Morris Mayas inflammatory diatribe demeans women

Mr. Morris Maya, a local prosecutor, authored a recent opinion column ("Bill will crowd cemeteries,” in the April 4 edition of the Daily Journal) in opposition to a bill by state Sen. Leland Yee, D-San Francisco/San Mateo, that would protect domestic violence victims in the same fashion that California law protects sex assault victims, by exempting them from jail and other sanctions when these victims decline to testify in court.

Sex assault victims do not face any penalty for not wanting to testify. With the support of women’s groups and domestic violence victim advocacy groups, Yee authored Senate Bill 1356 that would provide the same protection to domestic violence victims.

Maya calls the senator "uninformed” and "unsophisticated” for carrying the legislative proposal. Maya puts the Senator in a league with wife beaters and grave diggers while calling the bill, which seeks to prevent domestic violence victims from ending up in jail, dangerous.

Maya, however, omitted to tell his readers that the same protection Senator Yee seeks to extend to domestic violence victims already exists for sex assault victims. Maya also omitted to inform you that the assault conviction suffered by Katina Britt’s attacker was an "alternative charge” to the one of domestic violence, in other words, he could not have been punished for both.

Britt does not need Maya’s help other than in spelling her first name correctly. After all, Maya’s colleague in the District Attorney’s office asked the court to take Katina into custody. The court obliged. Britt, having been victimized once by her assailant who rendered her unconscious, ended up being re-victimized by the court and prosecutor (Maya’s office).

Maya’s colleague did not need Ms. Britt to convict her attacker and send him to prison. Every day throughout our country, prosecutors obtain murder convictions, obviously without the testimony of the victim. Even in a minor misdemeanor domestic violence case, prosecutors rely on 911 tape-recorded calls (hearsay but admissible because it constitutes an "excited utterance”), medical records, police observations, statements by the suspects and third party witness accounts to obtain domestic violence convictions.

Yee is to be commended, not attacked, for putting the Katina Britt on par with sex assault victims in the protection afforded them by our laws in court. Maya did not stop with his attack on Senator Yee and the baring of his condescending attitude towards women. Maya also managed to critique Britt’s lawyer for having represented criminal defendants in his career.

Katina’s lawyer happened to have been appointed by the court to represent Britt in the contempt proceedings. When the same court ordered her into custody, her lawyer was the only one who reminded the court that she was entitled to an automatic three-day stay so she could seek review of her contempt sentence. Even then, the district attorney still wanted Katina jailed.

What happened to Katina demonstrates the need for Yee’s legislation. Maya’s ad hominem attacks prove that his office’s attitude is to tell domestic violence victims who do not wish to testify that they better get sexually assaulted too if they want to stay out of jail.

Maya managed to attack Senator Yee and the function of criminal defense attorneys in a civilized society, patronize Katina Britt and make apples and oranges look alike by comparing open heart surgery to criminal procedure. What was missing from his inflammatory diatribe was one good reason not to put domestic violence victims on the same footing as sex assault victims. His attitude, however, spoke volumes of why SB 1356 should be enacted.

Paul F. DeMeester is a resident of Redwood City. He is the defense attorney for Katina Britt.