Domestic Violence Not A Crime?

A district attorney in Shawnee County, Kansas was forced to not prosecute any domestic violence misdemeanors and only focus on felonies. County leaders urged that the district attorney was using battered women as a means to negotiate for increased funding for his office. The City Council voted 7 to 3 to repeal a local law which made domestic violence a crime.

Since September, eighteen people were arrested for domestic violence charges but were released as a result of the agency’s decision to not prosecute new cases. So what does this mean for victims and advocates? It means that in all the budget cuts considered by the City Council, local lawmakers found domestic violence at the bottom of their priorities.

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Welcome to the Washington College of Law Criminal Law Brief Blog! We are excited to start a new blog to communicate and discuss current criminal law news events, and debates. We hope this will be a great opportunity for our Staff to get writing experience as well as communicate criminal law issues we are interested in. 

The Criminal Law Brief was created in 2005 and is a journal dedicated to the complex and constantly evolving world of criminal justice system. Our audience includes judges, practicing attorneys,  students with a strong interest in criminal law, and professors of varied criminal law disciplines. We are dedicated to an open and balanced dialogue on all aspects of criminal law representing possible perspectives. The Brief is distributed to federal, state, and local government agencies, courts, law firms, and law schools throughout the country.