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Neal Miller and Hugh Nugent
Institute for Law and
Justice
Publication Date: January 2002
Correspondence can be sent to:
Institute for Law and Justice
1018 Duke Street
Alexandria, Virginia 22314
Phone: 703-684-5300, Fax: 703-739-5533
Prepared under a grant from the National Institute of Justice to the Institute for Law and Justice (ILJ), grant no. 97-WT-VX-0007 Any opinions expressed herein are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of the U.S. Department of Justice or ILJ.
In 1990, California enacted the first criminal law specifically directed at stalking. Since that time there has been considerable research on the dynamics of stalking, including, for example, who stalks and why stalkers stalk. However, little research has been conducted on the stalking laws themselves and how they have been implemented. The present research was conducted to fill that knowledge gap. The research examined state and federal anti-stalking laws, court decisions, social science and medical research on stalking and stalkers, and anti-stalking actions by law enforcement, prosecutor, and victim service agencies around the country. Although the researchers initially contemplated evaluating the effectiveness of the new stalking laws, that was deemed not feasible. Instead, developing a "best practices" catalogue became the study's second focus.
This report presents the findings of the multi-layered research. Key findings include these:
This report first presents findings from a review of the prior research on stalking and some original information gathering; this combination resulted in a reassessment of the significance of stalking as a policy issue for criminal justice. The review also examines stalking's definitions, prevalence, and impact on victims. Next comes an examination of criminal law, namely, the enactment of stalking laws and their reception in the courts. The report then discusses how stalking laws have been implemented, based on (1) surveys of law enforcement, prosecutor, and victim service agencies, and (2) field work with agencies having specialized anti-stalking units. The empirical findings from the field work together with a review of training and other materials used by these agencies combine to produce a "best practices" synthesis. The report concludes with recommendations for legislators, agency administrators, funders, and researchers.
Below is the full report, an Executive Summary is also available.
Stalking is a crime of terror. It is one part threat and one part waiting for the threat to be carried out. The victim of stalking has no way to resolve the threat and terror she feels. (Most reported cases involve male stalkers and female victims.) Stalking is also far more common than most people believe, including criminal justice professionals. Together, these two points underscore the reality that stalking is an important policy issue for the criminal justice system, for agencies providing services to victims of crime, and for advocates concerned about violence against women. Stalking has, of course, gathered considerable attention from the mass media. However, notwithstanding a sizable literature about stalking as a legal construct and as a medical issue, systematic information about this crime and what is being done about it is largely missing. Most significantly, policy analysis of what needs to be done to improve anti-stalking investigation, prosecution, and provision of services to stalking victims is totally absent. To fill those gaps in knowledge, this study of the status of stalking laws and their implementation in the United States was conducted. 1 The study:
The premise for the research was that stalking is a serious crime against persons 2 and is widely prevalent. 3 While there has been significant federal support for state and local agencies to adopt anti-stalking laws4 and implement anti-stalking initiatives,5 no comprehensive review of the status of such efforts had been done. Thus, there was no way of knowing what additional measures (such as federal assistance to state and local enforcement agencies, or new initiatives by state and local agencies themselves) might be needed to enhance local anti-stalking efforts. This study of stalking was designed to clarify the status of stalking laws and their implementation needs. Although the original study design included an assessment of the effectiveness of the new laws, that assessment proved to be impractical.6 Instead, a review of "best practices" was substituted as a prelude to later process and impact evaluations. The major research tasks included the following:
In general, the examination of the status of stalking laws and their implementation in the 50 states found the following:
A key qualitative finding of the study was how arduous these cases can be to investigate and prosecute. The relative newness of the laws (first enacted in California in 1990) is only part of the explanation. Stalking cases are unique in many ways, and their investigation and prosecution often require new techniques. Stalking investigators and prosecutors must approach these cases from a problem-solving perspective. Each case can present idiosyncratic challenges requiring problem-solving approaches for identifying who the stalker is, gathering evidence to prove both the identity of the stalker and that a stalking has occurred, and proving those facts to a jury. Methods used with other types of crimes are often inadequate for stalking cases, and new approaches must be developed.
This report explains how the conclusions above were reached and expands on them. Part I of the report introduces the legal definition of stalking. Part II reviews prior research on the prevalence of stalking and its impact on victims. Part III details research findings on the degree to which stalking laws have been enacted and implemented. Those findings are based on a 50-state legislative analysis and a review of related court decisions; a report on two national surveys of law enforcement and prosecutor agencies asking about anti-stalking initiatives; and a review of federal funding of anti-stalking initiatives. Part IV provides a qualitative assessment of how law enforcement and prosecutor agencies are implementing anti-stalking programs. This assessment is based on both field observations and a review of prior research on stalking that has been used by practitioners to shape their activities, including stalker typology and threat assessment studies. In essence, it provides a research-distilled problem-solving-based "how-to" for managers and practitioners, as well as suggestions for trainers. Part V discusses the policy implications of the research findings for legislators, agency administrators, and other supervisory practitioners responsible for day-to-day investigations and prosecutions.
Stalking is a crime. It is defined by statutes and by court decisions interpreting those statutes. 7 Nonetheless, because the term "stalking" has other meanings that predate the creation of the crime of stalking, it is necessary to distinguish between stalking as a crime and stalking as other non-criminal activity (with which stalking crime is often confused). Failures to distinguish between the two can have significant consequences for how stalking laws are enforced.
When asked about "stalking,"
None of these four statements accurately describes the crime of stalking. They do, however, illustrate common beliefs about what constitutes stalking. As the statements suggest, stalking in common parlance (and even among criminal justice professionals) is predatory behavior.8 For example, the lion stalks its prey or the hunter stalks the lion. However, stalking in criminal law requires more than simple hunting or trailing of another person as one might stalk an animal.9 One key difference between "stalking" as used in hunting and as used in criminal law is the victim's awareness of the stalking behavior. From this perspective, behavioral scientists and mental health professionals have focused on stalking as behavior that inflicts unwanted intrusions and communications on another. 10 The concern of mental health professionals with stalking is that stalking often reflects serious psychological problems that require treatment. 11 However, a treatment perspective would not necessarily require victim awareness to be part of a stalking diagnosis, since the need for treatment comes from the behavior of the stalker alone. Thus, Meloy and Gothard use the phrase "obsessional following" as interchangeable with stalking, with the implication that although such following suggests a need for treatment, that need exists regardless of any overt intrusions on the victim. 12 Of course, it may be that the degree of need for treatment is generally correlated with the degree of victim awareness of the stalking, or that the mental health system is unlikely to know about the stalking behavior without a victim complaint. (Stalkers who are obsessed with another person are not likely to refer themselves to treatment.) But victim awareness does not necessarily elevate obsessional following to the level of a criminal act. Simple unwanted intrusions upon another may or may not constitute harassment, depending on the applicable state law, and in most states such intrusions do not constitute criminal stalking. It is also true that not all stalking can be considered obsessional behavior.
The crime of stalking involves much more than predatory behavior, although that is typically one element of criminal stalking. The motivations for the stalking, including obsessional causes, are not at all relevant to defining the crime of stalking. Instead, most state penal codes define stalking as involving the following three elements:
This lengthy definition may be simplified to the three key prosecutorial elements that present the greatest difficulties of proof:
State stalking laws in all jurisdictions require the prosecution to show that the stalking behavior was intentional. That is, the stalker meant to perform the acts that constituted the stalking.14 In most states, the prosecution must also prove that the stalker intended to threaten the victim and to cause fear. 15 Court decisions in several states have reduced the prosecutorial burden of proving intent to threaten and cause fear by holding that the defendant's actions were such that he "knew or should have known" that his actions would provoke perceptions of a threat and fear. 16
A threat under most states' stalking laws 17 may be either explicit or implicit. 18 In either instance, stalking threats do not require any immediacy; the execution of the threats can lie in the indefinite future. Implicit threats differ from explicit threats in not conveying a threat by their very words. Instead, the threat is inferred by the victim based on what the stalker says and does, taking into account any special knowledge that the victim has of the stalker, such as a prior history of violence. Threats must also meet a "reasonable person" standard to exclude oversensitive reactions from the law's reach.
Stalker threat and victim fear in response to that threat are easy to separate where the stalking threat is explicit. 19 But most stalking cases do not involve explicit threats. In cases where the threat is implicit in the stalker's actions, threat and fear can be difficult to separate. Proof of one often also means proving the other, per the reasonable person standard. In these cases, it is the context in which the harassing or stalking behavior occurs that provides the link between that behavior and victim fear. For example, sending flowers as a gift may be stalking behavior, depending on what actions have preceded the gift. In some cases, the threat against the victim may be obvious even where only implicit (as where the stalker places a nylon sex doll with a rope tied around its neck in the victim's bed). In other cases, more background information is needed, e.g., where the stalker uses the phrase "love forever" and in the same letter refers to his prowess as a rifle sharpshooter. The requirement in most jurisdictions for actual fear means that unless the victim is aware of being followed, simple predatory behavior does not constitute the crime of stalking.
There is no typical stalking case. Suspect behaviors vary widely. The only constant is that multiple acts form a pattern of behaviors that together constitute stalking. Some examples of stalking cases follow.20
A woman was dating a man who was a fellow student at a university in San Diego. After three months together, she felt he was trying to isolate her from her friends and family, and he seemed controlling and demanding (common in domestic violence cases). Soon after she told him their relationship was over, she found her car tires slashed and a brick thrown through the windshield. The vandalism was followed by threatening phone calls and messages on her pager citing the California penal code section for murder-187. The woman went into hiding from him. A couple of months later, she was asleep in bed with her daughter when she was awakened by a loud popping noise-the man striking her in the mouth with a ball peen hammer. He fled the scene but was arrested days later. While awaiting trial, he asked a cellmate to hire a "hit man" to kill the woman. Upon being told of this by an informant, the prosecutor's investigators staged a "murder." A makeup artist was hired to prepare the woman to appear as if she had been shot in the head. Polaroid photos were then taken of her, apparently assassinated. An undercover investigator went to the jail and visited the stalker, who after seeing the photo, acknowledged that the murder was what he wanted. The prosecutors filed charges in San Diego, and the man was convicted of stalking, burglary, assault with a deadly weapon, torture, and soliciting for murder. He received a prison sentence of 13 years to life.
The victim, an 18-year-old female, sang in her church choir. She was seen performing with the choir by a total stranger, who began to stalk her. Among other things, he sent pornographic pictures and videos to her home. With the pornography, he would add a message saying, "This is you and this is me." He also called her at home, making threats and playing the soundtrack from a pornographic movie. When he was arrested, he explained his actions as motivated by his being a "student of human nature." He said he simply wanted to see how she would react to his presents, and he would sit in the back of the church to see how she was holding up to his actions. The defendant was convicted of stalking and sentenced to 16 months in prison.
A man became fixated on a woman who refused to engage in a romantic relationship with him. After several years, the man began to impersonate the woman on the Internet. He placed several sexually graphic want ads on Internet bulletin boards and began to correspond with men, while still pretending to be the woman. He then solicited the men to rape the woman, claiming to enjoy rough sex and rape fantasies. As part of the solicitation, he provided the men with the woman's address, phone number, and other personal information. When the woman learned of these events from one of the men so solicited, she went to local police and was told there was nothing they could do. Eventually, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) referred her to the Los Angeles District Attorney's Stalking and Threat Assessment Team (STAT). After extensive investigation by STAT that included issuance of search warrants to Internet service providers to track the source of the Web postings, a felony stalking complaint was issued. The man eventually pled guilty and received a six-year sentence to state prison.
For years a woman had been the subject of domestic violence. When the violence escalated, she called 911; the police responded but did not arrest the batterer. When the batterer began to threaten her children, the victim obtained an order of protection that required the batterer to leave the household. The issuance of the order seemed to incense the batterer, who began a campaign of harassment against the victim, including following her for four weeks. At trial, he was quoted as saying to her by telephone, "I am across the street watching you, and I'm going to kill you." No calls to the police were ever made. One day, while she was driving home from work, a car tried to run her off the road in the mountains. She stopped and began talking to witnesses of the incident. The batterer approached her in disguise and attacked and killed her. A copy of the protection order was found in his car. The batterer was convicted of first degree murder and sentenced by the jury to death, partly on the basis that he had been lying in wait, a statutory aggravating factor. 21
The term "stalking" is used in a variety of ways, many of which have little to do with the criminal law's use of the term. The resultant potential for confusion is rarely recognized. Even professionals in the field of stalking do not always distinguish between the term "stalking" in common usage and as a criminal law term. For example, the threat assessment literature often uses the phrase "celebrity stalking," while at the same time noting that such "stalkers" do not usually provide the victim with advance notice of a planned attack.22
In the criminal law context, however, the term "stalking" refers to
Not every state's laws fit this tri-part definition. Further, states vary in their specification of what each crime element requires. Nonetheless, there is general agreement nationally that this definition of stalking is appropriate and useful as a research construct.23
The significance of stalking 24 lies in how often it occurs and in its deep impact on victims. Given its recent addition to the criminal codes, it is not surprising that research has just begun to address these issues. As the review below suggests, the number of such studies is growing.
Anecdotal and convenience or limited sample estimates of the incidence of stalking 25 have now been replaced by more systematic surveys directed at stalking frequencies in the population. The most important of these is the National Violence Against Women Survey, which conducted telephone interviews with a randomly selected sample of 8,000 women and 8,000 men. The study estimated that over 1 million women and 370,000 men were stalked in the year prior to the interviews. Put another way, about 1 percent of all women and 0.4 percent of all men had been stalked in the 12-month period under examination. Although no estimates of statistical sampling error were provided by the study itself, application of statistical tests for "rare" events to the survey findings results in an estimate that 750,000 to 1.25 million women and 200,000 to 600,000 men are stalked annually. The study estimated that over 10 million men and women had been stalked at least once in their lifetime. Using a broad definition of stalking that includes cases where victim fear was not as great, estimates of the number of persons stalked annually increase to 6 million women and 1.4 million men; lifetime stalking incidence rises to 12.1 million women and 3.7 million men. 26
The National Survey estimates, although subject to caveats based on response rate and questionnaire issues,27 are probably low. A more recent study using a similar methodology was conducted by the Louisiana Office of Public Health. The study found that 15 percent of Louisiana women interviewed reported being stalked at least once in their lifetime, or nearly twice the numbers reported by the National Survey, using a similarly high "fear" criterion. 28Even that estimate may be low since women aged 18-24 were underrepresented in the sample surveyed, and another study of stalking of college women suggests that may bias results to minimize the actual incidence of stalking. 29 That third survey used telephone interviewing to gather data on six campuses. The survey found that 13.1 percent of the female college students perceived that they had been stalked during the school year in which the survey was conducted. 30 Lifetime estimates of stalking exposure were not derived, perhaps in part because of the relatively young age of the respondents. Another estimate of stalking prevalence comes from the British Crime Survey conducted in 1998 using face-to-face interviews combined with a computer-assisted, self-administered procedure (the interviewer hands a laptop computer to the interviewee, who then fills out the form). The survey found that between 550,000 and 900,000 persons were stalked in the year preceding the survey. This amounted to 2.9 percent of the British population, a figure more than double that of the National Violence Against Women Survey in the United States. Limiting the definition of stalking to behavior inducing fear of violence reduces the proportion of stalking victims to 1.9 percent of the British population,31 still nearly 50 percent greater than the National Survey estimate for the United States. While it is possible that the differing estimates are due to differing populations, the more likely explanation is that the differing methodologies are the cause. The use of laptops was introduced by the British Crime Survey to reduce interviewee embarrassment at having to discuss highly personal questions, especially sexual assault and domestic violence. Moreover, the computer program requires that the interviewee complete all questions before the program can be terminated. Both factors lead to increased reporting. The British Crime Survey, the Louisiana health study, and the campus stalking survey all indicate that the National Violence Against Women Survey may understate stalking's incidence by as much as a factor of two. However surprising that survey's estimate (over 1 million stalking cases annually) may have been, the true figure is probably over 2 million felony-level stalking cases annually. The higher figure takes into account both the wide range in the survey's estimates (1.4 to 7.4 million victims, depending on the definition of stalking used) and the findings of the three other studies. It does not, however, include "lesser" stalking cases where victim fear does not result, nor does it include stalking against juveniles.32
The research also shows that stalking occurs among all populations, rather than being largely limited to specific subgroups. Thus, the National Survey found no difference between white and minority women in their prevalence of stalking victimization, nor was there a statistically significant difference between Hispanic and non-Hispanic women. 33 Hall adds to these findings in her report on 145 stalking victims who volunteered to answer questions about their experiences. Her findings show that persons of all ages and employment may be victims of stalking. Five of the victims were under age 18, while two were over age 70; 20 percent were age 41-50, while nearly one-fourth were ages 18-25. These stalking victims also varied widely in their jobs; they were professionals (31 percent), managers (20 percent), technical workers (17 percent), sales workers (16 percent), students (12 percent), retired persons (3 percent), and homemakers (3 percent).34 Pathe and Mullen's study of Australian stalking victims found a similar pattern of diversity. Among their sample of 100 victims, the age of the stalking victims ranged from nine to 66 years, with most being in their mid to late 30s. At the outset of the stalking, 36 percent of the victims were employed as professionals, in such fields as medicine, law, or education.35
One population is, however, unusually subject to being stalked: battered women who have separated from their batterer. Indeed, as noted elsewhere, it is homicide and stalking against that group that motivated many states' stalking laws. One of the few studies to examine the incidence of stalking among these women, conducted by Mechanic and colleagues, found that 13 to 29 percent (depending on the definition of stalking used) of their sample of 144 battered women reported being stalked in the six months immediately following separation.36 Another study, by Tjaden and Thoennes, found that 16.5 percent of all domestic violence calls involved allegations of stalking. 37 The more important question, however, is what proportion of stalking involves domestic violence. The National Violence Against Women Survey found that slightly more than half (54 percent) of all stalking is done by current or former intimates or dating partners. That cluster included 59 percent of female stalking victims and 32 percent of male stalking victims. If, however, dating partners who had not cohabited are excluded, the proportion of stalking cases involving domestic violence is reduced to 40-45 percent.38
Official statistics do not in any way match these estimates, even though both the national and Louisiana surveys reported that stalking complaints are typically made to law enforcement.39 The state reporting the most stalking criminal cases is Florida, which in 1999 reported 704 stalking cases, a drop from 920 in 1998. 40 Most states either do not report stalking crimes at all or exclude them from their annual crime statistics reporting, although some stalking crimes are captured in domestic violence crime statistics. 41An example of the latter is New Jersey, which in 1997 reported 345 domestic violence-related stalking offense.42 In 1997, North Dakota reported the greatest number (per capita) of stalking cases of any state. 43 Even so, its rate, if applied nationally, would equate to only 22,805 stalking cases. One of the few states to report civil stalking filings (for orders of protection) is Oregon. That state's Judicial Department reported that in 1999 there were 1,404 filings for stalking orders of protection.44 Extrapolating from that number to the U.S. population as a whole translates into 115,409 stalking cases nationwide. However one counts, the official statistics for stalking fall far below the actual number of such cases.
