Enhanced communication among agencies has helped make the county’s special family violence court a success, says Mack Martinez, the assistant county attorney in charge of the office’s family violence division. The family violence court was created on the heels of the murder of Sylvia Hernandez, who had been assaulted previously by her estranged boyfriend, Leonard Saldaña. In the spring of 1998, on the day he stabbed Hernandez to death, Saldaña was the subject of an arrest warrant that had not yet been served. It was a classic case of one arm of the criminal justice system not knowing what another was doing, Martinez says, and it resulted in a woman’s death.
County Judge Mike Denton’s court is now the central hub for all misdemeanor and felony family violence cases. The court hears all protective orders and deals with violators. Integral to its effectiveness, say Denton and Martinez, is the close working relationship between the county and victim shelter SafePlace, which has an employee who offices with the county attorney staff. (The Travis County Attorney’s Office, notes Martinez, was one of the first elected-prosecutor offices in the country to give office space to a victims’ rights group.)
Looking at the raw numbers of family-violence-related assaults filed each year in Travis County, it isn’t clear that the specialty court strategy is working. Since 2000, the number of family violence assaults has remained relatively stable, from a low of 3,359 filed in 2000 to a high of 3,858 filed in 2006. In 2009, 3,773 were filed. Martinez says that while he’s not happy with the numbers being “fairly constant” – evidence that the office might need to do more outreach with victims, he said – that doesn’t mean the integrated approach isn’t working. Indeed, he expects to see the number rise even more as the court gets more effective because, as with sexual assaults, family violence cases have often gone unreported. So the relatively high number of family violence assault reports says a lot about the kind of support victims receive in Austin. “We have a culture, we have promoted a culture … where if you have a family violence problem, you don’t have to be ashamed. People are going to back you up.”
Others suggest that a better way to gauge the court’s success is to look at the number of homicides connected to domestic and family violence. In Austin, where the number of murders each year is already relatively low by national standards (averaging 26 a year since 2000), the number of domestic-violence-related murders has declined. There were nine in 2005, but just one in 2009, according to Austin Police. Working domestic violence cases hard at the misdemeanor level is actually “homicide prevention,” says Denton, a concept he first heard from UT law professor Sarah Buel, nationally known for her work on domestic violence. Buel says the Travis County family violence court is doing reasonably well, but it still needs to work more closely with the civil venue that handles child support issues, because abusers often leverage money into power. “There has to be some coordination among the courts,” she said. And cases involving wealthy defendants still have a tendency to fall through the cracks: The more money and power a defendant has, the easier it can be to avoid facing charges in court. Still, she said the court works very well: “The very supportive relationship the county attorney and SafePlace have is critical.”
This article appears in March 26 • 2010.