In Maine, it doesn't pay to be a man



February 1, 2010

By Carey Roberts 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,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.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 ! "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" (2. "DV is the leading cause of injuries to women between the ages of 15-44 in the U.S." (.)3. Even if the violence is mutual, it's bad to arrest both parties because the "batterer gains more power." (Then the curriculum goes on to enumerate the types of violence that it whimsically classifies as defensive:1. Face scratches2. Eye gouges3. Bites to armPatrick 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?© Carey Roberts