To understand how victims react to stalking, it is necessary to understand the variety, persistence, and repetition of stalking behaviors. Understanding those factors also permits inferences about victims' responses to be drawn, based on the reasonable person standard used in many state stalking laws.
The illustrations of stalking previously presented exemplify, but do not delimit, the range of behaviors that a stalking victim may be exposed to. Anecdotal reports of stalking cases are widespread, and few studies provide statistical summaries of the frequency with which different stalking behaviors occur.
Anecdotal reports come from a variety of sources. One excellent but rarely used source is published court decisions in stalking cases. Personal accounts of stalking are also available and provide an additional, important perspective.
The examples below are taken from court opinions affirming convictions in stalking cases.45 Because the nature of a relationship can affect the specific stalking behaviors engaged in, the examples are listed according to the type of prior relationship between the stalker and the victim.
Information about stalkers also comes from personal reports published by or about stalking victims. For example, one well-known story is that of Kathleen Baty. In 1982, her stalking began with a phone call from a high school classmate whom she had not seen in years. The phone calls continued, and she soon noticed a pickup truck circling the house. Police were called and found a loaded rifle in the truck. Defendant was held for 48-hour psychiatric evaluation and released. The calls resumed, and defendant was soon rearrested outside victim's parents' home, again carrying a rifle. On this occasion, defendant was sent to a mental facility for six months and received three years' probation. After he completed probation, defendant was arrested again, this time for trying to break into victim's home. He received a 60-day jail sentence and three more years on probation. In summer 1989, victim met the defendant again by chance; she ordered a pizza and he was the deliveryman. In November of that year the stalking resumed. The next spring, victim got married and defendant went missing. Soon, he appeared in victim's kitchen, holding a knife and planning to take her to a mountain cabin for a couple of weeks until she began to love him. Fortunately, the phone rang and the victim was able to communicate to her mother what was happening. Police were summoned and arrested defendant. Defendant was sentenced to eight years in prison.55
In general, the research supports these anecdotes as illustrating both the scope of stalking behaviors and their duration and frequency. The National Violence Against Women Survey, for example, found that 82 percent of the women stalked reported that their stalkers followed them, spied on them, or stood outside her house. Sixty-one percent said they had received unwanted phone calls, 33 percent received unwanted letters or gifts, and 29 percent had property vandalized. The survey also found that 9 percent of the stalked women reported threats to kill the family pet, 56 a finding not seen in the stories above. The survey respondents were also unlikely to experience extended stalking, lasting more than one year; only one-third of those stalked were stalked for a period greater than one year. Only 10 percent of those stalked were stalked for more than five years. 57 Finally, the survey found that stalking victims who had previously been intimate partners with their stalker were significantly more likely to have been victims of domestic violence than were women in the general population; 81 percent of intimate stalking victims had been assaulted by their spouse in the past compared to a 20 percent lifetime experience of domestic violence among all women who have been married or lived with a man. 58 The Louisiana survey also found a high level of prior assaults against stalking victims, 32 percent. 59
Other research on stalking supports both the National Survey's findings and the stories above. Nicastro, Cousins, and Spitzberg, for example, in summarizing eight studies on stalking list the following behaviors as characteristic of stalking: frequent telephone calls, personal contact at home or work, driving by home, repeated following or watching, appearing at work or school, sending or leaving letters or objects, contacting third parties, damaging property, breaking and entering, and threatening violence to the victim or others. 60 In a review of criminal case files in the San Diego City Attorney's Office, these researchers also found that 45 percent of the stalking cases involved physical assaults of one sort or another. 61 Hall also found a high incidence of assaultive behaviors among other stalking actions. She found that 38 percent of her victim sample reported being hit or beaten and 22 percent reported a sexual assault. The most common stalking behaviors reported by these victims included making unwanted telephone calls (87 percent), surveillance at home (84 percent), following (80 percent), driving by home (77 percent), appearing at workplace (54 percent), and sending letters (50 percent). Some unusual activities included spreading gossip (48 percent) and sending packages with materials such as urine, blood, or dead animals (3 percent). One victim also reported an arson. 62
A number of researchers have developed typologies of stalking behavior. One especially interesting study is Dunn's review of stalking case files and interviews of stalking victims in a major California jurisdiction. She classifies stalking behaviors as falling into four categories:
In sum, both the anecdotal reports drawn from court decisions and personal stories agree on the scope of stalking behaviors and their duration.
Relatively little research has focused on the impact stalking has on its victims, although homicidethe most serious impact of stalkingled to policy attention to stalking. But non-homicide-stalking victims are also often dramatically impacted. Information about such impacts comes from a variety of sources. These include information from the victims themselves, especially victim interviews, their courtroom testimony, and victim surveys asking about impacts.
A statutory element of the crime of stalking in most states is victim fear. Hence, it is not surprising that many court rulings in stalking cases cite reports of victim fear. But the term "fear" does not really convey the complexities of how victims respond to stalkers. Thus, we need to know more about other internalized reactions and about victim responses that involve lifestyle changes.
In all the court cases cited above, victims reported being physically frightened. In the last of these cases, Jackson, the victim stated,
Well, it's affected my life...tremendously. It's like living in a prison. I mean, these things continue. The willfulness of it all. The continued lying-in-wait. Everywhere I gothere would beI have incidents of phone calls, letters, letters to neighborsI mean, it's just awful. I mean none of itI mean, I've done nothing wrong. Here I am as a doctor trying to help a patient and this is...what occurred. And it is horrible. I live every day still in fear that something's going to happen to me. Fear that...my children are going to be left alone if someday you know I'd drive up and meet her and sheor she's just there and...does bodily harm to me. I mean it's just awful. Nothing is changed. We still do the alarm, we still do the binoculars. At night...you hear sounds andnormal sounds of the neighborhood and here I am running to the window...trying to look out or going out and seeing...what's occurring. It's just horrible. It's a horrible way to live in fear of your life...every day I wake up I'm in fear of my safety.64
Dunn quotes another stalking victim, who told her,
There's no advice I can give a person on how to deal with the fear. How do you, you know, there's nothing I could say that's gonna make sense, especially when you have a child. I mean I, the nights I had to put the knife under her bed, the nights, when what am I going to do? Cause if he was coming in, he had to get through me, to get to her. I mean, totally, I bet you, 70 to 80 nights like that, when he was coming over. And there's nothing, there's no advice I could ever give a person to deal with, there's no way to deal with it. It's the most powerful fear there is...I'd never felt that kind of fear before. The only fear I'd ever felt before was the kind you feel when a person jumps out in front of you and you almost like, hit him, that roller coaster kind of fear, but walking around with that feeling that you get right at that moment, if you can imagine that feeling again, where you almost hit someone, never leaving...if you could imagine walking around that way, for months after months after months and it never leaving, the fear, whatever the thing that has made you afraid doesn't leave....
Kasting, who reports on extensive interviews with stalking victims, points out that the impact of stalking by a former intimate partner can be affected by continuing emotional ties between the stalker and the victim, as well as by social pressures to make the former relationship "work." For example, one of her interviews was with a woman whose family supported the stalker's efforts since their religious beliefs favored the sanctity of marriage. These external forces may worsen stalking's impact by undercutting social support and understanding for the victims, increasing their isolation from society. 65 Kasting's interviews also underscore how the justice system's response to stalking can ameliorate or exacerbate the negative effects of stalking on the victim's mental health and well-being.
Considerable research has also been done on victim responses to stalking. For example, the National Violence Against Women Survey found evidence of significant mental health impacts. Thirty percent of the women and 20 percent of the men victims said they had sought psychological counseling due to being stalked. These victims were also more likely than others to be concerned about personal safety (42 versus 24 percent) and to carry something on their person to defend themselves (45 versus 29 percent). Over a quarter of the stalking victims reported loss of time from work due to the stalking (average time lost was 11 days); 7 percent said they had never returned to work. Other self-protection measures taken by stalking victims included purchasing a gun (17 percent), changing address (11 percent), moving out of town (11 percent), and varying driving habits (5 percent).66 The Louisiana stalking survey reported similar findings. Thirty-six percent of the stalking victims said they had moved their household as a result of the stalking, and 11 percent purchased a gun. Fifty-five percent said that they had experienced stress that interfered with their regular activities for a period of at least one month.67 With their survey of college students, Mustaine and Tewksbury found that stalking victims also reported significant changes in behavior to lessen their vulnerability, including carrying mace and carrying a pocketknife. 68
Mullen and colleagues have done extensive research on stalking impact in Australia. Their 1997 survey of 100 stalking victims found that stalking resulted in significant activity changes for its victims, including the following:
The researchers also found important psychological problems resulting from the stalking, including these:
The researchers' analysis of these findings suggested that most of the stalking victims experienced at least one major symptom associated with Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). The authors explain that this is not surprising because "stalking possesses many of the features that may produce chronic stress reactions and related psychological sequelae."71 Those features include persistent, repetitive trauma; loss of control; state of persistent threat with associated symptoms that may far outlive the actual duration of the harassment; and loss of social supports normally available for crime victims because of mistrust and fear generated by the stalking itself. While many factors affected the specifics of the stalking impact on the victims, there was not one victim who did not experience some level of harm "that in some cases amounted to profound deterioration in functioning."
These findings were replicated by Nicastro and her colleagues and by Hall. Nicastro's sample of 55 prosecution cases in San Diego showed that the most common impacts from the stalking were fear (80 percent), feeling threatened (43 percent), nervous reaction (33 percent), and anger (29 percent). A smaller number reported physical illness (11 percent), depression (9 percent), and a sense of helplessness (7 percent).72 Similarly, Hall found that 87 percent of her sample of 145 victims said their personalities had changed as a result of the stalking, a figure greater for the female than the male victims. Specifically, 41 percent felt paranoid, 52 percent easily frightened, and 27 percent more aggressive. The percentages of those saying they had been generally friendly (89%) and outgoing (78%) before the stalking dropped significantly, to 53 percent (friendly) and 41 percent (outgoing).73
Finally, Blaauw and colleagues studied stalking's impact on victims in the Netherlands and found that even a year or more after the cessation of stalking, there was no significant reduction in the psychiatric symptoms associated with the stalking. 74
Although the anecdotal reports provide a powerful, if limited, descriptive view of stalking's impact on the victims, the research cited above provides a much clearer view of the variety of impacts caused by stalking.
There have been only a handful of studies of the incidence of stalking. Taking into account methodological differences among these studies, a best-guess estimate of the incidence of stalking is probably about two million victimizations annually. If one uses a looser definition of stalking to include cases where victim fear is relatively minor, the number of stalking cases occurring annually grows by another 2 to 4 million. While these numbers far exceed estimates based on official records, the difference is simply a matter of failure of victim reporting and poor agency record keeping.
Whether one reviews the prior research or the anecdotal reports found in court decisions, or simply talks to victims of stalking, the inescapable conclusion is that stalking has a devastating impact on victims. This might not matter if stalking were a rare occurrence, but it is not. Literally millions of Americans have been victims of stalking, and millions more will be stalked unless something is done to prevent such acts. Stalking is important to its victims and should be important for policymakers.
State lawmakers have responded to the problem of stalking by enacting anti-stalking laws. Questions arise, however, about the scope of those laws and how well they are being implemented. The research sought answers to both these questions by reviewing
Part IV of this report continues the research examination of local anti-stalking initiatives by examining the effectiveness of the new stalking laws from a best practices perspective.
Enactment of criminal laws is just the first step in using the justice system to combat stalking. Court rulings must interpret possible ambiguities in the laws and limit the law where it might impinge on First Amendment or other constitutional guarantees. Amendment of the stalking law may then occur as a result of court rulings or as experience shows that the stalking law needs modifications. This review of the status of stalking laws examined all three issues: enactment, court review, and amendment.
The legislative review examined state laws relating to both the crime of stalking and such related crimes as violation of civil protection orders against stalking, harassment, terroristic threats, and invasion of privacy. These latter code provisions are included because they also reflect the varying degrees to which state legislative bodies perceive stalking as serious. They also reflect the degree to which consideration is given to countervailing issues, such as the constitutional right of free speech and other constitutional doctrines found applicable by the courts. The legislative review covers these topics:
As of November 1999, all 50 states' legislatures, the District of Columbia, and the federal government had enacted laws making stalking a crime. The laws vary significantly in the specific behaviors outlawed and the penalties provided for violation. In brief, the 50 states' laws treat stalking as a felony offense; however, many states do not necessarily make a first stalking offense a felony. In 37 states, a conviction for a first stalking offense can be a felony; in 12 of those states, any first stalking offense is a felony. In the other 25 states with felony stalking laws, only the most serious stalking offenses and repeat stalking are felonies; simple stalking (without a weapon, for example) is a misdemeanor.75 In the 13 states (and the District of Columbia) where a first stalking offense is always a misdemeanor, repeat stalking is treated as a felony. 76The federal interstate stalking law also provides for felony penalties. 77 Exhibit 1 details the differences in stalking penalties among the states.
| State | Felony-1st Offense | Felony orMisdemeanor-1st Offense | Misdemeanor-1st Offense | Felony-2nd Offense | Felony-3rd Offense |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| AL | X |
|
|
|
|
| AK |
|
X |
|
|
|
| AR | X |
|
|
|
|
| AZ | X |
|
|
|
|
| CA |
|
X |
|
|
|
| CO | X |
|
|
|
|
| CT |
|
X |
|
|
|
| DE | X |
|
|
|
|
| DC |
|
|
X | X |
|
| FL |
|
X |
|
|
|
| GA |
|
X |
|
X |
|
| HI |
|
|
X | X |
|
| ID |
|
|
X | X |
|
| IL | X |
|
|
|
|
| IN | X |
|
|
|
|
| IA |
|
X |
|
|
|
| KS | X |
|
|
|
|
| KY |
|
X |
|
|
|
| LA |
|
X |
|
X |
|
| ME |
|
|
X |
|
X |
| MD | X |
|
|
|
|
| MA | X |
|
|
|
|
| MI |
|
X |
|
X |
|
| MN |
|
X |
|
|
|
| MS |
|
|
X | X |
|
| MO |
|
X |
|
X |
|
| MT |
|
|
X | X |
|
| NE |
|
|
X | X |
|
| NV |
|
X |
|
X |
|
| NH |
|
|
X | X |
|
| NJ |
|
X |
|
X |
|
| NM |
|
X |
|
X |
|
| NY |
|
X |
|
|
|
| NC |
|
|
X | X |
|
| ND |
|
X |
|
X |
|
| OH |
|
X |
|
X |
|
| OK |
|
X |
|
X |
|
| OR |
|
|
X | X |
|
| PA |
|
X |
|
X |
|
| RI |
|
|
X | X |
|
| SC |
|
X |
|
X |
|
| SD |
|
X |
|
X |
|
| TN |
|
|
X | X |
|
| TX | X |
|
|
|
|
| UT |
|
X |
|
X |
|
| VT | X |
|
|
|
|
| VA |
|
|
X |
|
X |
| WA |
|
X |
|
X |
|
| WV |
|
|
X |
|
X |
| WI |
|
X |
|
X |
|
| WY |
|
X |
|
X |
|
| US | X |
|
|
|
|
Several states have provisions that severely restrict their applicability. In North Carolina, for example, stalking refers only to instances where the stalker follows or is in the physical presence of the victim. 78 This excludes long-range stalking such as sending letters or leaving gifts. In Hawaii and Illinois, the stalking law is similarly restricted to instances where the stalker pursues or follows or conducts surveillance. 79Connecticut law forbids only stalking involving following or lying in wait.80In West Virginia, the stalking statute applies only to situations where there is or was a personal or social relationship or such a relationship is being sought. 81This definition would exclude all cases where revenge was the motive for the stalking and there had been no personal relationship between the stalker and the victim. In all these states, other provisions of state criminal law may be applicable, however, such as telephone harassment.
