How Victims of Strangulation Survived: Enhancing the Admissibility of Victim Statements to the Police When Survivors are Reluctant to Cooperate

Holding perpetrators accountable for family violence is challenged when survivors are reluctant to testify. In light of recent Supreme Court precedents limiting the admissibility of statements to law enforcement in victimless prosecutions, the current study examined 130 cases of nonfatal strangulati...

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Bibliographic Details
Authors: Brady, Patrick Q. (Author) ; Fansher, Ashley K. (Author) ; Zedaker, Sara B. (Author)
Format: Electronic Article
Language:English
Published: 2022
In: Violence against women
Year: 2022, Volume: 28, Issue: 5, Pages: 1098-1123
Online Access: Volltext (lizenzpflichtig)
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Keywords:
Confrontation clause
Forfeiture by wrongdoing
Coercive Control
domestic violence
nonfatal strangulation
Description
Summary:Holding perpetrators accountable for family violence is challenged when survivors are reluctant to testify. In light of recent Supreme Court precedents limiting the admissibility of statements to law enforcement in victimless prosecutions, the current study examined 130 cases of nonfatal strangulation (NFS) to determine whether case characteristics and themes across survivors’ on-scene statements can help prosecutors combat common legal defenses raised when victims are unavailable for trial. The history of prior violence and how only 6% of perpetrators stopped strangling victims on their own suggests that NFS complaints should be investigated as an attempted homicide until evidence suggests otherwise.
ISSN:1552-8448
DOI:10.1177/10778012211022772