The XX Factor: Slate women blog about politics, etc...

"Not That Serious an Offense"

Yesterday the Supreme Court heard a case about the reach of the Federal Gun Control Act and whether it includes someone convicted of misdemeanor domestic violence. The case was less about the Second Amendment than how to read a badly drafted 1996 law that tried to take guns out of the hands of domestic abusers convicted of misdemeanor domestic violence as opposed to violent felonies. Courtesy of the LA Times' David Savage, here’s a report of oral argument, which evidently went poorly for the proponents of disarming wife beaters. Of note in the transcript is the following exchange between Justice Antonin Scalia and Nicole Saharsky, the Justice Department lawyer arguing for the stricter interpretation of the law.

JUSTICE SCALIA: And this was misdemeanor assault and battery, wasn't it?
MS. SAHARSKY: Yes, that's right. I mean, I really—

JUSTICE SCALIA: So it's not that serious an offense. That's why we call it a misdemeanor.
MS. SAHARSKY: Well, I mean, certainly the offense is this particular case was serious. The charging document reflects that Respondent hit his wife all around the face until it swelled out, kicked her all around her body, kicked here in the ribs—

JUSTICE SCALIA: Then he should have been charged with a felony, but he wasn't. He was charged with a misdemeanor.

Who Gets Custody More Often, Mothers or Fathers?

Well, Meghan, I didn't mean to bludgeon you about Clark What's-His-Name. Meanwhile, I'm still mucking around trying to find out who gets custody more often. I've got queries out to some researchers and will post here when I get answers. Until then, here's a commentary published by Sandra Kobrin in Women's eNews last year. She has the same impression that I have: that in the 1950s and 1960s, women almost automatically got custody, but now—when custody is contested—the pendulum has swung the other way. She mentions studies that show that, especially if the mothers were battered, fathers get custody and quotes researchers who believe that's true not just when mothers were battered. She says, for instance, that a 2004 Williamsburg, Va., American Judges Association study shows that battered women lose contested custody cases 70 percent of the time. I will look for the study. Her point is that most state legislation requires judges to favor joint custody arrangements; when that's not possible, judges are instructed to favor the parent who is most "friendly" to joint custody. That obviously puts a battered woman in a bad spot: If she seems desperate to keep her kids away from a batterer or abuser, she's going to be perceived as pretty durn unfriendly to joint custody.

I don't know how this holds up beyond domestic violence situations. More stats when I find them.