Twenty-nine states authorize civil protection orders against stalking, in addition to laws in every state providing for orders against domestic violence. 82 Violation of a stalking protective order is a crime in 24 of those states and may be criminal contempt of court in two other states.83 In only nine states can a violation of the stalking order be treated as a felony; 84 in many other states, however, repeat stalking in violation of a court order increases the crime level to aggravated stalking, which is a felony. In addition, repeat violations of a stalking order can be a felony in five states. 85 Only 10 states have legislation providing for the entry of stalking protective orders into a special statewide registry. 86 However, 36 states also have registries for domestic violence protective orders; such orders typically include anti-stalking provisions or stay-away orders.87
Stalking is one of several related crimes that infringe upon a victim's privacy and safety. Related crimes include harassment, terroristic threats, and invasion of privacy. The most serious of those offenses is the terroristic threat against the victim's person; terroristic threat laws are found in 35 states and the District of Columbia.88 Stalking differs from a terroristic threat in that in stalking, both the threat and the victim fear result from a series of acts, and the threat is for a future act. With a terroristic threat, a single act can constitute the threat; that threat must be one of imminent behavior and include the capacity to act on the threat. Harassment laws include simple harassment (25 states) 89 and telephone harassment or threats (43 states).90 Letter threat laws have been enacted in 20 states.91 The federal government has also enacted laws criminalizing interstate threats or harassment using the mail or electronic communications (including telephone).92
In only 10 states where stalking can be a misdemeanor offense does state law authorize warrantless arrest for stalking, similar to that authorized for misdemeanor domestic violence. 93 In the 11 states where stalking is always a felony, warrantless arrest is, of course, authorized where probable cause exists. In Mississippi, warrantless arrest for misdemeanor stalking is authorized where the stalking is against a spouse or ex-spouse.94
Legislation in only two states (Minnesota and Nevada) requires law enforcement training in stalking. 95 In comparison, 30 states require law enforcement training on domestic violence96; however, this requirement may be administratively interpreted to include stalking.
Although it has been only slightly more than a decade since the first stalking law was enacted, the passage of such laws in all 50 states has sparked considerable litigation over their constitutionality and scope. In ruling on stalking litigation, courts have often drawn on cases involving similar penal statutes, those criminalizing harassment, and those involving threats. 97These laws not only deal with related behavior, but they also use almost identical terms and phrases (e.g., annoy, repeatedly) that may be the subject of legal attack by defendants. Thus, analysis of stalking laws must examine all three types of criminal laws and their cousins, telephone threats and harassment. Similarly, electronic stalking, harassment, and threats must also be included; notwithstanding the relative paucity of such cases to date, their numbers are likely to increase.
This review identified 530 state cases and 18 federal cases involving stalking and related crimes.98 (See Appendix 4 for a complete listing of cases, along with a brief description of each case's holding and citation.) Among them were a total of 198 stalking cases, including three federal cases. The stalking cases predominantly involved constitutional issues (134 cases in 34 states, the United States, and the District of Columbia), typically vagueness and overbreadth challenges and a few double jeopardy challenges. The review also looked at the relationship between the stalker and his or her victim (almost all the reported cases involved male stalkers).
Among the stalking-related cases were 58 cases of harassment and 117 cases involving threats. Among these decisions were 41 harassment and 42 threat cases involving constitutional challenges. There were 44 harassment and 66 threat cases involving statutory construction issues (many harassment cases involved both types of issues).
Other types of cases covered by this review include 20 telephone threats, 85 telephone harassment cases, nine letter threat or harassment cases, and six electronic threat or harassment cases. In addition, there are 53 cases involving protection orders, many of which also involved stalking charges related to an order violation. Three cases involved civil suits for damages based on civil stalking or some other basis for claiming invasion of privacy. Among these cases there were 87 constitutional law decisions and 53 cases involving statutory decisions. Six cases involved jurisdictional or other constitutional challenges to federal laws.
The review did not include all relevant reported cases, although a significant effort was made to identify all such cases. The most significant omission is the exclusion of most threat and harassment decisions issued prior to 1970; it was assumed that the older cases are largely repetitive of more recent decisions (and these latter decisions have the further advantage of being informed by recent United States Supreme Court decisions). Also excluded from the review were reported decisions that involved solely evidentiary issues99 where no constitutional or statutory interpretation issues were decided. 100Threat and harassment cases that were totally unrepresentative of stalking concerns were excluded; these included, for example, threats and verbal abuse of police officers.101 Also excluded were cases where stalking was not the most serious charge. Finally, the review excluded cases that despite their legal nomenclature as harassment or threats really involved disorderly conduct in a public forum.102
The review first looked at the relationship between the stalker and victim. This review found that the most common type of stalking case among those reported here involved non-intimate, non-dating relationships: 67 of the 158 stalking cases for which information was available. This category included 14 cases involving stranger stalking; the other non-partner cases involved relationships such as mother, neighbors, ex-employees, psychiatrist-patient, judge-litigant, and landlord-tenant. The next most common category involved 51 couples who had had a dating relationship, including several couples who had cohabited before splitting up. In many but not all states, stalking among former dating partners can be classified as domestic violence for such purposes as obtaining a court order of protection. The last category involved victims who were separated or divorced from their spouses; this totaled 40 cases.
While a few state stalking laws have been struck down as unconstitutional, this is a small minority. Where state stalking or related statutes were struck, the law typically lacked an intent requirement, either to create fear or to do those acts that resulted in victim fear. 103
Double jeopardy claims were another common challenge, most often where there had been a previous finding of contempt of court. Rulings varied according to the factual differences among these cases as to whether the criminal offense and the contempt offense shared common facts to prove their cases.
Harassment laws that lack any "fighting words" restriction were the most vulnerable to constitutional challenge. But telephone harassment laws were not required to have such a limitation because of their focus on punishing invasions of privacy. For much the same reason, telephone harassment and threat laws commonly focus on the intent of the caller to harass or threaten, rather than the victim's response to these messages; a few states do not require actual fear to result. Harassment and threat laws also apply to situations where a third party intermediary to the communication is the one who informs the victim of the threat or harassing communication.
The review of court decisions identified two statutory interpretation issues: the interrelationship between the stalker's reckless behavior and victim's reasonable fear, and cyberstalking. Statutory interpretation of threat laws has led some courts to equate reasonable fear with reckless behavior. Hence, specific intent to create fear is not required under this interpretation, merely a general intent to do the acts constituting reckless behavior, such that intent can be legally imputed ("should have known" analysis). Since a reasonable or prudent person test is used to judge reckless behavior, any resultant fear is also reasonable.
Despite the growing popularity of electronic communication, there are very few reported cases involving these mediums. Media reports of e-mail stalking cases are, however, growing. 104 Although there are a few cases ruling that cyberstalking behavior is not covered by the state telephone harassment law, the basis of such rulings is the explicit limitation in these laws to communication by telephone. Hence, the laws do not permit judicial expansion of the specific statutory language to other forms of communication.
No case was found limiting stalking laws to non-electronic communications. In view of the broad language typically used in stalking laws, the case review did not, therefore, lead to any conclusion calling for amending stalking laws to explicitly include electronic or cyberstalking.
State legislators are constantly amending their anti-stalking laws, usually to increase the penalties for stalking, although a few states have had to change their laws as a result of court rulings. In toto, 46 state legislative bodies enacted stalking-related laws in the period 1998-2001 (only Alabama, Alaska, Missouri, Wyoming, and the District of Columbia did not enact stalking-related legislation in that period). In 1998, legislatures in 11 states passed laws amending their stalking and related criminal laws, including two states that passed new stalking injunction laws. In 1999, legislatures in 26 states passed laws relating to stalking. In the legislative year 2000, legislators in 20 states enacted 27 stalking-related laws. As of August 2001, 27 states had passed over 40 separate laws relating to stalking and related crimes. Exhibit 2 provides a state-by-state summary of new stalking laws in this four-year period by type of law. Capsule descriptions of the laws are provided in Appendix 1.
It should also be noted that many laws directed at helping victims of domestic violence may also be applicable where stalking behavior is related to domestic violence. For example, laws providing for full faith and credit to out-of-state protective orders may apply either to orders prohibiting stalking as an element of domestic violence or to anti-stalking orders themselves. Similarly, laws providing for address confidentiality for victims of domestic violence may be used by stalking victims where the stalker is a former domestic partner under the state domestic violence law. Hence, this list of new stalking legislation is not all-inclusive.
It is striking, however, that notwithstanding all this activity, only a few of the enactments are directed at the basic problem of the inadequacy of the penalties provided for stalking. Nor have most state legislators directed their attention to related laws, such as civil orders of protection and their enforcement, arrests without warrants, or training requirements for law enforcement and prosecution. Perhaps not surprisingly, since it was the first state to enact a stalking law, California has the broadest set of anti-stalking laws, including felony penalties, warrantless arrest, civil orders of protection, and stalking training availability. California has also stressed stalking laws' implementation, especially through its use of federal STOP funds under the Violence Against Women Act.
No other state has acted as extensively as California. In some states, it is possible that the failure to implementation these laws has limited even the advocates' awareness of the problems posed by the laws themselves. Where there are no significant efforts being made to implement existing laws, changes in the laws may well have a lower priority than pressing for implementation. In other states, where enactment of a stalking law was in reaction to specific incidents involving stalking, there may be a general inclination to think the problem is fixed. Advocates for legislative action may well find it difficult to convince legislators otherwise in the absence of either new horror stories or empirical data such as is presented here to show that the problem of stalking has not been fixed.
| Type of Law | State and Year of Enactment |
|---|---|
| Stalking crime definition/penalty (24 states) |
AZ (1998, 2001), CO (1999), FL (1999), GA (1998), IL (2000), IN (2001), IA (1998), KS (1999), KY (1999), LA (1999, 2001), MS (2000), NE (1998), NV (1999, 2001), NH (2000), NJ (1998, 1999), NY (1999), OH (1998, 1999, 2000), PA (1999), SC (2001), TX (2001), UT (2000), VA (1998, 2001), WA (1999), WV (2001) |
| Cyberstalking (21 states) |
CA (1998), CO (2000), GA 2000), IL (1999, 2001) LA (2001), ME (2001), MI (1999), MN (2000), NH (1999), NJ (2001), NC (1999, 2000), ND (1999), OK (2000), OR (2001), PA (1999), RI (2001), SD (2001), TN (2001), TX (2001), VT (2000), WA (1999) |
| Harassment crime (11 states) |
AZ (1998), HI (1999), IL (1999), ME (2001), MA (2000), MN (2000), MS (2001), NV (2001), OR (1999, 2001), PA (1999) SC (2001) |
| Civil injunction authority (15 states) |
AZ (1998, 2000, 2001), AR (2001), CA (1999, 2000), CO (1999, 2000), GA (2001), HI (1999), IN (2001), ME (2001), NE (1998), NV (2001), OH (1998), UT (2001), VA (1998, 1999, 2001), WA (1999, 2000, 2001), WI (2000) |
| Criminal protection order (6 states) |
CN (1998), GA (1998), IA (1998), RI (1998), SD (2000), UT (1999) |
| Criminal procedure | CA (1999), IA (1998, 1999), LA (1999), ME (2000), MD (2001), MT (2001), NE (1998), NV (1999), NH (1999), VA (1998) |
| Name/address confidentiality program (5 states) |
CA (2000), NH (2000), NJ (2001), VT (2000, 2001), WA (2001) |
| Offender treatment (2 states) |
GA (1998), LA (2001) |
| Other related crimes (10 states) |
DE (2001), ID (1999), IL (2001), IN (2001), KY (2001), OK (1999), PA (1999), SC (2001), TN (2000), TX (2001), WA (2000) |
| Other laws (11 states) |
IL (2001), KS (2001), LA (1999), ME (1999, 2000), NE (1999), NH (1998), NM (2001), RI (2001), SD (1999), UT (2000), VA (1998, 2001) |
Two sources of information were used to determine the extent of anti-stalking efforts. First, ILJ twice conducted a national survey of police and prosecution agencies. The first survey was conducted in late 1998 and early 1999. The second survey took place two years later, 2000-2001. Second, ILJ surveyed STOP-funded agencies to try to identify additional anti-stalking agencies, especially among non-justice system practitioners. Because of time limitations, state agencies disbursing funds under other federal aid programs, most conspicuously the Victims of Crime Act,105 were not surveyed.
Two national surveys on stalking were conducted. The first survey of 204 law enforcement agencies and 222 prosecution offices in jurisdictions with a population over 250,000 was conducted by mail in November 1998. The survey briefly asked what special efforts the agencies had undertaken against stalking, including special units, training, or written policies and procedures.106 The survey had about a 60 percent response rate to the first mailing. A second mailing was sent out to the non-respondents, resulting in a final response rate of over 80 percent.
The survey found the following:
The written comments provided by the respondents were very illuminating. They indicated, for example, that prosecutors in several states have significant problems with the statutory "credible threat" requirement. At the same time, other prosecutors in the same states did not report such problems. The reasons for this difference are not clear but may be related to different methods of police/prosecution coordination in stalking cases. The need for training was expressed by many respondents and is implicit in the comments of others.
Among the several comments provided, especially notable was one prosecutor's comment that his state's stalking law required a considerable degree of proof but provided only a misdemeanor penalty for stalking. This disparity between effort and reward meant that his office would rather charge the constituent elements of stalking,including protection order violations, where the aggregate sentencing would far exceed that available under the stalking law, yet the case would be far easier to prove. Many other prosecutors made similar comments. A second trend in these comments was the increased awareness among law enforcement agencies that non-intimate stalking was different than stalking directed at intimates or former intimates. This seemed to be the reason that nearly a dozen agencies shifted to shared investigative responsibilities between the domestic violence detective unit and other detective units. Conversely, many prosecutor comments suggested that experience in prosecuting intimate stalking cases was very relevant to prosecuting non-intimate stalking cases. Nonetheless, it might also be inferred that many law enforcement and prosecutor agencies do not see that these two types of stalking cases have different dynamics and may require different handling strategies. The likely reason is that the agencies see few non-intimate stalking cases, typically because they are not looking for them.
A replication of the first national survey was conducted in November 2000. The survey mailing was identical to that in 2000, except that the municipal prosecutor agencies that had reported no responsibility for handling stalking cases were dropped from the survey. One hundred sixty-nine (of 204) law enforcement and 183 (of 224) prosecutor agencies responded to the survey, for a combined response rate of 82 percent. Thirty-five agencies responding in 1998 did not do so in 2000.
In comparison to the 1998-99 findings,
The 2000 survey also asked about funding of special unit or staff operations. Twenty-two percent of the prosecutors said they had received federal funds for anti-stalking operations; only 5 percent of the law enforcement agencies reported receiving such funds. Prosecutors (27 percent) were also more likely than law enforcement agencies (13 percent) to fund special anti-stalking staff with their own funds. An unanticipated finding from this question is that the number of law enforcement agencies reporting funding special stalking units or staff is much higher than reported directly. Thus, 36 agencies said they had funded special stalking investigative staff, more than twice the number responding to the survey question about which unit handles stalking cases. Conversely, 108 prosecutor offices indicated that they had funded a stalking prosecutor position, whereas when asked about which unit handled these cases, 143 prosecutors indicated that stalking cases go to a specific unit. It is likely that this difference reflects the near absence of any stalking cases in many of the prosecutors' offices; hence, their statements about which unit handles stalking cases is more theoretical than real. It is also quite likely that some significant proportion of the 108 prosecutor and 36 law enforcement agencies that said they had funded a stalking position were not referring to dedicated staff but to staff that would handle such cases should they occur.
