In Defense Of Detective Dana Hughes, Metropolitan Police Department

Detective Dana Hughes, Metropolitan Police Department- I would not want to put Detective Dana Hughes on the stand. Often times it’s valuable to have the responding officer who at first hand witnessed the crime scene, although Hughes seems more like a bias hazard. It’s clear she has a bias to battered woman syndrome when in her affidavit she says, “it’s just a new excuse for committing murder. She never said anything about being beaten to me. I saw some bruises on her, but she said she was fine”. Battered woman syndrome plays a large part in the defense and although one could avoid her releasing her bias to the jury, she seems like her presence would be more hazardous than good for the defence. The only things that she could say that would be

In her affidavit she explains that this abuse has not been a secret and that she had “heard about Donovan’s temper from Dominque on and off for years”. She goes on to say that ever since the two were first married “Dominique used to complain that Donovan hit her”. In her affidavit she also went on to comment that too reassure her sister that abuse was normal she would say “a lot of husbands hit their wives now and then” and “that’s the way it is between men and women”. She goes on to say that “ it’s still the wife’s job to make a marriage work and to listen to her husband”. These quotes help show Dominique’s environment of people were victim blaming herself for the abuse. People she loved and held dear to her person like her own sister had normalized and even stated that she must be provoking the abuse if it’s happening. This shows how unsupportive her environment of people were through their words that normalize and simplify abuse and try to make it a less dangerous issue. This is another reason why Dominique attempted to maintain their relationship even with the abuse, because her loved ones explained and helped convince her that the abuse was a result of Dominique being a bad wife. Also when the sisters were on the phone Jordan reportedly said that Dominique said “it would only make things worse” in reply to the

Stephens to the stand. Primarily I would call her to the stand to show the severity of the abuse like “he would tie me up and punch me, or lock me in the closet and go out. I was always so terrified when he did that- what would happen if there was a fire?”. If she was willing she could show the jury how terrible the physical abuse was. She can also explain the constant emotional abuse that she was inflicted upon like when she reported that Mr. Stephens would blame her for being unemployed and when the house was not clean and quiet. She also says that “every time he came home, I was afraid there would be a beating” and that “he beat [her] at least once a week, although sometimes often more than that”. This shows the commonness and regularity of the abuse. Although it could be helpful to show the jury the severity of the abuse, I would not pressure her to discuss it because it’s likely uncomfortable for her and she would obviously not want to talk about her abuse to strangers. She also can provide another element to battered woman syndrome in that Mr. Stephens would force isolation between Ms. Stephens and her family and friends. In her affidavit she explains that Mr. Stephens would not allow her to have anything to do with her family and even put a lock on the phone to prevent her from calling them. Finally, I would want her to bring up when minutes prior to his death, Mr. Stephens clearly gives a serious death threat to Ms.