A federal court has sided with a domestic violence victim who was treated like a criminal after a prosecutor threw her in jail for refusing to testify that her abusive boyfriend hit her in the face, according to court documents filed Friday with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit.
Plaintiff Kristin Loupe was called as a witness to testify against her then-boyfriend David Adams during a bond hearing in January 2014. She said that during a domestic fight, he hurt her arm “in a dispute that went too far.” When Robin O’Bannon, the Ascension Parish Assistant District Attorney, pushed for more details about the abuse and repeatedly asked whether Loupe was hit in the face, Loupe would not confirm whether that had happened.
The Sheriff’s deputy who completed Loupe’s initial police report said that, when she described the domestic abuse, Loupe did not say that Adams hit her in the face.
Nonetheless, O’Bannon asked the presiding judge to issue a warrant for Loupe’s arrest for filing a false police report. After the judge refused the request, O’Bannon then ordered the Sheriff’s Deputy on duty at the courthouse to arrest Loupe.
At the Ascension Parish Jail, Loupe was put in an unheated shower cell that was covered with puddles of water on a severely cold day. She had no shoes and was wearing only a very thin jumpsuit. And she developed medical issues. After she was released, Loupe was “later treated for paresthesia and the beginning stages of frostbite caused by the conditions she experienced while in custody,” according to the court document.
Thousands Of Domestic Violence Victims Who Seek Help Are Turned Away Every DayEconomy by CREDIT: Shutterstock As she left the emergency room, a victim of domestic violence contacted a shelter in…thinkprogress.orgLoupe is now suing O’Bannon for arresting her. In its decision, the court stated that it would not grant O’Bannon’s “motion to dismiss Loupe’s suit for money damages based on her alleged wrongful arrest” and sent the case back to district court for further proceedings.
It’s all too common for prosecutors to treat victims of domestic violence like this, and it’s one of the reasons they often struggle to navigate the criminal justice system.
A common misconception about domestic violence survivors assumes that, if they’re telling the truth about being abused, they’ll want to come forward with all the details. But it’s not always easy to testify against an abuser. Some victims may choose to leave out details or even stay in abusive relationships because they don’t want to see their partners wind up in jail, or they don’t want to escalate the violence.
“I’ve worked with so many women who have been victims, and women feel so much shame and embarrassment over the fact that they love someone who is abusive to them,” Katie Ray-Jones, president of the National Domestic Violence Hotline (NDVH) and the National Dating Abuse Helpline (NDAH), previously told Cosmopolitan Magazine in a piece about domestic violence. “They still see a glimpse of the person they fell in love with. It’s very complex and it’s very hard.”
About one in four women experience relationship violence in their lives. Many victims and survivors are already too afraid to report their assaults. And more often than not, when they do report, people don’t believe their stories. Sometimes, they even become the targets of public shaming. Most recently, actress Amber Heard was accused of lying about her injuries by husband Johnny Depp because she refused to file a police report when cops arrived at her home.