The written comments that the survey respondents provided often reiterated the 1998 survey complaints about the difficulty of meeting the statutory definition of stalking. However, it seemed as if increased experience with the stalking laws had broadened the prosecutors' concerns about their states' laws. Of particular concern were the statutory requirements to prove specific intent, a pattern of conduct linkage to specific intent to cause victim fear, and the level of victim fear required (serious bodily injury). Several prosecutors added their voices to the 1998 complaint that the stalking law penalties are too weak in view of the difficulties of prosecuting the cases. One law enforcement agency added that the resource demands for investigating stalking were too high to justify investigating a misdemeanor offense. Another voiced a similar complaint when referring to prosecutor practices in plea negotiations. Other comments included the need for training law enforcement, prosecution, advocates, and especially the judiciary. Law enforcement was said also to need special training on identifying stalking cases.
In sum, the 2000 survey responses did not show any great increase in either law enforcement agencies' or prosecutor agencies' concern for stalking crime. Indeed, the lack of concern for stalking can best be inferred from the report that only 58 of the 152 law enforcement agencies responding to the survey even had statistics on the incidence of stalking in their jurisdictions. But even where statistics are gathered, that is no guarantee of aggressive responses to stalking. Thus, two major jurisdictions in the same state with populations approximately equal said that the number of stalking complaints received in 2000 went from a low of 22 to a high of 200. A third jurisdiction in the same state with three times the population of the other two jurisdictions reported receiving 260 stalking complaints in 2000.
The bottom-line conclusion that comes from these surveys is twofold:
By and large, the most significant evidence available about local law enforcement actions is the negative evidence stemming from the low official statistics on stalking presented supra. 109Inferences about the lack of official responses to stalking in most jurisdictions are further reinforced by the failure of most federal, state, and local jurisdictions to collect (or require collection of) statistics on stalking, as reported in the 2000 national practitioner survey.
This inference is supported by at least one research study. Tjaden and Theonnes reviewed 1,785 domestic violence complaints taken by police in Colorado Springs, Colorado, from April to September 1998. The review found that 16.5 percent of the police reports indicated on their face that stalking was a part of the domestic violence being complained of. Nonetheless, only one of the 285 complaints alleging stalking facts resulted in the filing of a stalking charge. Instead, police typically filed charges of harassment or violation of a protective order.110
Federal jurisdiction in stalking cases arises from the Interstate Stalking Act of 1996, as amended.111 The law makes it a federal offense to cross state lines with the intent to place another person in fear of death or serious bodily injury, or to use the mail or any other method of communicating across state lines for that purpose. Until 2000, the federal law was limited to physical movement cases,112 limiting the number of possible interstate stalking cases. Since 1996 there have been 43 indictments under the act; the recent amendments to the law that took effect only nine months ago have not yet affected the filing rate.113
The STOP block grant program established by the Violence Against Women Act of 1994 explicitly provides for funding of stalking projects; stalking is one of seven legislative purpose areas specified in the act. Stalking has not been a priority for most of the state offices administering the STOP funds. A review of the financial reporting forms from the state STOP agencies identified only 18 subgrants that had possible stalking projects.
There is good reason, however, to believe that the reports significantly underestimate the number of STOP-funded projects that deal with stalking cases. The reports are based on subgrantee project proposals; project activities are likely to vary considerably once they begin operations and have to meet victim demands. Because stalking cases are, in fact, much more numerous than many subgrantees understood when submitting proposals, they are seeing many more stalking cases than originally estimated. The federal reporting program does not, however, track changes in project design or objectives.
As a supplement to the agency survey, ILJ undertook a limited telephone survey of state STOP offices in about 40 states to
All but two of the offices called were cooperative in identifying anti-stalking initiatives. Once a stalking project was identified by state officials, further telephone calls were made to verify that stalking was an important project component. Not all state STOP offices were able to identify stalking funded projects. Hence, the information reported here is not a census of STOP funded stalking projects.
The telephone survey identified a total of 38 STOP-funded projects directed at stalking in 16 states. These include seven projects to improve investigation of stalking, nine projects to improve prosecution of stalking crimes, 12 projects to help victims of stalking, and 10 projects primarily providing training or developing protocols on stalking. Only a few of these projects were already identified in the mail survey of large jurisdiction law enforcement and prosecutor agencies. See Appendix 2 for a complete list.
All 50 states and the District of Columbia have enacted anti-stalking legislation. Although there are great inconsistencies in these laws' definitions of stalking and in their sentencing provisions, the laws provide an important innovation in the criminal law. Unfortunately, many of the laws lack important components, most significantly penalties commensurate with the seriousness of the crime. Furthermore, most local jurisdictions have not established special anti-stalking units and indeed often do not even track stalking incidents to determine their frequency. Nor are law enforcement officers trained to recognize stalking cases when complaints constituting stalking are reported. Thus, in many states, the stalking laws are of little practical value for most stalking victims.
Even greater problems exist with respect to civil stalking laws, specifically those authorizing the issuance of court orders of protection against stalkers. As the Oregon statistics indicate, such orders, where available, can be widely utilized. 114 As of January 2001, 21 states did not authorize issuance of such orders.
That is not to say there are no positive developments. In the past five years, a number of agencies have established specialized anti-stalking units; these include law enforcement, prosecution, and victim advocate/service agencies. The next section of the report discusses the lessons to be learned from these units, especially as they constitute a model anti-stalking program.
This study originally intended to examine the effectiveness of the new anti-stalking laws to determine whether stalkers were being arrested and convicted and whether victims felt safer. As the study progressed, that objective was changed to one of documenting best practices among anti-stalking practitioners. This section of the report explains why the change in research focus was made and how best practices can be used to measure effectiveness at the local level.
The effectiveness of the new stalking laws has not been studied. Although a few law review articles have suggested that the laws are faulty, their conclusions are based primarily on anecdotal reports rather than empirical studies.115 Thus, it would seem that there is a significant need for such a study. Unfortunately, a study of the impact of the anti-stalking laws cannot be directly done for three reasons:
In addition, even a qualitative assessment of anti-stalking law implementation cannot be done because performance standards, such as those used in other areas of the criminal law116, do not exist. The absence of performance standards does, however, present an alternative evaluation strategy.
Evaluation of stalking laws' effectiveness is constrained by the fact that there is no nation-wide anti-stalking law. Instead, there are 52 different laws (50 states, the District of Columbia, and the federal law). Of necessity, evaluation of stalking laws must be at the state level. But conclusions about a single state's laws must be limited to that state's laws. Generalization from one state to another, even if the laws are identical, is inappropriate because laws are not self-executing. Even identical laws have very different implementation patterns that determine how the laws are used and, ultimately, how effective they are.
The same qualifications are true within any single state. No state's laws are implemented uniformly across the entire state. Some local jurisdictions enforce the law aggressively, while others hardly enforce it at all. The question, then, is which sites should be selected for an evaluation of the state law. One strategy is to select jurisdictions with aggressive enforcement. The reason is that aggressive enforcement can best inform policymakers of the maximum effectiveness of the new law; failures are to be expected and are usefully studied only when the law's effectiveness is already known and information is needed on why the law is not uniformly effective. Selection of aggressive jurisdictions also increases the probability of there being a sufficient number of cases to allow statistical conclusions to be drawn about important process factors, such as law enforcement-prosecutor coordination. This strategy does not necessarily tell what barriers need to be overcome for broad-scale implementation to occur. It does suggest whether efforts to overcome those barriers would be worthwhile. Generalization of findings from this evaluative approach would, however, require simultaneous studies in several states.
Furthermore, the practicality of cross-jurisdictional evaluation of several states' stalking laws is highly problematic. It is impossible to make before-and-after comparisons of the incidence of stalking and of the way the local justice system responded to complaints of stalking behavior before there was a stalking law. Until the stalking law was enacted, there was no "before" counting of either measure.
The most important barrier to evaluating stalking laws' effectiveness is that there are no agreed-upon measures today of agency performance in dealing with stalking cases. Conventional evaluative measures to test program success or failure include process measures such as
and outcome-related measures such as
These latter evaluative criteria may be supplemented by qualitative reports on victim perceptions of improved quality of life or increased safety.
These measures are incomplete in the stalking context, however. The most important measures, the case "outcome" measures, are difficult to interpret. Even the traditional measure of prosecutor performance, the case "win" ratio, is difficult to use because there are no similar cases that can be used as a baseline. It is impossible to know, for example, whether an 80 percent win rate represents creaming of the simplest cases, while rejecting hard cases, or is the result of in-depth investigations and dedicated prosecution. The nearest types of cases, harassment and threat, require, on average, much less pretrial investigative effort or other case preparation. Most significantly, some stalking cases are not filed, much less prosecuted, because the case was resolved informally or the danger to the victim was so great that other measures had to be taken (this alternative is especially applicable in states with low penalties for stalking).
Other statistics, such as those for stalking-homicides, are similarly difficult to interpret because these are low-probability cases. As such, variations in their numbers are just as likely to be the result of copycat crimes as of any other factor. Even victim reports on quality of life or perceptions of safety have significant threats to their validity beyond the obvious argument against using subjective indicators. The real problem with these reports is the absence of any defined universe from which a sample of victims can be selected. Obviously, stalking victims who are not known to the police or prosecutor are not available to be sampled. Furthermore, even among those who are known, follow-up to find them after their case has been completed is a major task and one that often leaves major gaps in completeness.
Most importantly, impact evaluation requires a base for comparison to understand the meaning of both the process and outcome statistics. But as already noted, time series comparisons are not possible because of the lack of "pre" statistics. 117 That leaves only comparisons across jurisdictions. Such comparisons are highly suspect since differences between jurisdictional demographics and agency policies and procedures can easily affect the validity and reliability of any differences in reporting statistics.118
Efforts to implement the new stalking laws are still few in number, and those that do exist have only a limited life span. There has been no time for practitioners even to know in any detail about what other agencies are doing. There has been no opportunity for them to reach agreement on what they should be doing. This study has, however, is able to describe for the first time what stalking practitioners are doing across the country. As such, the research is able to identify many areas of common agreement among the diverse practitioners about their practices and what they recommend that others emulate. Together, these essentially descriptive case studies can form the basis of future evaluations. In other words, the best practices identified by this research constitute a model anti-stalking initiative against which jurisdictions can be measured. Such a procedure also sets the basis for future research that matches statistical measures of performance with the degree to which the agencies match the ideal model of anti-stalking efforts. Such matching might be used to determine which elements of the model program are most important to anti-stalking efforts' success. Such research is not possible at present, however, because many agencies are still experimenting with their anti-stalking efforts; there is no clear "treatment" being used that would match up with available performance statistics.
The effectiveness evaluation was refocused on identifying best practices among jurisdictions with aggressive anti-stalking initiatives.119 Fieldwork to examine how well stalking laws are being implemented was conducted in eight sites: three prosecutor offices, three law enforcement agencies, one combined law enforcement and prosecution multi-agency unit, and one victim services agency. At each site, researchers interviewed experienced investigators, prosecutors, and advocates in the specialized unit. In addition, several specialized training sessions on stalking intervention and prosecution were visited, allowing for discussions with both the trainers and other stalking-experienced attendees. Additional telephone discussions were held with numerous practitioners during the two national surveys and in response to inquiries from practitioners who had learned about the study from other sources, such as the Internet. 120
This section of the report first summarizes the fieldwork findings and then sets out the inferential basis for them through a detailed description of what are the best practices used by the agencies studied and by other agencies from whom training materials and practice manuals were gathered. The detail with which these findings are presented can be used by agency managers, other practitioners, and especially trainers to guide improvements in how stalking cases are handled. For this reason, the findings are presented according to the way in which stalking cases progress through the justice system, from case identification to victim safety planning through correctional custody or supervision.
Research findings from these sites included the following:
The field review also showed that expertise with stalking cases is critical because such cases often present unique elements. These include the following:
A final research finding takes note of the fact that investigative and prosecutor experience in dealing with these stalking crime features is limited. Most agencies have yet to set policies or procedures for stalking cases. For law enforcement, this results in the need to make up procedures and policies for evidence collection and to adapt methods used in other crime investigations, especially homicide and sexual crimes. However, as noted above, most investigations look at past events, not future actions. Hence, investigators must often create new investigative approaches to stalking.
Stalking is often an elusive crime. It starts, stops, starts again, and ends, at least temporarily, again. Similarly, the locations where stalking occurs vary, from home, to business, to shopping mall, to simply passing in a car on the street. While in most instances the identity of the stalker may be known, proving identity, especially in cyberstalking cases, can be difficult. Stalkers' methods may change constantly, from simple following or telephone calls, to leaving "gifts," to wiretapping telephones, to yet more ominous behaviors. Finally, the reactions of the victim may also fluctuate over time, from unawareness or bemusement, to terror, to surrender, and even to aggression. All of these stalking attributes make it an especially difficult crime for criminal justice agencies.
These multiple changes in stalking behavior underscore the essential way in which stalking differs from other crimes: its persistence into the future. Most crime investigations are historical in nature; they attempt to determine what happened.122 Because of the difficulties in proving past stalking, investigation and prosecution of stalking rely on prospective evidence collection. It is far easier to collect evidence of stalking when it occurs than it is to obtain evidence that corroborates the victim's testimony about past stalking.
Further, the crime of stalking is more than prohibited behavior. As Hargreave points out, stalking is "[a]n offense that is defined not by the actions of the offender alone, but by the social and environmental context in which the behavior arises."123 Context issues exist in almost all stalking cases.
A third way in which stalking differs from other crimes is the mutual dependence of justice agencies and the victim. In virtually no other crime are the investigation and prosecution so dependent on the victim for evidence collection. Nor are there many other crimes where victim safety is so threatened over such a long period of time. Hence, victim support from justice agencies is a unique responsibility in stalking cases, at least in scope if not in kind.124
For all these reasons, criminal justice agencies must adopt a problem-solving approach. Such an approach includes the following elements:
For each area of responsibility-case identification, investigation and management, prosecution, and victim safety-old methodologies must be adapted and innovative approaches implemented. Most significantly, agency management must recognize and encourage a problem-solving approach to stalking crimes. They must recruit and work with community-based advocates who can help the agency, especially in protecting the victim and ensuring her well-being. The review below presents research findings on best practices to provide both prescriptive and descriptive information about what agencies are or should be doing. This combination of perspectives is intended to encourage and inform problem-solving behavior among anti-stalking practitioners.
Few victims complain of being "stalked," that is, being a victim of a stalking crime. Instead, they complain to law enforcement about specific behavior that may be as minor as petty vandalism or as serious as implicit death threats. The fact that there is a pattern to the complaints may not even be noted by the victim. Furthermore, few victims even know that there is a crime called stalking.
Thus, the first difficulty that criminal justice agencies face with stalking is identifying potential stalking complaints from among all complaints they receive and doing so as early as possible to minimize victim injury. The key to such identification is in the repeated behavior that constitutes stalking. Policies and procedures must be in place to allow for identification of cases where possible stalking patterns exist. Two primary approaches for this purpose exist.
In San Diego, the City Attorney's Office has developed an interview checklist for first responders to use whenever there are any indications that repeat criminal behavior may be occurring. 125
The San Diego District Attorney's Office and the Dover (NH) Police Department try to review all police reports to identify cases where there are multiple complaints filed by the same victim or from the same (or nearby) addresses. Both agencies use trained staff to review victim complaints. San Diego uses victim advocates, and Dover uses investigators.126
A supplement to "naive" case review is to identify specific cases for monitoring for multiple stalking acts where only a single act has occurred. In Dover, the department puts all cases involving orders of protection into its computerized information system containing warrant information; any officer query after a police stop will tell the officer about outstanding orders against the person stopped, the name of the order protectee, and the locations protected. In Colorado Springs, all cases that are assigned to the special domestic violence investigative team, DVERT, are similarly red-flagged by the computer system, to alert patrol officers to inform the DVERT investigators of all police contacts with the suspects or convictees.
The specific types of criminal reports that the complaint reviewers look for include these:
Some of these offenses are relatively serious in and of themselves. Others appear to be relatively minor. The more serious stalking-related offenses will, of course, be treated appropriately by law enforcement and prosecutors who are informed of them. However, unless the officer or prosecutor is thinking about the possibility of stalking, the lesser offenses may not be given due attention.
