Experts cite restraining order limits
By Mary Ellen O'Shea, Kevin Claffey
SPRINGFIELD A restraining order is “not a bodyguard,” and a woman who gets one ought to be prepared to duck, say workers who advise and counsel threatened women.
“We have to be realistic about what they can and cannot do,” said Marylynn Garbin, director of social services for the YWCA of Western Massachusetts. “They're not protection. They're not a bodyguard. They establish some legal rights.”
Garbin said the events yesterday morning at 980 Chicopee St., Chicopee, that claimed the lives of four people may have been unavoidable.
Daniel Bessonette, 26, of 123 Walnut St., Holyoke, burst into the apartment where his former fiancee had lived and executed Keith Dupont Jr., 8; Katrina Twombley, 22; and her boyfriend, Jesse Mitchell, 20, before killing himself.
Karen Dupont, Keith's mother, returned an engagement ring and then obtained an emergency restraining order Monday night against Bessonette. Her sister, Katrina Twombley, had secured a restraining order against her former boyfriend, Stephan T. Cormier. Both orders were to be reviewed yesterday in Chicopee District Court.
“I don't know that we could have done anything to prevent it. I don't know what anyone could have done,” she said. “No one would have anticipated that her sister and her boyfriend were in peril.”
Safety plan needed
Garbin said that because obtaining a restraining order often is the match that lights the kindling, victims must also have a safety plan that includes refuge at a women's shelter. “And they don't necessarily get that information from police or the courts,” she said. “It's an essential next step after the order is granted.”
A piece of paper is not going to thwart a disturbed man bent on killing his wife and children, according to attorney Patricia Findlen of Pioneer Valley Legal Clinic. “If someone wants to commit murder, they can do it.”
However, Findlen believes restraining orders are typically effective and are more so since William M. Bennett became district attorney.
“In the last year or two, people who violate restraining orders are taken much more seriously as a criminal violation. For a long time in this town, they were not taken seriously,” she said.
Another recent plus is the state's new “stalking law,” which makes following someone a violation of the law if a restraining order is in place.
Garbin said that the orders themselves are not strong deterrents. “We're seeing some change in that but it depends on the capacity and willingness of the legal system to respond.”
Probate Court Judge Henry P. O'Connor said the system is willing but not always able to respond in the most efficient manner. “We've had no new judges, no new investigators and no new probation officers since we've become responsible for the (restraining orders).
“Everybody's concerned. We really want to do something,” O'Connor said, adding that there is insufficient court time to give proper treatment to petitions for restraining orders. About 1,200 restraining orders were issued during 1991 in Hampden County.
He noted that the judge who considered Karen Dupont's petition Monday night is responsible for an area that stretches from Middlefield and Chester to Provincetown. The system began operations last week.
At Womanshelter Companeras in Holyoke, some 1,600 calls come in each year from women seeking shelter or other services. They may end up staying at the shelter, the location of which is a secret, or going with staffers to get restraining orders in court.
Some men don't care
But restraining orders don't always solve the problem, according to Womanshelter Executive Director Cheryl Criscio.
“The restraining order doesn't always make a woman feel safe,” she said. “It depends on how afraid a man is of a restraining order. Sometimes they just don't care.”
Hampden County First Assistant District Attorney Judy Zeprun said restraining orders work. And those that fail are ultimately the cases that receive media and public attention, she said.
“We take this very seriously,” Zeprun said. “What happened in Chicopee is one case out of maybe 1,000 that we'll have all year where the system did not work.”
Anyone who comes to court for a restraining order, known as a 209-A, is referred to the domestic violence project formed recently by Bennett as part of the victim-witness assistance program.
A recent recipient of a $100,000 state grant, the program educates victims, intervenes on their behalf, helps them through the legal system and directs them to services they may need, including housing, food and emergency financial aid.
Besides that, Bennett's office has promoted sensitivity training programs for area police officers.
And state laws enacted in recent years encourage police to make arrests in domestic violence cases, even when they have not witnessed any violence; make following a person a violation of the law when a restraining order is in effect; and are about to set up a statewide computer registry listing subjects of past and present restraining orders to help police when they are unsure whether to make arrests.
Courtesy of Springfield Union-News 9/30/92
