I have a case with an uncooperative victim. He hit her so hard it burst her eardrum. Also have choking, and retaliation charged. Any thoughts or suggestions on dealing with an uncooperative victim in these kind of cases would be greatly appreciated.

Defendant is habitualized and has several family violence arrests. I am working on getting offense reports from the previous arrests.

Would also appreciate any suggestions on voir dire.

Questions related to how they would determine the credibility of witnesses and why victims might not want to prosecute are probably helpful under these circumstances. Sometimes if there's someone on your panel that's dealt with the issue they are happy to discuss all the reasons, rational or otherwise (financial dependence, kids together, threats of additional violence, simply that they love their abuser, etc.).

Sent you an e-mail

One thing I've done in the past is make a chart called something like the scale of aggression.

insults--yelling--screaming--pushing--hitting--causing injury--causign serious injury--death

or something similar that fits your facts.

That will do several things. You can talk about escalation of violence and ask questions about when would they intervene if it was an acquiantance, a neighbor, a loved one. When would they want someone to intervene if it was thier son or daughter?

This also leads to the whole discussion about intervening before it gets too serious and not waiting until someone is killed.

It can help start the conversation and ferret out those jurors that feel like abuse is a family matter in which the state should not intervene.

Ask how many know someone who has lied about insults? About yelling, etc? And so on asking related questions until they see that while some may lie and cover up lower level arguments few will lie about injury or hitting. And that leads into a discussion about people who would lie or cover up abuse and why--battered person syndrome and all that goes into that mentality--or as much as you want to get into it on voir dire anyway.

In any case, that kind of chart has helped me discuss those issues on voir dire in the past.

RCC, Thanks, I got your email.