on accountability and that is the thrust of
the narrative built around coercive control. But nothing I have
said is meant to suggest that Lavonne is free of responsibility
for what happened to her children. Many battered mothers lack
adequate parenting skills, are mentally ill or become addicted to
substances for reasons that have nothing to do with coercion or
control. Many of Lavonne's inappropriate acts cannot be reframed
as rational, even within the context of control. Her growing
subordination to Miguel clearly had a psychological dimension,
for example, which distorted her sense of judgement, damaged her
self-esteem, and caused her to regress to a time when the
approval or disapproval of significant adults was a primary basis
for her self-worth. This dynamic contributed to her capacity to
rationalize levels of violence and neglect of the children--her
own and Miguel's-- that were incompatible with her basic sense of
responsibility, let alone her notions of right and wrong. She
attempted to manage her growing rage at Miguel in the safest way
she could, by directing it against herself and attempted to
control it through passive-aggressive means-- the process we term
"control in the context of no control." But the result of this
rational choice was that she adapted a depressive mode of
reacting (though I never found her clinically depressed). A
direct response to Miguel's tatooing his name on her body, the

suicide attempt was an example of this adaptation rather than of
underlying psychiatric disease.46 Nevertheless, her mode of
reacting reinforced her increasing immobility in the face of
harm, her chronic fatigue and a certain resignation to her fate,
endangering the children.
Lavonne's suicide attempt was an active attempt to control
her fate compared to the hopelessness that overtook her after
Candy's birth. External evidence of this feeling comes from the
Chestnut Street House where garbage accumulated, basic
conveniences were absent and the couple stole drinking water from
neighbors. Unable or afraid to openly resist Miguel or show her
anger, Lavonne adapted passive modes of resistance, pretending to
sleep, refusing to react to Miguel's assaults and, finally,
telling Miguel, "you can do anything you want, just get it over
with." Even elements of this reaction were functional since
crying or begging Miguel for mercy made him more violent, not
less, a lesson not lost on Maria. Lavonne's physical state during
the relationship should be kept in mind: during almost two years
of serial assault, Lavonne had given birth twice and had one
miscarriage. In other words, she was pregnant during all but one
or two of the months the couple was together.
The point remains. Until she was a free agent, it was
impossible to objectively assess Lavonne's culpability, determine
46 The Yale Trauma Studies revealed that 29 percent of female
suicide attempts are made by battered women, Lest there be any
doubt about the context of this behavior, consider this: fully
36.5% of the battered women who attempted suicide did so on the
same day that they presented a domestic violence complaint to the
hospital (Stark & Flitcraft, ;l996).

her educational needs as a parent, or to distinquish any clinical
symptoms or moral deficits from protective, survival-oriented
adaptations to battering.47 For instance, Lavonne adapted to the
violence, and particularly to the multiple rapes, by distancing
herself from her physical self, stepping outside her body and
functioning through significant phases of the two year ordeal as
if none of this was trully happening to her or her family. While
this adaptation reduced her capacity to evaluate danger, it also
had protective effects, keeping her from exposing the abuse and
so risking severe harm to herself and the children. Distancing
also allowed Lavonne to keep cool at moments when a more "normal"
mother would have lost it, such as when Miguel beat Maria with
the belt, and might have provoked even more serious and perhaps
lethal violence. That Lavonne was in at least partial denial is
evident from reports that she concentrated on "the good times"
and that, "apart from the beatings, everything was going
smoothly." However fantastic it may seem, the positive attitude
that results from a kind of psychic splitting is a common
survival mechanism employed by childhood victims of sexual abuse,
hostages or prisoners-of-war. Lavonne's positive attitude towards
even the most devastating moments in her life helps explain why
Miguel's terrorism did not damage her children even more
fundamentally.
47 This assumption in no way prevents CPS from removing
children from situations where danger is imminent. Instead, it
requires, to the extent possible, that the decision to use
placement to keep a child safe be based on joint decision-making
with the mother and be part of an ongoing strategy of enhanced
advocacy on behalf of battered women.

Lavonne Lazarra unquestionably internalized a good deal of
the world as Miguel presented it, a world in which the assaults
were provoked by her own failures as mother, housekeeper, money
manager, cook and sexual partner. Ironically, however, as with so
many other battered women, Lavonne actually gained a sense of
control through the process of internalizing blame: if her
shortcomings caused Miguel's violence, then by altering her
behavior she might prevent it. By contrast, as it became clear
that nothing she did affected Miguel and that her limited
attempts to present her problems to others were similarly
ineffectual, she withdrew into herself, losing touch with some
basic protective instincts. Through this process, Lavonne became
a dysfunctional caretaker, a fact that she denied because she
felt an overwhelming guilt about failing in her maternal
responsibilities.
The coercive control model neither minimizes the
psychological effects of battering on victims nor the personal
responsibility women like Lavonne must bear for behaving
shamefully with those they love. Its claim, to reiterate, is
that, absent a detailed working knowledge of the dynamics of a
battering situation, it is often impossible to demarcate where
behavioral adaptations to external constraint end and
psychopathology or moral culpability begins. Given this, the most
parsimonious assumption, and the only rational or ethical
assumption on which protective or justice services can precede,
is that the child's safety and the mother's capacity to protect
the child are compromised by the same source, the strategies

employed by the batterer.

i. "More and more child abuse cases involve mothers' boyfriends,"
Valerie Finholm, The Hartford Courant 7.l0.97 p.Al and al0.
ii. In the interest of Betty J.W., Borothy NJ W., James E.W., Sandra
K.W. and Cassie A.W., vited Supreme Court of Appeals, West Virginia,
opinion filed Jul l, l988 #l7482. Reversal opinion written by Justice
Miller.
iii. E. Pualani Enos, Prosecuting battered mothers: state laws' failure
to protect battered women and their children. l9 Harv Women's L. J.
229, l996)