Posted on 02/01/2010 9:08:35 AM PST by FreeManDC
Practically everyone in town knows Amy Dugas is a serial batterer. But the Maine criminal justice system keeps finding ways to keep her from facing the music.
In 2004 Amy assaulted her husband Mark in their home in Waldoboro. When the police officer came to arrest her, she kicked him in the groin. The judge released her on bail, ordering her to refrain from using weapons. Four months later she stabbed Mark with a foot-long kitchen knife, fatally severing his pulmonary artery. At the trial, she got away with the trusty I-feared-for-my-life alibi.
Two years later Dugas spent 125 days in jail following an attack on a male friend. In 2007 she was arrested again, this time for assaulting Brian Pelletier, her new husband of three weeks.
Each time, Amy Dugas was let off the hook with a chivalrous slap on the wrist, even though many were demanding she do hard time at the state pen.
No doubt about it, Maine’s domestic violence industry has friends in high places. One of them is Mary Kellett, Assistant District Attorney for the Bar Harbor area. Think of her as Michael Nifong on steroids.
Inspired by feminist Catherine Comins’ sneer, “Men who are unjustly accused of rape can sometimes gain from the experience,” Kellett has taken to prosecuting every allegation of sexual misconduct, often ignoring glaring inconsistencies in the woman’s account or clear evidence of consensual activity: http://www.fillerfund.com/marykellett.htm
In one case, Kellett summed up the case to the jury with this comment, “there has been no evidence presented to you as the jury that would suggest that a sexual act hadn’t occurred on those dates,” revealing a sad ignorance of the legal principle that the burden of proof falls on the plaintiff.
In another trial, Kellett did not present a shred of physical evidence, prompting the defense attorney to comment, “We were just very surprised with the only evidence the state had, that they brought these charges at all.”
Unfortunately for her prosecutorial victims, none of them play lacrosse at an exclusive university or have wealthy parents to hire high-powered attorneys. As a result, many have spent months in jail awaiting their trial.
It gets worse.
Maine now has a law enforcement policy that says in effect if a woman punches the living daylights out of her husband, somehow it must be the man’s fault. “Identifying Predominant Aggressors in Domestic Violence Cases” is a training guide put together by the Maine Criminal Justice Academy: http://www.maine.gov/dps/mcja/docs/Mandatory-Law/Predominant%20Aggressor.doc
A little background: It is well known that many domestic violence incidents are mutual in nature – she slaps him, he shoves back. One study by Centers for Disease Control researcher Daniel Whitaker reported fully half of all incidents of partner aggression are mutual. More often than not, it’s the woman who instigated the incident.
So when the police arrive on the scene, they need to decide who to stick in the Paddy Wagon. For years, police used the commonsense yardstick, Who started the fight? But feminists don’t cotton to that approach because, truth be told, too many women were getting arrested.
So they reached into their bag of tricks and – abracadabra! “Predominant aggressor” magically appeared in the law enforcement lexicon. Any guesses who the predominant aggressor might be?
Before I give away the punch line, you may want to see for yourself the Ms.-Information that the Predominant Aggressor curriculum bandies around: 1. The idea that abuse can be mutual is a “misconception” (I say so, it must be true.)
2. “DV is the leading cause of injuries to women between the ages of 15-44 in the U.S.” (It’s also a proven fact that the moon is made of Swiss cheese and the 9/11 attacks were masterminded by the CIA.)
3. Even if the violence is mutual, it’s bad to arrest both parties because the “batterer gains more power.” (Don’t ask to see the research. I’m the one with the mic and I’ll give you the boot if you start to ask questions.)
Then the curriculum goes on to enumerate the types of violence that it whimsically classifies as defensive: 1. Face scratches 2. Eye gouges 3. Bites to arm
Go ahead, ladies, scratch his face and gouge his eyes out. You can always say it was in self-defense — and now they’ll have to take you at your word.
Patrick Henry College professor Stephen Baskerville has recently issued a stunning indictment of our contemporary criminal justice system, lambasting it as a “Feminist Gulag.” Now in Maine, a man can be killed in cold blood without consequence to the perpetrator, prosecuted for rape with the flimsiest of evidence, or framed in a partner dispute on account of his sex.