Patrol is usually the first criminal justice representative to respond to calls from stalking victims (although only a small proportion of cases are so identified by the victim). In a few jurisdictions, patrol is encouraged to identify stalking cases. In San Diego, for example, the City Attorney's Office has developed a stalking questionnaire to be used by patrol first responders.127 The questionnaire is divided into five parts: victim's background, suspect information, relationship information, suspect's conduct, and victim impact. While much of this information will be sought by detectives (or advocates), many of the questions may be used by patrol officers whenever they suspect that they may have a stalking case. For example, one important series of questions that asks about suspect behavior includes violence or threats against others.
In any case where stalking may be potentially be involved, patrol officers should document as fully as possible the nature of the complaint and file their report for future reference in case stalking is determined to be occurring. Those steps should be taken even if no arrest was made either because no suspect was named or if probable cause to arrest was lacking.128
Patrol will also be responsible for responding to 911 calls from stalking victims whose cases are being actively investigated by detectives. Agency policies and procedures should require that the patrol responders inform detectives of what occurred by providing a copy of their written report; personal notification should be encouraged, if not mandated. Copies of the patrol report should also be provided to the victim for inclusion in her own file.
Once a case is identified as a stalking case, it is usually referred to an investigator for follow-up. For several reasons, investigative responsibility is typically assigned vertically; in other words, the assigned investigator is responsible for that case and that victim. Such an approach ensures that the victim has a single point of contact for the indefinite future, an important concern where cases go on for extended periods. Similarly, patrol officers responding to any new complaints of stalking or related crimes will be told to whom to refer the case (victims are told to inform patrol of the case investigator and case number). An important corollary to this point is to require that all subsequent reports involving the stalking victim be assigned the case number assigned to the original complaint so that important paperwork is not lost.129 Concern about file completeness also leads to having a single person responsible for case file management.
The investigative follow-up presents a second opportunity to provide information to the victim about available community services. Although not yet often seen in the stalking context, a number of law enforcement agencies around the country (e.g., Sacramento County Sheriff's Department) have enlisted victim advocates in "ride-alongs" that bring domestic violence investigators and advocates into a teaming relationship. Several of these agencies (e.g., Colorado Springs, Colorado) handle significant numbers of domestic violence-based stalking cases with these teams. Anecdotal reports of the ride-alongs have been quite favorable.
Effective case identification can lead to too many cases to be handled effectively by the stalking unit or specialized investigator. Hence, case screening may be required to identify those cases most in need of the unit's expertise. Any case not assigned to the special stalking unit may nonetheless develop into a more serious stalking case. The Los Angeles Police Department Threat Management Unit requires that the officer assigned to the case monitor the case and personally contact the victim every 30 days for an update on the stalking behavior. If the stalking behavior has ceased for a two-month period, the case is closed.130 Many other special stalking units also use periodic victim call-backs to check that the seriousness of the stalking behavior and threat has not escalated.
The two most important tasks in case investigation are determining the identity of the stalker and obtaining sufficient evidence to arrest and convict. In both instances, understanding the dynamics of stalking can be critical for the investigation and can also reduce the duration of the stalking and the seriousness of its consequences. Several agencies with anti-stalking units have sought to apply research findings on stalking behaviors to such tasks as investigative strategies and threat assessment. Commercial applications of research findings are also seen. However, few agencies are able to keep abreast of the latest research findings.
One important tool for problem solving in stalking investigations is a knowledge of stalker typologies. These include the following:
One of the first typologies was developed by Zona and colleagues and was based on case files from the Los Angeles Police Department's Threat Management Unit.131 This typology focuses on the psychological underpinnings of the stalker-victim relationship. Thus, the typology distinguishes between three types of psychological motivations for stalking:
A recent addition to this typology takes note of a small number of reported stalking cases that involve false victimizations: no one is stalking the "victim." This is sometimes called "false victimization syndrome." Motivations for that behavior range from psychiatric disorders to simple seeking of attention from another person or the authorities. When stalking laws were first implemented, most false stalking reports seemed to reflect a variety of causes ranging from the "victim's" desire for attention to more serious psychological disturbances. More recently, as stalkers have become more familiar with these laws, false stalking reports have become part of the behavioral pattern of stalking itself whereby the stalker countercharges the victim with stalking him. 132
Harmon and colleagues also based their stalking classification scheme on a review of criminal case files, in this instance cases referred to the Forensic Psychiatry Clinic of the Criminal and Supreme Courts of New York City.133 This typology uses two factors: (1) prior relationship: personal, professional, employment, media, acquaintance, and none; and (2) the nature of the stalking motivation: affectionate/amorous or persecutory/angry. The researchers also noted that amorous/affectionate stalkers were also likely to victimize third parties that they viewed as barriers to the relationship between the stalker and the object of affection. They also pointed out that stalker motivations can change from seeking romance to seeking revenge when rejection occurs.
A third classification scheme was developed by Wright and colleagues at the Federal Bureau of Investigation.134 This typology uses a number of factors, including whether the stalker-victim relationship grew out of a domestic relationship (including coworkers) or some other relationship; whether the communications are delusional or non-delusional; whether the stalker is motivated by infatuation, possessiveness, anger/retaliation, or some other motive; and how aggressive the stalker's behavior is. Wright's final typology factor involving case outcomes is relevant to protecting the victim but is not relevant to case investigation issues.
Gavin de Becker, who has developed a computerized threat assessment program for law enforcement, classifies stalkers according to their differng motivations.135 These include attachment seekers, identity-seekers, rejection-based, and delusion-based. While the other categories are not unfamiliar, identity-seekers is a new term. By this, de Becker is referring to stalkers whose motivation is to gain fame or attention (e.g., Mark Chapman, who killed John Lennon in 1980). As thus described, this type of "stalker" may not be engaged in behavior covered by most states' stalking laws, which require victim fear.
Another typology is that developed by Mullen and colleagues in Australia.136 Like several of the more recent typologies, it is multi-axial. The typology focuses on the stalker's motivation and the context in which the stalking occurs. The researchers also consider the prior relationship with the victim and the psychiatric diagnosis. Their primary classifications are the rejected, intimacy seekers (reacting to loneliness), the resentful (perceived insult or injury), the predatory (seeking sexual gratification and control), and the incompetent (poor suitors or courters). Prior relationships in this typology include former intimate partners, professional contacts, work-related contacts, casual acquaintances and friends, the famous, and strangers. Psychiatric status is divided into psychotics and nonpsychotics (primarily personality disorders).
Finally, Spitzberg and Cupach have developed a typology of stalking behavior based on a meta-analysis of the stalking research literature. They categorize stalking behaviors as including these characteristics:
These researchers have also developed a typology using the dimensions of love versus hate and behavior from controlling to expressive. This leads them to posit four types of stalkers: the Intrusive Pursuer, who loves and tries to control, posing a moderate risk of violence;137 the Annoying Pursuer,who loves, uses expressive behaviors, and is low risk; the Organized Stalker, who hates, is controlling, and is high risk; and the Disorganized Stalker, who hates, uses expressive modes of behavior, and is also high risk.138
The several researchers studying stalking from a variety of perspectives (psychiatric, behavioral science, legal) have identified five critical variables:
Prior relationship includes spouses, former spouses, and dating intimates; family members; acquaintances such as coworkers, neighbors, or those with whom one has a business relationship; and strangers. To this one might add "stalker unknown," to include false victimization cases.
Motivations include two primary categories, love and hate (revenge), with a third, less common category of predation. Motivation subcategories include love-pursuit, love-regain, and love-turned-to-hate. Furthermore, these three "love" motivation categories may change over time from love-pursuit to love-hate. Relatively uncommon motivations include attention seeking for false victimization claims and "white knight" savior hopes as part of an effort to appear the hero.
Mental health status includes both clinical disorders (such as depression and schizophrenia) and personality disorders (such as narcissistic, antisocial, compulsive and histrionic).139
Behaviors may be characterized as pursuance, surveillance, intrusion, control, intimidation, threat, and violence. They also include revenge-motivated acts such as harassment and attempts to demean the victim.
Background factors are often important in the case analysis as an aid for explaining why certain behaviors occur and for threat assessment. These include stalker's substance abuse, stalking in the context of a divorce or child custody battle, prior criminal history, prior domestic violence, escalating behaviors and boundary probing.
This simple list of stalker distinctions shows how extensive data collection about stalkers can be and thus how important are sophisticated information management techniques. It also shows the reason for widespread use of threat assessment scales and programs.140 One of the most commonly mentioned programs associated with threat assessment is MOSAIC. However, MOSAIC does not claim to predict future violence; it rates cases on a scale of 1-to-10, with 10 being assigned to those situations that contain factors associated with violence escalation. As such, MOSAIC's data requirement is designed to lead the user in an information gathering process for further individualized threat assessment.141
Exhibit 3 integrates these several typologies from the perspective of an investigator with only limited case knowledge. Thus, the summary begins with the prior relationship since that is the most common bit of information known. For each of the three categories of prior relationship, the table sets forth the most common motivations and any special issues associated with that prior relationship. More detailed information such as specific psychiatric diagnosis is omitted because of the difficulty in gathering such information.
| Prior Relationship | Motivation | Psychiatric Diagnosis | Other Issues |
|---|---|---|---|
| Past Intimates | Intimacy restoration
Revenge/control (jealousy common) |
Personality disorder | Motivation changeable over time
Prior domestic violence |
| Acquaintances or Friends | Intimacy seeking
Revenge Sexual conquest |
Personality disorder
Social incompetent Psychotic predator |
Danger to third party |
| Stranger | Intimacy seeking
Identity/fame |
Psychotic/delusional
Erotomania |
Danger to third party |
| Unknown | Attention seeking
(false victimization) White knight protector Other |
No pattern reported |
|
Of course, these categories (especially the category of prior relationship) oversimplify reality. Indeed, Of all stalking relationships, stranger or casual acquaintance stalking is probably the most underreported stalking. For example, one experienced stalking prosecutor who was assigned to a government benefit fraud unit found that stalking of agency officials who were seen by the applicant as denying benefits were later stalked by the applicant in revenge for the benefit denial.142 These cases had not been identified as stalking until then. Another category of unreported stalking is stalking conducted by gang members of youth who rejected an "invitation" to join the gang.143
Case investigation may use these typologies in a number of ways.144 For example, informal intervention without arrest or evidence collection may be most successful with those characterized as "incompetents," i.e., acquaintances or strangers who do not know how to engage in dating behaviors.145 Incompetents are also among the least likely to engage in extended stalking (more than one year in duration), to abuse drugs or alcohol, or to have prior criminal records. They also typically engage in simple stalking (not creating victim fear), as compared to rejected stalkers, who engage in many more types of stalking behavior.146 In comparison, while predator stalkers have background characteristics similar to the incompetents, predators are three times more likely than the incompetents to have a prior criminal record.147 For these stalkers, criminal justice intervention is an imperative. Investigators may also find useful the research findings on predatory stalkers suggesting that voyeurism is a not uncommon early stalking behavior.148 Similarly, research shows that some stalkers file false claims against the victim, such as filing for orders of protection or alleging wrongful behavior by the victim against her employer, insurance company, etc. The former may be motivated by an intimacy seeker seeking to get close to the victim, while the latter typically is a rejected or resentful stalker seeking revenge.149
Case investigators may also find demographic data useful in determining who the stalker is. Male victims, for example, were found by Mullen and colleagues to be most likely to be stalked by another male, usually a stranger.150
Investigators must also take into account victim behaviors. One obvious reason is the need to exclude false victimization reports, which victim behavior may signal. In addition, a small proportion of stalking cases that involve former intimates may be terminated when the stalker and the victim reconcile; reconciliation is a common occurrence in domestic violence cases. 151
Most commonly, however, the investigator has to rely on victim cooperation in keeping a record of the stalking events to help in building a prosecutable case. At the same time, the victim is experiencing stress and fear as the stalking and the investigation continue. During this interim period, the victim may have to cope with ongoing stalking behavior as best she can, often without official support or advice. As a result, many victims develop coping behaviors that may, on the surface, appear to undercut the seriousness of the threat faced by the victim and her fear of the stalker. Victim behavior in coping with this stress needs to be monitored and assistance provided as needed, both to ensure evidence collection and to preempt any later defense claim that the victim invited the stalking.
Hence, research on victim reactions to being stalked is a second tool for case investigators. However, there are only a few studies of victim behavior. One study of 128 stalking cases by a researcher working with the Sacramento District Attorney's Office found that victims' responses to stalking by former intimate partners consisted of four types of behavior:152
Victim's active resistance (i.e., self-help in facing the stalker) included (in declining order of frequency):
Help seeking behavior included:
Victim coping strategies to minimize danger included:
The most important of Dunn's findings for the investigator was the degree to which victims engaged in compliance behavior in an effort to appease the stalker in order to reduce the threats. Nearly one in five victims who had been stalked by former intimates exhibited some form of compliance behavior as a survival strategy. Such behaviors included:
Compliance behavior can complicate case outcomes by making it harder to prove that the victim is fearful of the stalker. Indeed, compliance can suggest to the naive observer that the victim is encouraging the stalker or leading him on. Moreover, victims of stalking by former intimates often have conflicting emotions toward the stalker. Behavior reflecting both fear and love can muddy the image of victim innocence for a jury.
Investigative responses to stalking complaints are typically tailored to the specific facts of the case: who the victim is, what she does, what types of stalking behavior are occurring, who the stalker is, what the relationship is (or was) between the two, etc. Nonetheless, common problems among groups of cases may be resolved by using similar methods. Sometimes these methods are drawn from other types of crime investigations. For example, proving stalking is occurring may require surveillance. In some cases it may be possible to place video cameras or trained personnel outside the residence of the victim to await the appearance of the stalker. In other cases, it may be necessary to watch the stalker until he or she contacts the victim. In cases where stalking is being done without personal contact, it may be necessary to perform surveillance on a mailbox, a telephone booth, or even a computer terminal in a college laboratory. In one case where the suspect could not be found, the LAPD Threat Management Unit staked out his automobile, to which he did in fact return with evidence of the stalking.153 Other common investigative methods include obtaining security videotapes from businesses where a stalking incident occurred, using phone traps, and seizing suspect's phone records.
Search warrants are especially useful once a suspect has been identified. Anne O'Dell, a former stalking investigator with the San Diego Police Department, recommends looking for such non-obvious items of evidence such as the following:
The Metropolitan Police (Scotland Yard) reminds investigators that stalkers often are serial stalkers. Investigators should always check local records to see if there have been similar complaints or cases. Similarly, friends and relatives of the victim should be contacted to determine whether they too have been stalking targets.155 In domestic violence-related stalking, this advice should extend to past intimate partners of the suspect.
Evidence collection begins with the initial victim interview. Even the initial police report detailing the victim's complaint and her demeanor may be used in evidence to refresh the memory of a police officer witness. The investigator assigned to the case will also begin with an interview of the witness. This interview has several motivations: to gather evidence, to obtain leads for additional evidence gathering, to protect the victim from any threat (including safety planning and referral to services), and to enroll the victim as an additional aid to evidence gathering. To accomplish all these tasks, the Canadian Department of Justice advises investigators as follows:
The most common innovation in stalking investigations is to have the victim keep a log of all stalking incidents. In the log will be noted the time and date of the incident, where it occurred, the presence of any witnesses, and the details of the incident. The victim may also be asked to write how she reacted to the incident, including specific behaviors and psychological responses.157 When it is also used as a diary, the log may help to disprove counterclaims of stalking pressed by the stalker. Victims are also asked to retain any corroborative evidence they have, including audiotapes from a telephone answering machine (time and date stamped, receipts from businesses at the location where the stalking incident occurred, etc. Several jurisdictions have prepared pamphlets for victims that detail what role they are asked to play in the investigation and that contain the log books to be used.158 Victims may also be asked to take photographs of property damage caused by the stalker and immediately seal unwanted letters or gifts in plastic bags when investigators are not available.
