By LOIS HENRY, Californian columnist
Dec. 30, 2009
Back in September I ranted about absurdly low bail amounts in Kern County for certain crimes — crimes against women (who are overwhelmingly the victims of domestic violence).
I was particularly outraged that bail for violating a restraining order was only $10,000.
In the case of Robert Fuller, he wasn’t even charged that much when he was arrested and bailed out twice last summer for violating a restraining order by his estranged wife, Annette Sowders.
After he got out the last time, Sowders and her mother, Sharon Cannon, were shot to death, allegedly by Fuller, who’s now facing murder charges.
As a heartbreaking aside, Fuller and Sowders had two daughters, ages 8 and 5. They were in the house when their mother and grandmother were killed. The 8-year-old was the one who called 911. Great, just great.
Well, the local Domestic Violence Advisory Council didn’t like those bail numbers either.
They made a case to our local judges, who set bail amounts annually, and the judges listened.
Bail for violating a restraining order will go up to $25,000 starting Jan. 1, 2010.
That’s actually $5,000 more than was recommended by DVAC.
In making its case to the court for the bail increases, DVAC pointed out that Kern has had a higher domestic violence rate than the entire state of California since 2007, as laid out in a report by the Women and Girls’ Fund of the Kern Community Foundation.
There were nearly 50 incidents of domestic violence in Kern per 10,000 residents in 2008, according to the report.
And the Kern County Sheriff’s Office dealt with more than 4,000 domestic violence calls that year, up 17 percent from 2004.
Those stats, DVAC argued, make it imperative for our courts to deal more seriously with offenders.
Our judges instituted all the bail increase recommended by DVAC mexcept for corporal injury to a spouse, which will remain at $25,000.
Otherwise, the increases are:
Corporal injury to spouse with a prior, $75,000, up from $50,000.
Stalking, $100,000, up from $50,000.
Violating a restraining order, $25,000, up from $10,000.
Violating a restraining order with a prior, $50,000, up from $10,000.
I give the court an A-plus for that effort!
But DVAC isn’t stopping there.
As I noted in Fuller’s case, and a number of other restraining order violations I stumbled across, the bail schedule isn’t always followed.
Fuller was only charged $5,000 bail in one arrest and $7,000 on his second, when the minimum for each should have been $10,000.
Turns out a software glitch and data entry error were allowing countless people out of jail on much lower than the mandated amount.
The only reason that got fixed was Nada Yorke, former DVAC president, was helping me go over restraining order violation arrests. She spotted the error and got on the phone to figure out what the problem was.
To make sure that doesn’t happen again, she told me, DVAC will be doing a status check on the bail increases in March.
Recognizing there are other gaps in the system when it comes to restraining orders — serving them and enforcing them — DVAC created a subcommittee of law enforcement and court personnel that is studying potential fixes to be implemented in February.
“By December of 2010 we should have a very effective and efficient system in place to make sure restraining orders are being served as quickly as possible,” Yorke wrote to me in an email. “Some things will be fixed quickly and others may just need a change in agency protocols, additional staff training, and/or better communication between the agencies.”
Here’s hoping for a much safer 2010 for all victims of abuse.
Opinions expressed in this column are those of Lois Henry, not The Bakersfield Californian. Her column appears Wednesdays and Sundays. Comment at people.bakersfield.com/home/Blog/noholdsbarred, call her at 395-7373 or e-mail lhenry@bakersfield.com
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