And whatever happened to the equal protection clause of the U.S. Constitution?
Liberals and muslims destroy everything they touch!
y’know i always believe that domestic violence goes both ways. women can be and sometimes are just as hateful and abusive as some men. why do they not get the same harsh punishments as those abusive men? because she will say the man was the dangerous one and she was defending herself. why are these claims not investigated thoroughly? why is the law biased to let women commit murder but send men to prison for saying the wrong thing? equal protection under the law indeed.
“Family violence” is also one of today’s PC crimes, directed at men basically. I see this in our local County Court often. Usually based on verbal testimony of a woman “victim” with no supporting physical or medical evidence or witnesses.
Do I condone violence within the family? Of course not! But I have seen cuss fights (verbal arguments) result in the man’s arrest. We need balance here.
Statistically, the woman starts the domestic violence and the man finishes it.
Good article — bad headline. Should be “it pays to be a woman” — not “it doesn’t pay to be a man”. Fundamentally, it shouldn’t “pay” to be a man. All that is expected is equality ... it shouldn’t pay to be a member of any particular demographic.
SnakeDoc
Obviously this poor SOB was also....... WHITE....
Doesn’t anyone think anymore?
First, you don’t provide proof of a general condition by a single example. So you can’t condemn Maine’s system by showing how if failed in one case.
Second, whatever may be Kellett’s virtues, failings, or outright misconduct, the generalized smear presented about her actions are little more than gossip.
Finally, by setting up specific examples of domestic violence stats and then belittling them without addressing either their accuracy or merit, the author does little but diminish himself.
The author may be 100% right on all points. He may be a visionary. But, it would be luck. All it would have taken to make his case would have been a little critical thought and facts, not opinion. Sad.
Old Korean saying - “When the hen starts to crow like a rooster, the home is finished”.
“Where’s Waldoboro”?
“First, you don’t provide proof of a general condition by a single example.”
The Amy Dugan case is one example of a woman being treated too leniently, but the comments by Kellett (two examples were given) are a good indicator of a bad prosecutor. It took one case for Mike Nifong to lose his job. It looks long past due for Kellett to lose hers.
Still, I’ll never understand why men or women will get into a relationship with a person with this kind of history. Just like the Peterson case with the four dead wives & the guy has another girlfriend!
Okay. We won’t condemn the system up there for that one case.
We’ll just split it into three cases, the initial assault where she attacked the police officer, the murder four months later, and the battery of her next unfortunate boyfriend two years later.
Now we have three separate cases to buttress the point.
I will say that when she moved to Tennessee, at least those people had the common sense to be horrified that she could do this, be released and go to live in their state.
I live in Massachusetts, and our state is much worse than Maine in this respect, so bad that a group sees fit to have to put banners on highway overpasses demanding justice for men in the legal system up here.
Waldoboro is in The Mid-Coast Maine area, near Rockland Maine.
Mrs. NHD
I took a criminal justice class one summer for elective credit, and it was taught by a raving feminist. Our textbook, if you can call it that, was the most unbelieveable over-the-top, Gloria Allred-inspired, NOW-worshipping piece of propaganda that I have EVER seen. The author’s central message was that no woman was ever responsible for a crime; men were the the culprits in all situations.
Waldoboro is in the ‘mid-coast’ region of Maine.
The town is on US 1, north of Brunswich, but 20 miles south of Rockland.
(winslow mills is a small community within Waldoboro, and has a ‘mini-slum’ reputation.)
The light house on the Maine quarter is in Bristol, about 20 miles away.
This sounds like one of those wacky National Organization of Men type screeds. I had a lonely neighbor once who used to send these kinds of letters to the editor of our small twon local paper once a week.
My post had nothing to do with the state of Maine and everything to do with how the article was written.
My post had nothing to do with the state of Maine and everything to do with how the article was written.
Lots more examples of Kellets failings and misconduct here from the article;
http://www.fillerfund.com/marykellett.htm
Seems Kellett is a female Mike Nefong, just like the author contends. It is easily checked if you had any interest in critical thought or in finding the truth.
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