Investigators may (when deemed safe) also ensure that the stalker is told that his behaviors (such as following, telephoning, leaving gifts, and the like) are unwanted (often called a "Knock and Talk" intervention)159. By personally informing the stalker of this fact, the officer will be able to testify that the stalker's actions were "knowingly" done, a critical element of the crime under many states' anti-stalking laws.160 The Dover Police Department recommends that investigators gather as much information as possible about the suspect (including motor vehicle and criminal record checks161) before interviewing him. Interviews with family, friends, neighbors, etc. are also part of the suspect pre-interview data gathering. All interviews should be fully documented. The types of information about the suspect sought at this time include the following:
When the suspect is finally interviewed, he should be given an opportunity to explain how his actions may have been misinterpreted by the victim (or others). Before the interview is completed, the suspect should be asked about prior similar behavior (toward other victims).163
An important consideration in interviewing stalkers is their tendency to use self-justification to explain their stalking behaviors. As Mullen et al. put it, they have a unique ability to "deny, minimize and rationalize." These medical practitioners suggest that questioning in their context be "nonjudgmental, if not collusive."164 They further found that "intimacy seekers in particular respond well to reframing stalking in terms of a quest." This allows answers that do not require justification of actions.165 As one law enforcement practitioner described it, they need to be questioned as child molesters: "Tell us how your acts were misunderstood."166
Other investigative techniques are much more sophisticated, especially where cyberstalking is involved. In these cases, it may be necessary to serve search warrants on Internet Service Providers (ISPs) to help identify who is sending the cyberstalking messages or simply to prove that the suspect was responsible (where identity is already known). In most instances, the suspect is not notified of service of a search warrant. However, where the ISP provides Internet service through a cable system used to deliver television services, federal law requires that notice be given by the ISP.167 In some California jurisdictions, the prosecutor routinely requests that the court issuing the warrant also enjoin the required notice until the investigation is complete.168 It should also be remembered that cyberstalking cases require great speed in gathering electronic evidence. Many ISPs routinely erase their service records within 12 or 24 hours of when an e-mail or web link is provided.
The state of Connecticut has developed training materials for stalking investigators. These materials provide suggestions about additional steps investigators can take to obtain evidence corroborating the victim's statements. Investigators are encouraged to do the following:
Interviews of coworkers, friends, neighbors, family members, or even persons living in the same multi-family building as the victim may provide important corroborative evidence. The interviews may also uncover additional stalking behaviors that the victim was unaware of (e.g., lurking in the area)170.
Other types of corroborative evidence may be gathered by obtaining the suspect's telephone records for calls to the victim and by using the media (where the case has unique features) to get reports of similar victimizations.171
Investigators are also reminded that because stalking investigations are time-consuming, victims may stop reporting stalker contacts or incidents. That does not mean they are uninterested in having the stalker arrested, but; they are simply fatigued.172 This problem, identified by the state trainers, identified is likely to be most acute where the victim has no single point of contact at the law enforcement or prosecutor's office to call for support.
The history of the stalker's behavior is the heart of any stalking investigation. This history is, of course, contained in the unit or investigator's case files. How those files are maintained is critical to successful investigations and prosecutions. The LAPD Threat Management Unit requires that each stalking case file be maintained in a separate, case-specific three-ring binder that is maintained chronologically.173 The Colorado Springs DVERT program has adopted a similar requirement for its investigators handling stalking cases.174 The stalking case file should typically includes the following:
Other information that may be contained in the file is as follows:
Selected data from the file is also entered into the unit's computerized database. All files are kept in a locked file cabinet in the TMU area. Computerized data about stalking cases is maintained indefinitetly. Depending on whether the case was considered "active" or simple information only, hard copies of the files are kept for three years and eitherbefore being transferred to archives or destroyed.
Agency collaboration is a necessity in many stalking cases where stalking crosses local jurisdictional areas. For example, the victim may be stalked at her home in one city, at her workplace in another town, and while shopping in a third jurisdiction. Evidence from all the stalking locations must be collected, yet no single law enforcement agency has jurisdiction over all the stalking locations. Even the county prosecutor may not have authority over all the sites involved in the stalking. To remedy this problem, a number of agencies have entered into agreements that assign control of the investigation to one agency's stalking officers. If a stalking incident occurs in another jurisdiction, the victim is told to inform the local investigators of the name of the lead agency investigator and the case number. Copies of all reports of the incident will then be sent to the lead investigator.175
A second type of agency collaboration is discussion of stalking case issues at regular meetings attended by different agency investigators and prosecutors assigned to stalking cases and by other persons interested in stalking issues. In San Diego, for example, a multi-agency Stalking Case Assessment Team (SCAT) meets monthly to discuss stalking cases that have presented problems to the investigators. These problems might call for discussing how best to identify who the stalker is or whether the case involves a false victimization claim. Attendees at these meetings include representatives from the District Attorney's Stalking Unit, the City Attorney's Domestic Violence Unit, the San Diego Police Department, other local law enforcement agencies in the county, a mental health specialist who treats stalkers, court security personnel, local university police officers, and academic researchers. Representatives from victim services agencies may also attend, often to inform the assessment team members of the services they provide to victims. Federal agency investigators may also participate. In addition to brainstorming about active cases, the SCAT meetings may be used as a forum for training participants on such topics as threat assessment.
A final agency collaboration is the assistance provided to local agencies by the federal government. The Behavioral Analysis Unit of the Federal Bureau of Investigation's National Center for the Analysis of Violent Crime will, upon request, provide local agencies with assessments of communicated threats, dangerousness assessments of known offenders, profiles of unknown offenders, crime scene analysis, and investigative and interview strategies. In addition, center staff provide training on these topics.176 For example, the center's analysis of threat stylistics may be useful in a case where the stalker's identity is unknown. Such an analysis may suggest the stalker's probable level of education, criminal sophistication, race, use of English as second language, and sex. Where a suspect is identified, comparative examination of other suspect writings may help in ascertaining whether the suspect is the person sending written threats. The Secret Service provides similar help through its National Threat Assessment Center staff. They have developed protocols for handling threat cases177 and also provide training for state and local law enforcement agency staff who have protective responsibilities, including those associated with stalking cases. The Secret Service's forensic unit also provides technical assistance to local law enforcement agencies in specific cases. The assistance includes document comparisons, handwriting analysis, and information from the Secret Service's database of celebrity stalkers and persons who have threatened public officials.178
When an arrest is made, the case is then referred to the prosecutor's office. At that point, the arresting officer should summarize the key elements of the case for the prosecution. The summary should describe the following:
Law enforcement development of a case summary would be especially useful to the prosecutor at bail hearings where there has been little time to interview the victim or gain other information about the seriousness of the case.
Stalking prosecutions are often problematic because of staff inexperience with stalking cases and the absence of agency policies and procedures that might otherwise provide guidance in lieu of personal expertise. The primary responsibility of prosecutors is, of course, to prove that the defendant committed the crimes charged. While the defendant will plead guilty to the charges in many instances, in a significant number of cases a trial will be required. It is unclear, at this point, whether stalking cases are more likely to go to trial than other types of criminal cases. There is some reason to suspect that this may be the case, at least for some types of stalkers, such as those seeking fame. In any case, prosecutors must always prepare their cases as if they will have to convince a jury that the defendant stalked the victim.
Because most law enforcement agencies do not have specially trained investigators to handle stalking complaints, stalking prosecutors may need to have their own investigative staff help gather the evidence necessary to prove stalking. Since stalking is an ongoing crime, prosecutor investigators are especially critical in the management of evidence collection, even where local law enforcement agencies have investigators available. In many jurisdictions, however, caseload pressures are such that the prosecutor's investigator may be the only person assigned to the case on a permanent basis.
Prosecutors' traditional responsibilities begin after the suspect is arrested and appears before the court at a bail or pretrial release hearing. While in many jurisdictions, bail is a routinized procedure for which there may even be a bail schedule, routine bail should never occur in a stalking case where the threat of violence is the basis of the arrest. Prosecutors will typically stress the uniqueness of these cases to the official who sets bail and release conditions, especially the dangers that may be presented to the victim by the stalker. Law enforcement experts on stalking can help educate the hearing officer about what stalking is and about its dangers for victims. In some cases, pretrial detention may be requested on the basis that it is needed to prevent witness intimidation of the victim or other witnesses. Some prosecutors will also charge the stalker with all possible crimes committed while stalking. This is intended, in part, to educate the bail hearing officer on the scope and seriousness of the stalking.
In appropriate cases, preventive detention or referral to psychiatric evaluation may be requested. In other cases, intensive pretrial supervision (including electronic monitoring) may be needed. The court should also be asked to issue a no-contact order forbidding the suspect from engaging in any stalking behaviors; this order should be specific to the facts of the case. As appropriate, a curfew may be ordered. The order should also forbid the suspect to obtain any dangerous weapons and to surrender any weapons already in his possession. When called for, substance abuse testing should be required. The prosecutor should also seek to ensure that if bail is denied, the victim will be notified by the jail when the stalker is later released. Where available and needed, victims should be provided with a means to contact 911 wherever they are, including panic buttons to alert neighbors, passersby, etc.180
Among the types of evidence that the prosecutor may use to support objections to release are the following:
The heart of the prosecution's case is the victim's story. It is critical that this story be as complete as possible. In many instances, prosecutors should not rely on the police investigation to obtain all the facts known by the victim. Police investigations, especially where there is no specialized staff or unit, do not require a full debriefing of the victim; they only need enough information to support a probable cause determination that a crime has occurred. For this reason alone, prosecutors will have to re-interview the victim early in the process to gather evidence that the police investigation did not uncover.181 Several points should guide this interview:
The prosecutor's interview with the victim is also an opportunity to provide the victim with information about what she can do to enhance her personal safety and how public safety agencies can assist. For this reason, prosecutors may wish to have a victim advocate join the victim interview to help with safety planning and referral to community services.
Prosecutors may also at this point become involved with the victim's civil court efforts to obtain a stalking protection order. It is common for prosecutors to suggest that victims consider seeking such an order, with due consideration being given, of course, to victim safety issues. It is also becomingly increasingly common for stalkers to counteract (even preemptively) with their own filing for a court order of protection. Because they have been involved in numerous cases where the stalker tried to manipulate the court system by falsifying the facts, staff in the District Attorney's Office in Kings County (Brooklyn), New York, routinely intervene in the civil court proceedings to present the facts as they know them to the court. Doing so serves to prevent conflicting orders and removes potential confusion for jurors when the case is tried in criminal court.184
The first important tactical decision in a stalking case is the filing of formal charges. Decisions must be made about the scope of the charges to be filed. For example, prosecutors may have to choose between charging all stalking acts as one crime or charging several crimes. Charging all acts as one crime shows the full extent of the stalking behaviors, while splitting up the behaviors into two or more charges may increase the defendant's sentencing exposure.185 The prosecutor must also determine what other non-stalking charges to file. These can include serious felonies, such as aggravated assault, rape, or residential burglary; lesser misdemeanors, such as criminal mischief or trespassing; and violation of a court order of protection. Again, sentencing considerations play a significant role in this decision. In some jurisdictions (e.g., New York), charging lesser crimes may be important because lesser crime convictions may increase the penalties for stalking should there be subsequent recidivism.186 In other states (e.g., California), the law authorizes consecutive sentencing in misdemeanor cases so that the actual exposure to incarceration may be greater for multiple misdemeanors than for a stalking felony charge.187
At the same time, these filing decisions must take into account any potential double jeopardy issues relating to twin convictions for the same crimes. 188 Finally, court venue may play a role in some states where the stalking behavior occurred in several different locations. Most states, however, provide venue in both the locality where the crime occurred and the location where the crime was planned (i.e., where the intent to commit a stalking act arose). 189 Another concern may be the victim's ability to cope with an extended wait for a felony trial; misdemeanor cases can typically be closed in half the time of felony cases.190
A final filing decision regards what charges to bring where the victim says she is not in fear of the stalker, yet the applicable statute requires victim fear as an element of the crime. While there is only one court decision that directly supports charging defendants with attempted stalking,191 there are also analogous decisions holding that attempted terroristic threats may be charged where there is an intent to instill fear, but the victim was not fearful.192
Trial preparation is critical to any successful prosecution. A stalking prosecutor in Orange County, California, provides the following checklist of preparation actions:
Because the statutory elements making up the crime of stalking typically include reasonable victim fear, stalking is one of a very few crimes where the victim's state of mind is an element of proof. Hence, evidence will be required to prove that the victim was indeed fearful and had a reasonable basis for being afraid.
Proof that the victim had a reasonable fear for her safety due to the stalking begins with the victim's testimony. It, too, must be corroborated by such evidence as the following:
The crux of the prosecution's story should usually be the impact of the stalking on the victim, however bizarre the facts of the case may be. But not always. In rebuttal, the defendant may claim that there was no threat expressed or implied or that the stalking behaviors exhibited were simply acts of love. The victim may even have exhibited behaviors, as described above, seemingly inconsistent with being a victim, especially to one unfamiliar with the dynamics of domestic violence and stalking. However, the prosecutor has several potentially important tools to work with. Stalking cases are stories that grab the jury's attention. The crux of the story is the impact of the stalking on the victim. Typically the facts are not complicated, even though they may be voluminous. Thus, prosecutors as advocates have very favorable conditions in developing their opening and closing arguments.
First, the prosecutor will have corroborative evidence that backs up the victim's testimony. This includes all the evidence detailed above that makes up a prima facie case of stalking. Identity evidence may come from victim testimony, videotapes or cameras, fingerprints on gifts or letters, or paper (similar to that used for notes) found under defendant's control during a warrant search, etc.
In some cases, the facts may not be clear. One common problem is proving victim fear. Victim testimony and collaborative evidence from other witnesses can address direct factual items such as behavior changes, locks changed, etc. The victim can also detail the time and effort expended in keeping safe, such as the time involved in filing for civil orders of protection and the number of trips required.194 Such detail is intended to lead the jury to infer that the fear described must have been a major motivator for such extraordinary efforts. In addition, the proving the facts of the caseprosecutor can call expert witnesses to explain to the jury that stalking has occurred and that the victim was fearful. 195Thus, a psychiatrist, psychologist, or other treatment expert may be used to prove both the reasonableness of the victim's fear and its reality. Behavior seemingly inconsistent with being a stalking victim can be shown to be a common adaptive response to the stress of being a stalking victim at high risk of violence for a long period. Building a pool of expert witnesses qualified to testify on stalking may be difficult, but it probably is one of the first non-case specific tasks a special prosecution stalking unit must do.
Proving reasonableness of the victim's fear requires leading the finder of fact to understand the importance of the context in which the stalking occurred. The significance of implied threats can best be understood in light of the defendant's history, especially prior incidents of violence (including violence directed at the victim or violence against others that is known to the victim). Not all states permit entry into evidence of the defendant's prior acts, on the basis that it is likely to be more prejudicial than probative. However, many do, and where it is permitted, prosecutors must make an effort to obtain corroborative evidence to support the victim's testimony about prior history. This, of course, is another important reason for the prosecutor's office to have its own investigative staff in stalking cases.
Stalker intent may be the hardest fact to prove. Some state laws require proof of the stalker's specific intent to stalk and terrorize the victim; others merely require a general intent to do the acts that resulted in terror and fear. One common method for proving general intent is to show that the stalker was informed by the victim, the police, or even the court of both the victim's desire to have the stalking behaviors end and the negative impacts those behaviors have had on the victim. Letters, police testimony about intervention, and court orders of protection are used to document such warnings. Where specific intent is required, the defendant's continued actions after such notification may be subject to the proposition that one is presumed to intend the natural and probable consequences of one's actions. 196
One problem in a small proportion of cases is that the victim may become uncooperative. Typically this occurs when former intimates become reconciled, although a few cases may involve a victim so terrorized that she cannot effectively cooperate with the prosecution. Depending on when in the course of investigation and prosecution this occurs, it may be impossible to proceed without victim testimony; such testimony is usually critical to proving actual victim fear, as many states' stalking laws require. Not all states have such a requirement; even though fear itself cannot be shown, proof that victim fear would have been a reasonable reaction may be all that is needed. Participants in the regional seminar series sponsored by the Bureau of Justice Assistance favored a modified no-drop policy in stalking cases where the victim is uncooperative. They pointed to the possibility of using prior victim statements under the spontaneous utterance exception to the hearsay rule, for example. The participants also suggested that prosecutors have the victim testify at bail hearings and probable cause hearings in any case where they suspect victim cooperation may become an issue. 197The participants did not discuss either how a no-drop policy might affect victim safety or what to do if the victim testifies for the defendant.
Finally, although most stalkers do not testify at trial, when they do, adroit cross-examination can make them the best witnesses for the prosecution. Cross-examination should focus on getting the stalker to acknowledge committing the various behaviors that make up the stalking. In some cases, the prosecution may let the stalker talk; his "explanations" may simply make the jury as fearful as the victim. In other cases, a stalker's "explanations" should be cut off, since they are often both clever and manipulative, and if only one juror buys his answer, a hung jury may result. One reason defense counsel may permit the stalker to testify is to show that his claimed mental illness negates the necessary specific intent requirement of many states' stalking laws. When this occurs, prosecutors should press the defendant to acknowledge the length of time over which the stalking occurred and the complexities of the behavior involved (e.g., tracking the victim). The prosecution should also point out on cross-examination that the defendant was otherwise fully functional (e.g., works, drives without accidents). This dual approach to countering any claim of debilitating mental illness will show that the planning that went into the stalking is inconsistent with any serious mental defect that could undercut specific intent.198
Unless foreclosed by a plea agreement, once a conviction has been obtained, the prosecutor will make a recommendation to the court about the most appropriate sentence. In many cases, the threat to the victim is so great that the sentencing recommendation is self-evident: incarceration for as long as possible. When the threat is not as great, the court may favor a probation sentence, or a plea agreement may specify probation. In either case, the prosecution will want conditions that help guard victim safety attached to the probation sentence.199 Just as the prosecutor argued for restrictive conditions upon pretrial release, so too will the prosecutor seek intensive supervision, electronic monitoring, and no-contact orders, violation of which will result in revocation of probation. Furthermore, where new stalking occurs in violation of the probation conditions, prosecutors will press the new criminal charges rather than simply requesting the court to resentence the stalker based on the probation revocation. These are separate proceedings, and victim safety often requires that both cases be prosecuted.
