Domestic Violence Survivors and the Intermediate Appellate Courts

• Published in: Journal of policy practice and research (Online) 2024-06, Vol.5 (2), p.101-118
• Main Authors: Barrick, Andrea, O’Donnell, Morgan
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Community and Environmental Psychology; Conceptual Paper; Courts of appeals; Criminal law; Criminology; Culture; Decriminalization; Domestic violence; Females; Gender-based violence; Hypotheses; Judges & magistrates; Law; Legislation; Privacy; Social Policy; Social Sciences; Social Work; Success; Survivor; Violence against women; Women
• ISSN: 2662-1517; 2662-1517
• DOI: 10.1007/s42972-024-00099-8

Beginning in the 1970s, the “legalization” of domestic violence prevention was aimed at increasing the availability and severity of legal responses afforded to female survivors of domestic violence (Zorza, Journal Criminal Law & Criminology, 83:46  1992 ). To examine how these reforms developed and their effectiveness, we analyze cases dealing with domestic violence at the intermediate appellate courts over a 51-year period. Using these intermediate appellate court data, we examine the impact of shifting American mainstream legal thought on domestic violence, case and litigant characteristics, and policy era variables on the success of female survivors of domestic violence. This study used logistic regression to measure the impact of a state’s political context, case and litigant characteristics on the intermediate appellate courts. We used WESTLAWNEXT in each of the 50 states from 1965 to 2015 to identify cases where an intermediate appellate court dealt with domestic violence policy. The research shows that a female domestic violence litigant has a higher probability of success before the intermediate appellate court when her life is threatened, a protection order is involved, she is the appellee in the case, and the state intervenes on her behalf. This article highlights that judges are not acting like traditional politicians when deciding cases regarding domestic violence but are responding as concerned humans to human stimuli. These results suggest that when it comes to domestic violence against women, judges in the intermediate appellate courts are primarily concerned with ensuring that the law protects women who have experienced harm from an intimate partner.