By Lisa Manning | Family Violence Resource Attorney, Indiana Office of Court Services and Lun Pieper | Staff Attorney, Indiana Office of Court Services As our population continues to diversify, judges encounter an increased demand to provide language access in criminal court proceedings. Although the obligation to provide court interpretation for defendants may be readily […]
Family Violence
Hidden protection
By Hon. Marianne L. Vorhees | Judge, Delaware Circuit Court 1 | Guest Author An Indiana trial court is presiding over a custody case. Father believes Mother and the children are living in the domestic violence shelter in that county. Father’s attorney asks the judge to sign an order directing Mother to appear at an emergency […]
Intimate partner violence in the LGBTQ community
By Lisa Manning, Indiana Office of Court Services Early this year, the founder of Miss Transgender America, Christa Leigh Steele-Knudslien, was found dead in her home after being stabbed and beaten to death by her husband. In an interview with police, Mark Steele-Knudslien said he “snapped” after arguing with his wife. Intimate partner violence is […]
How do you define success?
Is it running an efficient court—the volume of cases you’ve cleared each quarter? Or do you look at recidivism by individual defendants, or maybe the number of return trips to court by parties in a contested dissolution case? In fact, studies dating back to the 1980s have consistently shown that what matters most to parties […]
Lethality Assessments
Do Courts Use Them in Domestic Violence Cases? PART TWO The more experience we have, the more comfortable we are relying on our “gut instincts” about people and their behavior. But when it comes to adjudicating cases, our system of jurisprudence does not condone gut feelings as a basis for judicial decisions. As discussed in […]