Regardless of whether a sentence of incarceration or probation has been issued, prosecutors will want to maintain periodic contact with the victim to determine whether there have been any new incidents of stalking. One of the unique features of stalking is that incarceration does not necessarily end it. Inmates may call or send letters to the victim directly200 or through third parties, or they may ask released inmates to continue their stalking efforts201. Furthermore, in almost all cases, incarceration eventually ends. Prosecutor contacts with the victim during the incarceration period reassure the victim that there is someone to go to if the stalking should resume after the stalker's release.
In cases where the stalker is sentenced to probation, assignment to an intensive supervision caseload is often found appropriate after a threat or dangerousness assessment is conducted. Typically, intensive supervision caseloads involve no more than 30 probationers per officer. That ratio allows for at least one face-to-face contact each month, plus unscheduled visits to determine whether the probationer is at work and obeying all other conditions of probation. It also allows the probation officer to meet the victim and encourage her to call the officer should stalking resume. It further enables the officer to call the victim periodically to check on how things are going and to reinforce the earlier message that probation is a resource for help. In practice, however, only the most serious cases are eligible for intensive supervision because the staff needed for this function are overworked. Priorities will need to be set; periodic victim contacts are probably the minimum task requirement to protect victim safety. Such contacts should be coordinated with the prosecutor, and procedures should be set forth so that each notifies the other when information about a potential danger to the victim is discovered.
Where possible, the intensive supervision caseload should be supervised by a probation officer experienced in dealing with stalkers because stalkers are generally a "better" class of criminal, with higher intelligence and education. 202 The very nature of stalking, moreover, is one of manipulation, using their intelligence and often pleasing personalities to direct the probation supervision in ways that undermine its effectiveness. One experienced probation officer reports that because stalkers are generally hostile to supervision, she sets firm boundaries on their behavior to emphasize the control relationship underlying intensive probation. For example, there should never be open-ended or vague requirements or promises to end supervision by a set date. Just as stalkers do not "hear" the victim's "no," so too they do not hear the probation officer's qualifications in their relationship. Another tip for handling stalkers is never to let them set times for supervision meetings, since doing so goes against the officer's authoritarian role in the relationship. A second reason for using stalking-experienced probation officers is their increased ability to monitor stalker recidivism through the victim. By helping the victim with needed services and providing a prompt and sure response to victim complaints, the strengthened relationship between the officer and the victim can be critical to effective supervision.203
In a few jurisdictions, the convicted stalker may be required to attend a stalker-treatment program.204 Because there are so few such programs known, no generalized description of them is possible. Known programs use a psychologist or psychiatrist and a group therapy approach to instill behavioral change. More intensive pharmacological services may be used for stalkers exhibiting serious mental illnesses. In addition, some stalkers may also need instruction on life skills, such as acquiring and maintaining friendships and improving social networks. Research on successful treatment of stalkers is limited.205 Hence, linking probation and stalker treatment is still a problematic exercise today.206
Victim safety and well-being are critical responsibilities for both law enforcement and prosecution. The victim is undergoing tremendous stress from the stalking. At a minimum, psychological support is critical to her well-being. Referrals for counseling, support groups, and other victim services may also be needed.
The most important question in a stalking case is, "How dangerous is the stalker likely to be to the victim?" Protecting the victim is a higher priority than a successful prosecution.207 Hence, both law enforcement and prosecution will try to assess the degree of danger that exists both at the initial complaint and as the case continues. Typical factors considered in threat assessment include the suspect's history of mental illness or violence; history of domestic violence; explicit threats of violence; vandalism or pet abuse; and increase in stalking activity. Much of this information can be gathered from official sources. Where there has been a prior relationship, investigators will often be able to obtain additional information from the victim about prior domestic violence, other prior violence, weapon possession, substance abuse, and mental health. Victims should also be asked about their assessment of potential violence.
As noted earlier, research on threat assessment is still rudimentary. Nonetheless, some typology studies do provide indicators or correlates of dangerousness. Zona's research found that "simple obsessional" stalkers were the most likely to present a threat of violence, especially those who had had a prior relationship with the victim.208 Other researchers have also found that erotomanics, who typically have not had any prior relationship with the victim, can be dangerous209, especially to third parties viewed as blocking successful pursuit of the stalking victim.210 Many other researchers have focused on relationship factors. Schwartz-Watts and colleagues confirmed Zona's finding that the greatest risk of violence came from stalkers who had a prior relationship with the victim.211 Similarly, Harmon and colleagues found that prior relationship was a predictor of violence against the victim. Nearly two-thirds of stalkers who had had an intimate relationship with the victim showed violence; only one-third of those who had been acquaintances showed violent behavior; and less than one-quarter of stranger stalkers were violent212. Looking at other stalker characteristics, the Harmon research team found that the greatest likelihood of violence was with stalkers diagnosed with both a personality disorder and substance abuse or mental disorder. Most significantly, they found that most stalkers who threatened the victim acted on that threat. In comparison, only 20 percent of those who did not threaten acted violently. 213 Harmon's principal findings were replicated by Kienlen and colleagues, who also found that stalker violence was most likely among those with a personality disorder or substance abuse and who had a former sexual relationship with the victim.214 In the largest of these studies, Mullen and colleagues found that one-third of 146 stalkers attacked their victims; 6 percent attacked a third party. While most of the violent episodes were minor, nearly 20 percent involved sexual assaults or attempted assaults. Following their typology, the researchers found that rejected suitors were most likely to be violent (59 percent); these stalkers were also likely to threaten their victims. Predatory stalkers were also likely to both threaten and carry out their threats. Although resentful stalkers were most likely to use threats (87 percent), they were far less likely to actually use violence (29 percent); they were, however, likely to commit property damage (50 percent). Intimacy seekers were also prone to threats (50 percent), but far less likely to commit violence (24 percent). The researchers also found that violence was associated with personality disorders and substance abuse. Prior criminal record was also highly correlated with stalking violence. Interestingly, the correlation between prior threat and violence was not present for former intimates; nonetheless, former intimates were most likely to commit violence (64 percent), and stranger stalkers were the least likely to do so (24 percent).
Mullen et al. conducted a regression analysis to determine which risk factors were the most useful in predicting violence. They found that the most important predictor was prior criminal record, followed by substance abuse and typology. Other important indicators of potential violence are prior relationship and overt threats.215 Further, substance abuse of any kind is strongly associated with violent acts. All these factors need to be assessed on a case-specific basis. As Mullen et al. point out, although strangers are the least likely stalkers to commit violence, this group includes predatory stalkers, who are among the most likely to commit sexual assaults against their victims. 216 Mullen and Pathe also cite studies of non-stalking violence that list other indicators such as suicide threats, depression, common bail risk factors such as unemployment or social isolation, and case-specific clinical issues such as having high anger levels directed at the victim, having an intense sense of entitlement, or fantasizing about an attack.217 Another, more recent study of 187 former intimate stalking victims found that for this victim subpopulation, prior violence is a moderate predictor of future violence; the author speculates that the stalker's reduced access to the victim moderates the value of this predictive factor.218 The study also supported other research findings that a stalker's use of verbal threats is the most powerful indicator of future violence.219 Other research, however, finds that verbal threats are a weak predictor of future violence compared to profile information such as a prior intimate relationship between the stalker and victim.220
In sum, threat assessment begins with characterizing the stalking according to typology, since the research clearly shows that different risk factors are associated with different types of stalkers and stalking. The next step is to particularize the threat assessment by examining the specific behaviors, as well as background factors such as prior criminal history and incidents of violence. Thus, using the studies above as a guide, it is possible to roughly divide stalkers into low, medium, and high-risk offenders. Two problems with this approach remain, however. First, even low risk does not mean no risk. False negatives are not uncommon because assessment of risk potential may change over time as new information becomes available, e.g., overt threats are issued or information about prior convictions becomes available from other jurisdictions. Risk assessment is therefore a continuing process. Second, false positives (mistaken predictions of violence) are also of concern.
Once the threat is assessed, the question arises as to how best to protect the victim. Each case must, of course, be assessed on its individual merits. In some cases, a simple intervention or warning interview will suffice221; in others, a court injunction or protection order may be sought. In yet a few other cases, obtaining a civil order of protection may have the reverse effect of increasing the level of danger to the victim.222 Other common tactics used by law enforcement include providing the victim with a home alarm system that will trigger police action. Where this is done, more advanced systems will also ensure that the 911 dispatcher has access to descriptive information about any suspect and his vehicles. Victims will also be advised to take other actions, such as changing phone numbers, varying routes to work, or renting a post office box for mail. In extreme cases, the victims will be aided in relocating their residence, even out of the jurisdiction. In a number of states, laws now permit victims to protect their personal information on driver's licenses and even social security numbers.223
A number of law enforcement and prosecutor agencies provide victims with an informational booklet that details measures they can take to protect themselves. The LAPD Threat Management Unit handbook, for example, prefaces its recommendations with the statement that police cannot guarantee safety and thus the victim is encouraged to take steps on her own. Among other measures, the booklet advises victims to do the following:
The Dover Police Department protocol suggests additional actions regarding the family's children. For example, children need to be instructed to keep all address and telephone information confidential. The protocol also raises the question of whether the children's school should be notified, but it does not provide an answer.225
Other actions to offer victims of stalking, suggested by a victim services agency, include the following:
Stalking victims require non-criminal justice assistance for at least two reasons. First, being stalked is stressful. Victims often need support and counseling. Medical and psychiatric or psychological treatment services may also be required to help the victim deal with past or ongoing stress.227 Second, the criminal justice process itself is often stressful, especially when the victim must see the stalker in court ("meeting" is precisely the goal of many stalkers) and may have to hear repeated threats or references to past threats. Third, the safety precautions described above may have other unintended consequences that need to be mitigated. For example, informing employers of the stalking may put the victim's job at risk.
Victim advocates and similar service providers can deliver some limited services themselves and refer the victim to other, more specialized service providers. Many special anti-stalking units have victim advocates assigned to help the stalking victims. For example, virtually all the special stalking prosecution units in the several California county prosecutor offices 228 with such units have a victim advocate assigned to the unit. In part, this may be due to the availability of state funding for advocate units in the prosecutor offices; such funding reduces the financial costs of the stalking unit advocates, although it does not explain why prosecutors have made that position a priority. In contrast, only a few victim service agencies direct special attention to stalking victims, even in the context of domestic violence. Again, funding issues may explain, in part, why this is so.
The types of services needed by stalking victims include these:
Since stalking victims may also be victims of other crimes, such as sexual or physical assaults, victim services that relate to those crimes should also be available. Similarly, when stalking victims have also been subjected to domestic violence, additional victim services may be appropriate. Finally, while all crime victims may be nervous about testifying in court, fears of testifying are especially large for stalking victims who have been trying to avoid face-to-face contacts with their stalker. Special attention to these fears needs to be displayed by victim advocates. 230
Victim involvement in the investigation and prosecution of stalking cases is often critical to completion of these cases. This involvement may also be beneficial to the victim since it allows the victim to feel that she is retaking control over her life. Not coincidentally, regaining control increases victim cooperation with law enforcement and prosecution. Another way agencies can help victims regain control (or not lose control) is to help them live their lives as normally as possible. The Legal Aid Service of Oregon advises victims of stalking to do the following:
Providing services for stalking victims generally requires collaboration between criminal justice agencies, victim service agencies, and such service providers as the following:
Collaborative relationships are developed and maintained differently in every community. In some jurisdictions, collaboration is more or less ad hoc. In others, formal agreements are reached. The Colorado Springs DVERT program, for example, is a joint venture involving local criminal justice agencies and both public and private service agencies, including mental health, social services, child protective services, and the local victim services agency. Each agency assigns staff to work with the other agencies' staff at the DVERT offices, which are located apart from any of the sponsor agencies.
Stalking cases are different from other types of crime cases. These differences are reflected in the organization and operation of the special anti-stalking units. The most important difference lies in the relationship between the victim and the investigator or prosecutor assigned to the victim's case. Stalking cases last a long time and rely on the victim for important evidence gathering. By themselves, those two factors lend themselves to a relationship between the agency staff and the victim. Such relationships are to the advantage of both parties: the victim knows whom to call when a problem occurs, and the agency obtains increased victim cooperation in evidence gathering and testimony.
The investigative or prosecuting agency, therefore, has a significant interest in promoting strong victim-staff relationships. One agency policy that fosters such relationships is assigning one investigator or prosecutor to handle all aspects of the case. 232Unitary or vertical case assignment of staff means, however, that the investigator or prosecutor assigned to the case must be able to respond to a stalking call from a victim at all times. While many issues may be handled by telephone, not all can be, and an on-scene presence may be needed.
An unusually high demand for staff overtime to handle victim calls for assistance or evidence collection (e.g., from stakeouts) is a second management concern.233 Nonetheless, such calls are the cost of doing business as an anti-stalking unit. They can be budgeted for to some extent, while alternatives such as compensatory time may be used where permitted.
Staff caseloads are a third management issue that must be addressed. Stalking cases are labor-intensive due to the long period during which evidence must be collected. For example, one domestic violence investigator estimates that only 1 percent of his cases involve stalking, but those cases take up 10 percent of his time. 234 While that may be an extreme case, managers should expect stalking investigators and prosecutors to have lower caseloads than more generalized staff and domestic violence unit staff.
Further compounding the staff caseload issue is that most special unit supervisors and staff are also responsible for non-case specific duties. Because stalking is not yet well understood, the demand for information about stalking is high. Hence, special unit staff are responsible for training other agency staff about stalking, training related agency staff (e.g., prosecutors training police) on stalking, and providing community education to encourage reporting of stalking. Experience suggests that as much as 10 percent of supervisor staff time and 5 percent of other unit staff time may be spent on these activities.
Managers, especially law enforcement managers, may also be expected to develop an operations manual that sets out written policies and procedures to guide staff actions. In several places in this report, references have been made to different aspects of such manuals, including case file management and case eligibility screening. A unit manual might also include agency policy on overtime, procedures for referrals to other service agencies, and guidance on victim safety planning assistance.
A substantial body of experience with anti-stalking initiatives has been gained among the few law enforcement, prosecution, probation, and victim advocate agencies sponsoring such efforts. Interestingly, this experience is consistent with the efforts of agencies in other countries, such as the United Kingdom and Australia, to implement their anti-stalking laws. Among the key managerial lessons learned is the need for specialized staff, vertical handling of cases, and multi-agency/community coordination. Lessons for practitioners include the importance of victim-gathered evidence (and the need to work better with victims and victim advocates), corroborative evidence, problem-solving approaches, and the use of research on stalking and stalkers to inform threat assessment and safety planning. The research uncovered numerous examples of how these principles are being implemented and can be emulated.
Examination of the wealth of material available on stalking confirmed in great detail that stalking is a serious crime. Stalking's toll on victims is insidious and pervasive. More importantly, the research on the incidence of stalking suggests that it is a far more common occurrence than previously recognized. The enactment of anti-stalking laws is amply supported.
The review of state anti-stalking laws and their implementation found both good and bad news. The good news is that every state has enacted an anti-stalking law, and those laws are becoming progressively more strict, even though significant gaps in state anti-stalking laws are still common. The bad news is that programs to implement the stalking laws are currently limited to relatively few jurisdictions. Where these programs exist, they are generally doing an outstanding job, especially where they use specialized staff to handle the most serious stalking cases. Special unit staff also serve as a resource for other agency personnel who handle spillover stalking cases that are not handled by the core unit staff. By and large, a problem-solving, case-specific approach to these cases is used by the best programs. However, a number of routinized procedures have been developed to ensure that records are maintained in full and that important questions do not go unasked.
