BUTTERFLY WOMEN
Jessica Lenahan, a woman of Native American and Latina descent, filed the first human rights case involving domestic violence in an international body against the United States. Her landmark case, though it did not arise in Indian Country, set a precedent for enforcement of emergency intervention on behalf of women in crisis. With the support of the American Civil Liberties Union and Columbia’s Law School’s Human Rights Clinic, her case was brought before the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) in 2007.
Her legal fight began after the 1999 abduction and murder of her three daughters (ages seven, nine and ten) by her estranged husband one month after she got a restraining order against him. She immediately called the Castle Rock Police Department after he snatched the girls, but they told her they could not do anything despite the restraining order and advised her to call back if they did not show up. They still refused to help her after she drove to the station to plead in person for assistance.
Later that night, he died in a shootout with the police in front of the station, after which the police found her daughters. Dead in the truck he drove to the station.
She lost her lawsuit against the Castle Rock Police Department and individual officers for their “deliberate failure” to enforce her domestic violence protection order in 2005, when the U.S. Supreme Court issued their decision that she did not have a constitutional right to police enforcement of her restraining order nor was it mandatory under Colorado law for the police department to enforce her restraining order.
But Jessica did not give up her fight. She gave testimony before the IACHR during its 2008 merits hearing to decide whether the U.S and the State of Colorado violated the human rights of Ms. Lenahan and her children, specifically the rights to life, nondiscrimination, family life/unity, due process, petition the government, and special protections afforded to domestic violence survivors. Her case revolved around two cardinal issues – the obligations of law enforcement to respond to domestic violence and protect victims, and the responsibility of the U.S. government to provide a remedy when those obligations are not fulfilled. Over 70 organizations and individuals filed amicus briefs in support of her case.
In 2011, the IACHR ruled on her behalf, upholding that the United States is responsible for human rights violations against Jessica and her daughters, and outlined comprehensive recommendations for policy changes relative to domestic violence laws. Since 2011, an increasing number of local governments have formally recognized in resolutions or proclamations that freedom from domestic violence is a human right.
Excerpted from Butterfly Woman (2017)
