This actually happened last month, but I decided to save it for Valentine’s Day…
In Syracuse, New York, Nicole Osbourne was in court facing a felony assault charge. Also in the courtroom was her boyfriend, Theodore Murphy, which was a bit of a surprise because Osbourne also had a pending domestic assault charge — in front of the same judge — and Murphy had obtained a court order against Osbourne, preventing her from having any direct or indirect contact with him.
You have to know where this is going, right? Murphy asked Osbourne’s lawyer to pass along a message: Will you marry me?
The judge reminded Osbourne that she was prohibited by law from responding but in the interest of true romance, the prosecutor asked the judge to amend the order of protection to allow her to answer; and, tears in her eyes, she accepted.
If this were a movie, the judge would have married them on the spot; instead, the judge advised the happy couple that since he’s presiding over her trials, he wouldn’t be able to do the honors.
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© 2012 by Bill Bickel unless otherwise noted.
This will not end happily.
No, but with luck, neither of them will kill the other, and they’ll split in two months and never see each other again.
More likely: they’ll be in and out of divorce courts and justices of the peace for years.
Is this even news anymore? I see it happen so often in my court that it sometimes borders on the grotesque. The following is a real case:
On Sunday, husband assaults wife, tries to run her over with his truck, and threatens to kill her. On Monday, she comes in to Court, fills out the petition for a protective order, and testifies to the threatening and assaultive behavior. The order is granted, and a week later wife comes in and requests that the order be dismissed. Husband also files a motion requesting that the order be dismissed. As per usual, a hearing is set, the parties come in, and the wife again, under oath, confirms that husband assaulted her, threatened to kill her, and tried to run her over. Husband opts not to testify (his 5th Amendment rights having been explained to him), and I was left with a proven and uncontested allegation of domestic violence. With that evidence, the statute says the judge “shall” issue or maintain the order, and so I did. For the next few weeks, the wife files repeated motions to dismiss, changing her story significantly and recanting her initial accusation. At a hearing on the motions, her recantations fall apart and become incredible (in the sense of “not believable”), and her motions are denied. Undaunted, she appeals the denial(s), and on appeal, my decision is affirmed, and the order still stands.
I am sure that they are still seeing each other despite the order, and fairly certain that he will end up violating the order (and assaulting her) the next time he gets drunk. Some days it doesn’t pay to try to save people.
When did it become a judge’s job to “save people”. Read the constitution.
Maybe saving people can just be a hobby – something to do on in addition to his job. Judges can have much worse hobbies.
When did it become your job to condemn compassion when passing sentencing?
The judge’s job is to interpret the law. The law says the order of protection must remain in place if there’s no credible reason to remove it. What part of this sequence is unconstitutional?
James, the story only became interesting to me when I got to the part about the judge having to give her permission to answer him.
Stockholm Syndrome is a many-splendored thing.