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This section reviews the survey data on the types of cases that are eligible for the domestic violence court based on the formal charges or the relationship between the parties.

Case Type and Charge Severity

As shown in Table 6.1, nearly all courts (97%) reported hearing misdemeanor cases, although only 28% reported hearing misdemeanor cases exclusively. Most courts combine multiple case types; a little more than half (53%) reported hearing felony cases, a quarter indicated that they hear ordinance violations, and more than a third (38%) reported hearing civil protection or restraining orders in addition to criminal cases.11

Domestic Violence Court Case Identification

All 129 courts reported hearing cases that involve violence between intimate partners (see Table 6.1). Among intimate partner violence cases, all the courts hear cases in which the victim and the defendant are married. Nearly all hear cases in which the victim and defendant are legally separated or divorced or in which the victim and defendant have children in common, regardless of their current relationship (97%). Even when the parties have neither been married nor have children in common, most hear cases in which intimate partners live together (89%). A smaller majority hear cases in which intimate partners do not live together (63%). Approximately three- quarters also hear cases in which the victim and defendant were former intimate partners (77%) or in which the victim and defendant are of the same sex (75%), although some jurisdictions have additional criteria for same-sex cases. For example, a stakeholder from one of the site visits noted that for same-sex couples to be eligible, the couple had to have lived in the same house for at least one year. In other jurisdictions, same-sex eligibility for the domestic violence court may be determined by the elected district attorney.

More than half of the court respondents (66%) also accept non-IPV cases, including elder abuse (60%), child abuse (60%), violence between other relatives (66%), and violence between roommates (43%).

11 _{Twenty-four of the 50 courts (48%) that reported hearing civil protection or restraining orders were New York} State’s Integrated Domestic Violence (IDV) Courts. In IDV courts, a single judge hears multiple case types— criminal, family, and matrimonial—involving the same parties when the underlying issue is domestic violence.

Table 6.1. Domestic Violence Court Case Types

Cases that the DV Court hears

Felonies 69 53%

Misdemeanors 127 97%

Ordinance violations 33 25%

Civil protection/restraining orders 50 38%

Other 23 18%

Domestic Violence Court Case Identification

Intimate partner violence 129 100%

Married 129 100%

Legally separated or divorced 127 97%

Have children in common 127 97%

Live together but are not married 117 89%

Do not live together and do not have children in common 82 63%

Former initmate partners 103 79%

Same sex couples 98 75%

Elder abuse 79 60%

Chid abuse 79 60%

Violence between other relatives 87 66%

Violence between roommates 56 43%

Other 28 21%

Courts (n=129)

The Role of State Statutes

At least one court survey was completed in 27 states plus Guam. According to the survey responses (and independently confirmed through legal research), at least 14 of these states have statutes specifically criminalizing domestic violence, whereas the others must apply the same criminal charges (e.g., assault or harassment) to both domestic and nondomestic violence cases. Examples of domestic violence-specific charges include domestic violence in the third degree in Alabama, domestic battery in Illinois and Kansas, criminal domestic violence of a high and aggravated nature in South Carolina, and commission of domestic violence in the presence of a child in Texas.

Where domestic violence statutes exist, the question of domestic violence court eligibility may be relatively straightforward; cases can simply routed to the specialized court whenever the defendant is charged with a domestic violence offense. Yet, we found that such an approach is not universal. Whereas at one of the sites we visited eligibility for the domestic violence court was a straightforward result of the prosecutor charging the case with a domestic violence offense, a representative from another site noted that “cases are identified as domestic violence not by the charges but by the relationship among the parties.” In other words, at this site, some defendants might be formally charged with a domestic violence offense but the case would still not be eligible for the domestic violence court due to the court’s definition of the types of cases it will handle.

The Role of Formal Policies

Fourteen of the 15 domestic violence courts we visited reported having written policies regarding eligibility for the domestic violence court. Two of these courts reported, however, that they needed to be updated because of changes in court practice since inception. A representative from one of these two courts reported, “Sometimes when cases reach court clerks, there is ambiguity on parent-child or sibling cases because different clerks have different interpretations of eligibility criteria.” Where police officers are involved in flagging cases for domestic violence, a court representative from a different site noted that police and court definitions were not always identical: “The police definition of intimate partner may be narrower [than that of the court], excluding unmarried couples who do not live together and have no children in common and frequently same-sex couples.” Nonetheless, our general finding is that although court eligibility varied slightly between sites, the issue did not appear to pose a great challenge within sites, whether aided by the role of state statutes (in some jurisdictions), written policies, or other factors.