Jennifers’ Law draws wide support, legal concerns
The bill’s lead sponsor, state Sen. Alex Kasser, D-Greenwich, told Hearst it pertains to all victims of domestic violence, regardless of their name, socioeconomic status or ethnic background.
Few people who testified at a hearing Wednesday by the state legislature’s Judiciary Committee opposed a bill, known as Jennifers’ Law, designed to protect domestic violence victims subjected to manipulative, isolating conduct that traps them in abusive or violent relationships.
The bill’s namesake, Jennifer Dulos, sought requests for a restraining order and emergency custody of her five children, court records show. She was denied because she was unable to show that her husband, Fotis Dulos, who she left in 2017, had physically harmed her.
The measure could well have have shielded Jennifer Dulos and countless spouses like her, an overwhelming number of people testifying in the marathon hearing said. It would expand the definition of domestic violence to include several forms of emotional or other abuse.
What is less agreed upon, however, is whether “coercive behavior,” a term widely used by domestic violence advocates and survivors but
remains largely undefined by the criminal-justice system, should be applied in court as spouses seek protection. The change could bring unwanted, unintended consequences, several people said.
“Coercive control entails power and control over the victim through actions such as isolation, humiliation, intimidation, and domination,” Suzanne Adam, executive director of the Domestic Violence Crisis Center, said at Wednesday’s hearing. “It does not relate to a single incident, but is a purposeful pattern of behavior that takes place over a period of time in order to make the victim dependent on the abuser.”
“Jennifers’ Law” would add coercive control to the definition of domestic violence and apply this new definition to family law statutes, including protective orders, and to civil restraining order statutes. The proposal would also
make domestic violence the first factor to consider in child custody cases.
While Adam supports the intent of the bill, she testified Wednesday that she fears that, as drafted, the proposal would have unintended consequences for victims and their children.
The bill could place an unfair burden on children when determining custody or visitation after coercive control was demonstrated, Adam said — perhaps making divorce and custody cases much more difficult.
Jennifer Dulos is presumed dead and Fotis Dulos, her estranged husband, committed suicide after he was charged with murder in the case.
The bill’s lead sponsor, State Sen. Alex Kasser, DGreenwich, told Hearst it pertains to all victims of domestic violence, regardless of their name, socioeconomic status or ethnic background. Kasser’s district includes New Canaan, where Dulos lived when she disappeared on May 24, 2019.
Friends of Dulos were
among those who testified in support of the bill Wednesday. Many domestic violence survivors also spoke in favor of the proposal, some anonymously to protect themslevs from their alleged abusers.
One of the anonymous women testified said she’d experienced occasional episodes of physical abuse but it was the ongoing emotional abuse by her partner, “extreme control and manipulation, and escalating threats that created a tipping point and left me most fearful.”
She described the abuse in a timeline submitted with her testimony that described how her partner cut off access to her bank accounts and “had a history” of taking her phone and purse when he was angry and canceling her phone service.
“The Dulos story is not unique,” she said. “Jennifer’s story is my story, too.”
Greenwich resident Lisa Johnson, who said she filed for divorce from her husband in 2015 and has been in Stamford Superior Court, and most recently, Appellate Court, ever since, testified that Jennifers’ Law would have helped her get a restraining order on behalf of her teenage daughter against the girl’s father.
“Even with a history of documented police reports, years of written records with our local domestic violence agency, and a letter from my daughter’s therapist pleading for the courts to keep her safe, Judge Heller told me that this was not enough to “meet the standard” to obtain protection for her, at the time,” Johnson said, referring to Judge Donna Nelson Heller, who presided in the Dulos divorce.
With the help of Pace Women’s Justice Center in New York, Johnson said she I was able to obtain protection order the next day in family court in New York.
Seventeen states have incorporated more than just physical violence or threats of physical violence in creating criteria for restraining orders. Last year, California and Hawaii became the first two states to incorporate “coercive control” in their restraining order statutes.
But there’s worry among some domestic violence advocates in Connecticut that while Jennifer’s Law seeks to address a welldocumented problem, it would create unintended consequences in child custody cases.
“The proposal could make family law matters much more complicated and more expensive, which would be a huge problem for victims of domestic violence, most of whom don’t have lawyers and many of whom have less money than their abuser,” Steven Eppler-Epstein, Interim CEO & President of the Connecticut Coalition Against Domestic Violence, testified.
Rep. Craig Fishbein, R-Wallingford, said while he is still undecided on whether to issue his support for the bill, he’s concerned with the provision that would codify coercive behaviors in Connecticut’s restraining order statutes.
“Judges are very cognizant to domestic violence,” Fishbein said in an interview Wednesday.
Some of behaviors that would be considered coercive control under the bill, such as stalking and threats of physical violance, can already be used in court to secure a restraining order against an abuser, he said.
Fishbein said he supports survivors of domestic abuse, many of whom have been his clients, but he feels the issues raised by the bill are already addressed by existing statutes.
One of the main backers of the bill is Connecticut Protective Moms, several members of which testified Wednesday. The group has said the legislation would begin to make significant improvements to the way family courts currently handle custody decisionmaking when allegations of abuse are involved. Defining coercive control in law is a crucial part of the overall family court reform strategy which is advancing in states everywhere, the group says on its website.