Program keeps on working against domestic violence

One morning last month, Laura Ugorek read in the Journal that Tosha Barr, a woman she'd advised, had been fatally stabbed. Barr's estranged husband had been charged with her murder.

"My heart just sunk," Ugorek said. "I just remember she was a beautiful woman, a sweet woman."

"I remember her saying, ‘I'm not afraid, he's not going to hurt me.' "

Ugorek, a domestic-violence legal assistant for District Attorney Tom Keith, works with Safe on Seven, a partnership that operates out of Keith's office on the seventh floor of the Forsyth County courthouse. Safe on Seven helps women secure protective orders and pursue assault charges.

But some women don't show for court. Some ask that the orders protecting them from abusers be dropped. That's what Tosha Barr did in regard to her estranged husband, Travis Barr. Safe on Seven, which is gradually helping to turn the tide against domestic violence, had tried to help Tosha Barr.

Her slaying raises old and frustrating questions: How can battered women be persuaded to keep up the legal fight against their batterers? And are we doing all we can to help them?

Keith was all too familiar with those questions when a friend persuaded him to go to a conference in Atlanta on domestic violence more than 10 years ago. He went to the conference cynical and came away cautiously optimistic, intrigued by an approach that would tie together the work of several agencies in helping battered women. He set to work on the program that eventually became Safe on Seven.

Back in 1997, before Safe on Seven, Keith's office had a 60 percent dismissal rate on domestic-violence cases. Now, he says, it's 14 percent. And the number of domestic-violence charges filed in Winston-Salem is down, Keith says, from a high of 2,821 in 2003 to 2,368 in 2007.

The program, which also helps some battered men, is not without its critics. Tosha Barr's case has shown that it should enhance its record-keeping. And the public defender for Forsyth County, Pete Clary, said that "Some alleged victims have told us they were pressured very hard to testify and intimidated and even threatened to testify, and were told that if they didn't tell the same stories they'd already told the ladies up there (at Safe on Seven) they could be charged with perjury. My point is I think routinely they're told they better stick to the same story on the witness stand."

Ugorek said, "We don't threaten and we don't intimidate. We tell them possibilities." And one possibility, she said, is they could be held in contempt for lying in court.

These are often messy, complicated cases. Keith's prosecutors, by policy, don't dismiss domestic-violence charges unless the victims convince them that the assault didn't happen. And when victims don't show up in serious cases, Keith said, prosecutors have a deputy meet with the victim in person to ensure that they're not afraid to come to court.

Often, when a woman charges a man with beating her, he'll file a countercharge against her. "It's all bogus," Ugorek said. "We know. He's just setting her up. And sometimes, it's vice versa."

And women often drop orders protecting them from their abuser.

In May, Ugorek said, Travis Barr was in court for violating the protective order Tosha Barr had filed against him, and she could have pressed to have him put in jail but chose not to. Ugorek said she asked Tosha Barr, " ‘aren't you afraid of him? Why do you suddenly think you're secure?' She said, ‘I'm not afraid of him. It's only when he drinks.'

"She still loved him. That was the bottom line."

Barr wrote in a request to drop the protective order that Travis Barr "is the only baby sitter that I have. I need my job. As of now, I feel that I'm no longer in danger from my husband."

He is, of course, innocent unless proved guilty.

Ugorek dealt with Barr from the criminal side of Safe on Seven's work; the protective order was on the civil side. It's still unclear whether workers on the civil side made Barr aware that child care was available. Safe on Seven should have a clear policy for documenting such information and releasing it to enhance public confidence in its work. Keith said Safe on Seven is exploring ways to better document the information and improve its release.

Ultimately, Tosha Barr made her own choice in dropping that protective order, despite the help that Safe on Seven had given her. That doesn't make her death any easier on Ugorek.

"It is their choice, and it has to be their choice, but how do we guide them to make the right choice?" she asked.

She added that there's "never enough time."

"What I should have worked harder at is convincing her not to let him back into the house, and not to let him back into her kids' life. But we have only so much time with these women."

■ John Railey write editorials for the Journal. He can be reached at



jrailey@wsjournal.com
.