Anti-stalking efforts begin with laws that make stalking a criminal offense. Such laws can deter some potential stalkers from stalking and keeping others from stalking during a period of incarceration or supervision. The great majority of these laws were adopted in a short period, 1990-1993. At that time, comparative information about the effectiveness of differing approaches to anti-stalking legislation was totally lacking; indeed, relatively little was known about the extent and seriousness of stalking itself. As a result, virtually no state's laws dealt with the myriad of issues that a comprehensive anti-stalking legislative package would include. As experience with these laws' shortcomings has come to light, a number of states have amended and added to their original anti-stalking laws. Almost every state's stalking laws need significant change, such to increase the penalties for stalking, provide civil remedies, or make other adjustments.
States should review and update their anti-stalking laws to take advantage of what has been learned in the past decade about effective legislation. This review should begin with comparisons to the Model Anti-Stalking Code developed by the National Criminal Justice Association for the National Institute of Justice. 235
Legislative review should include consideration of the following:
In addition to strengthening the civil and criminal code provisions for stalking and related offenses, other amendatory issues include the following:
Other stalking law amendments that should be considered include these:
The most significant finding relative to implementation of state stalking laws is that relatively few jurisdictions have acted to enforce the state stalking laws by assigning staff to that purpose. Hence, the immediate need is to expand the number and responsibilities of specialized units handling stalking cases.
Perhaps the greatest barrier to the establishment of new stalking units is the lack of understanding of the nature and seriousness of stalking among local policymakers who fund and manage criminal justice agencies. Specifically, those policymakers need to understand that stalking cases
Studies on the incidence of stalking indicate that there are 2 to 6 million stalking cases annually, depending on the definition of stalking used. However, convincing local policymakers that stalking cases are numerous in their jurisdictions is not simply a matter of showing a few research numbers. Because of the often widespread skepticism of research, national estimates of the number of stalking cases are not especially persuasive. Instead, policymakers must be pointed to the large number of serious stalking cases that special stalking units are presently handling in jurisdictions similar to the one where these policymakers reside. For example, DVERT, in Colorado Springs, Colorado, expects to have in 2001 up to 70 serious stalking cases involving domestic violence. The San Diego District Attorney's Office handles about 100 serious stalking cases annually, divided almost equally between domestic violence and stranger-related cases, with perhaps another 100 less serious cases handled by prosecutors outside the special unit. In Queens County, New York, Safe Haven advocates respond to between 250 and 300 stalking victims annually. In none of these jurisdictions are the justice agencies aggressively seeking out stalking cases. In Dover, however, the police department stalking unit is aggressive in looking for stalking cases and handles as many as 30 annually, in a town whose population is less than 30,000.244 The statistics from Oregon of over 1,400 stalking civil petitions filed annually are especially instructive in demonstrating how few stalking cases are recognized by law enforcement. Extrapolating from the experiences of the special anti-stalking units we have looked at and talked with, there are, at a minimum, 40,000-50,000 serious stalking cases each year. This statistic is not insignificant; it is three times the annual number of homicides and more than half of the number of forcible rapes reported in the United States. In sum, one does not need to cite victim surveys alone to prove how common stalking is; one needs merely to point to the experiences of several jurisdictions that have made an effort to deal with stalking, experiences that show that "if you build a stalking unit, they will come."
Policymakers, especially agency managers who often place responsibility for stalking cases with their domestic violence unit, need also to be made aware that less than half of all stalking cases involve intimate or former intimate partners. The National Violence Against Women Survey found that 40 to 45 percent of all stalking cases involved domestic violence.245 The review of court decisions discussed supra reached similar conclusions. Thus, any stereotype of stalking that solely links stalking with domestic violence is simply wrong in many instances.
Comparison of stalking cases to homicide and rape is not unjustified. At one level, many homicide cases, especially domestic homicides, often have a stalking component. This is the reason that stalking cases are so common among special units that are set up to deal with only the most serious threats to personal safety. At another level, the disruption in life that stalking can create for the victim can be just as serious as that from other personal injury crimes. Furthermore, because stalking is a continuous crime, its effects can continue to escalate until the victim requires extensive therapy, is forced to move from the jurisdiction, spends thousands of dollars on safety equipment, etc.
By and large, policymakers understand that stalking can be a serious crime. Indeed, it is precisely that understanding that prompted the enactment of anti-stalking laws. To the extent that more needs to be done to explain how serious stalking can be, the court decisions reported above can be usefully cited, as can the numerous stories in the daily press and first-person stories in popular or mass-market magazines.
Stalking cases are unique in their complexity, duration, and level of threat. Often they require extensive victim involvement in evidence collection and a level of agency staff-victim cooperation that is new to most practitioners. State stalking laws place new demands on investigators in gathering evidence and prosecutors in moving these cases forward. Innovation must be matched with routinization of these new methods and procedures. Experienced personnel are required. Without such personnel, many stalking cases will go unrecognized and without any justice system response. Other cases will fail for lack of adequate evidence collection or the prosecutor's inability to explain stalking to juries. Victims will go unprotected and some will either be seriously injured (or even killed), while others will lead lives of quiet desperation while their stalkers continue to haunt them. Models of how to develop staff expertise are available, however. How these specialized staff and units operate is fully documented supra. These models need to be implemented in jurisdictions around the country.
Stalking laws do not enforce themselves; investigators and prosecutors enforce them. Furthermore, the unique prospective character of stalking cases, the high resource demands they place on stalking case investigators and prosecutors, and the specialized expertise required all suggest the establishment of specialized staff or units.
In many instances, non-agency funding sources should support the new anti-stalking initiatives until they demonstrated their worth. Because of the prospective nature of these cases, investigating and prosecuting stalking cases requires low staff caseloads; estimates of how labor intensive stalking cases are range upward of 10 times the time spent on the average domestic violence case. Establishing a special stalking unit is an important commitment of agency resources. Because of the normal skepticism surrounding any new resource investment, agencies may seek first to use funds available under the Violence Against Women Act of 2000 (VAWA) to test the effectiveness of new anti-stalking initiatives.246 The act specifically includes stalking as a program focus area. A number of jurisdictions have used their STOP and other federal dollars for this purpose. In other instances, the development of STOP-funded specialized domestic violence units has resulted in the unit staff being exposed to stalking cases for the first time.
Federal funding under VAWA is likely to be critical to improved anti-stalking efforts. Although a number of anti-stalking initiatives have already been funded under the STOP program, they are small in number compared to domestic violence or even sexual assault initiatives. More needs to be done by the state STOP offices responsible for allocating these funds. For example, in 1999 the California STOP agency issued a request for proposals for special prosecution anti-stalking units, awarding three such grants.247 STOP agencies in Colorado and Oregon have also funded multiple anti-stalking initiatives, although many of these programs are directed at helping women obtain civil orders of protection rather than funding justice agency operations as such. Other state STOP agencies need to be encouraged to do more about stalking in their states. STOP funding should include, in addition to investigative and prosecution positions, support for victim advocates and the development of linkages to community-based agencies to provide stalking victims with services and safety planning.
Because stalking is a new crime and agencies have little or no experience with it, they will need help in setting up new anti-stalking initiatives. One obvious type of encouragement is offering technical assistance to both STOP agencies and their subgrantees on stalking-related topics. Technical assistance is, of course, just another way of saying information transfer. The first "next step" must be to more fully inventory existing anti-stalking efforts and then to build upon the lessons gained from these efforts, regardless of funding source. Building such a knowledge base will be critical to expansion and improvement of anti-stalking efforts. The specific areas of most concern in building the knowledge base include identification of stalking cases, case management policies and procedures, special unit staff, and victim safety policies and procedures. 248
By and large, most stalking victims are not receiving help from the justice system. Numerous stories from all over the country tell of police officers refusing to take stalking complaints, even in jurisdictions where there are special stalking units or officers. Patrol officers are simply unable to recognize stalking cases even when a complaint lays out all the elements of the crime. Looking for hidden cases of stalking is totally beyond their training. The objective should be to develop a computerized method for identifying these cases that does not depend on officers' expert response to victim complaints of stalking or less definitive victim concerns about multiple other crimes. Enough is known about how to do this that a few test sites might profitably be used to demonstrate what works and what does not work for improved case identification.
Agencies need to develop stalking-specific policies and procedures on case assignment, staff caseloads, record keeping, and investigation. The existing policies and procedures developed by a few agencies can be used as initial models for emulation and adaptation, but they are far from complete in detailing the many informal policies and procedures in use in these same agencies, much less in those without formal manuals. None of these manuals, for example, provides any guidance on threat assessment and agency collaboration to improve victim safety.
It is critical for any anti-stalking initiative to have specialized staff handle stalking cases. One important element of specialized units is vertical handling of the stalking cases, in which the person assigned to the case is responsible for its future handling. It is the ongoing relationship with the victim that vertical case handling brings that is critical to victim cooperation in collecting evidence, victim reporting of future stalking incidents (even after the case is closed), and maximization of agency efforts to protect the victim. Creation of special anti-stalking units also permits the development of special policies and procedures for stalking cases, such as the stalking case book for record keeping or overtime policies that recognize the off-hours pattern of much stalking. More importantly, the development of specialized units allows the fostering of a problem-solving approach to investigating and prosecuting stalking crimes. Special stalking units can also lead to enhanced victim safety and well-being through victim advocates assigned to the unit and through collaboration with community agencies.
The development of staff stalking expertise may have several important collateral effects. For example, law enforcement officers may be used as expert witnesses to testify about the impact of stalking on victims at both pretrial release and trials. They may also be useful at trial to explain stalker behaviors (e.g., collecting souvenirs) and victim coping behavior.249 Prosecutors in a special stalking unit are in a better position to argue for a bail schedule and related release policies that recognize the danger to victims from their stalkers. Similarly, anti-stalking prosecutors can become a powerful voice in recommending changes to strengthen existing stalking laws.
Expertise in investigating and prosecuting stalking cases cannot be developed simply through handling these cases or through technical assistance to agency managers. The personnel handling stalking cases must know from the start how difficult these cases can be and how dangerous they can be to victims. Mistakes made by stalking personnel can literally be life-threatening. The stakes are simply too high for a "sink or swim" approach to preparing staff to handle these cases. Nor should managers assume that expertise in one area of the law, such as domestic violence, is easily transferable to stalking cases. The two types of cases are different and require different means for making the case, dealing with victims, and interviewing suspects. Indeed, the extent to which stalking cases are different can best be illustrated by the difficulty many agencies have in identifying these cases. Although many domestic violence cases, especially those involving separated former intimates, have a stalking component to them, domestic violence investigation units rarely identify the stalking. This problem is even more acute with stranger stalking that has not yet reached the stage of dire threats. For reasons relating the manipulation abilities of many stalkers, specialized expertise is also needed by probation staff and other court officials, ranging from the judiciary to pretrial release agency staff.
At all levels,250 the need for training is almost totally unmet. Meeting this need begins with state legislation requiring stalking training, yet only two states have such laws. While a few other state agencies such as California's Peace Officers Standards and Training Commission (POST) have developed training programs for specialized officers, the largest need is for training patrol.251
Based on the many training program materials reviewed to date, virtually no training focuses on the problem-solving view of stalking investigation and prosecution. Instead, training for non-specialist agency staff is largely focused on what the law says.252 In view of the changes in law that occur in many states, this is not without merit, especially for patrol officers. Even with specialized staff, training is often limited to replicating the policies and procedures approach that has been used successfully with other crimes. Stalking is not completely subject to routinization of effort; stalking investigation is not limited to looking for evidence related to past crimes. Hence, techniques that work for investigating crimes committed before law enforcement involvement are not sufficient.
Not only must there be increased training on stalking, the stalking training must also focus on the problem-solving approach to investigation. Training must go back to basics: How do I find out who is the stalker? How do I prove X is the stalker? This entails a mindset that is willing and eager to innovate. Existing training must be improved. Research findings such as those discussed above must be made part of the stalking curriculum.
Training in working with victims includes important issues such as victim evidence collection, victim support, and victim safety. The close relationship between investigators or prosecutors and the victim is distinct from that in other types of investigations, especially domestic violence, where evidence-based prosecutions that do not rely on victim testimony dominate.
As already noted, law enforcement agency written policies and procedures relating to stalking investigations and case management uniformly limit discussion of victim issues. Training for these same victim issues is also limited. In part, this is because relatively little attention has been paid by either researchers or funding agencies to better understand stalking victim needs or improve the capacity of agencies to respond to these needs. Again, federal and state assistance efforts directed at improving anti-stalking efforts should do more to stress victim safety and service needs.
Little attention has been paid to the role of the judiciary in criminal stalking proceedings. Yet judges play a vital role at such important decision points as pretrial release, issuance of orders of protection, and sentencing. Unfortunately, judges are rarely provided training on stalking law, much less stalking dynamics or the impact of stalking on victims. As a result, judges may be prone to accepting arguments such as, "He hasn't hurt her," or viewing the defendant's manipulative and likable personality as proving credibility. Judges may also be inclined to order stalkers to attend domestic violence counseling or anger management on the ill-founded theory that it could not hurt.
Judges clearly need stalking training. In the absence of such training, prosecutors must make every effort to teach judges informally about stalking through pretrial briefs, use of expert witnesses at trial and at sentencing, and use of victim impact statements at sentencing. The absence of such training to date remains a critical failure and one that was highlighted in this research's two national surveys of law enforcement and prosecutor agencies.253
The largest hole in our knowledge about stalking lies in the issue of threat assessment. The discussion supra lays out the complexity of this issue, especially the multiple ways in which stalkers can be categorized, and indicates the difficulties associated with threat assessment. The most important of these is the inability of many researchers to develop methodologies that capture the complexity of the issues.254 This is largely due to the small number of cases that researchers are able today to identify as stalking cases. To capture the association between many different types of stalkers and violence outcomes requires a much larger number of cases than is typically available in most stalking research. To overcome this problem, researchers often combine otherwise heterogeneous categories of either stalkers or violence outcomes. This has not proven satisfactory, resulting, for example, in an absence of uniformity across research studies in defining violence. It also means that meta-analysis that combines studies to increase the total number of subjects studied cannot be done. This is an especially serious problem in trying to study stalking-related homicides and rapes, which despite small numbers are precisely the violent behaviors that practitioners are most fearful of. Of course, it may be that these latter occurrences are such rare events as to be statistically random, for which prediction studies are not appropriate. But it is much too early to give up on threat assessment without first trying better methods that permit examination of multiple studies' findings.
Research on monitoring stalkers, especially through probation, is virtually nonexistent. The "best practices" suggestions above should, therefore, be taken as only preliminary suggestions based on limited experience. Much more knowledge is needed about how differing probation agencies respond to the challenges posed by stalkers assigned to their supervision.
Very little is known about treating stalkers. Clearly, stalkers who are delusional need to be treated for their delusions. Presumably, treating the underlying disease will also reduce the stalking.255 However, most stalkers are not delusional. They may suffer from a variety of psychiatric diagnoses. As Mullen et al. point out, they are especially difficult to treat because of their capacity to "deny, minimize, and rationalize."256 Furthermore, in the experience of the present researchers, mental health and correctional practitioners do not believe stalkers should be sent for counseling such as that provided to domestic violence offenders. Because of their higher levels of intelligence and tendency to manipulate others, they gain little from such sessions and diminish the value of the counseling for the non-stalker participants. Thus, it is not surprising that the research identified only two stalker treatment programs in the country. More needs to be done in this field, especially in determining what works for which stalkers.257 One interesting possibility for evaluators is to validate the forthcoming protocol for stalker treatment now in preparation by a group of San Diego practitioners.258 This protocol is expected to emphasize personalized treatment using cognitive behavior approaches in preference to group counseling, which their experience showed reinforced stalking behaviors and presented logistical problems in adding new members to preexisting groups.259 The protocol will also call for periodic reassessment of the stalker for possible modification of the treatment plan, done in conjunction with probation or parole supervisors.
It is notable that there is only limited research on treating victims. One of the few exceptions is the work of Collins and Wilkas, who examined the issue of victim trauma from stalking, akin to other post-traumatic stress syndromes.260 One area for research is to survey treatment practitioners through the state victim compensation boards that may certify treatment providers for state payment. Another area for research is to examine stalking victims who are disabled.261
While prior research has demonstrated that stalking affects all societal groups, little is known about possible differences in how stalking affects victims of color. Nor do we really know with much certainty about the prevalence of stalking among smaller immigrant groups such as those of Indian-Asian backgrounds, southeast Asia, or the former Soviet bloc countries.
Victim needs for services go far beyond those provided by victim advocates. For example, victims may need medical and sometimes even psychiatric treatment. Victim advocates and service agencies do not typically provide such services themselves. Instead, they may have to identify medical specialists who have experience with stalking and domestic violence; often that expertise will initially come from training provided by the advocates or victim services agency. Ideally, medical practitioners with experience in working with traumatized patients of all sorts would be available, since they are familiar with the anxieties and stress-caused problems that typify stalking victims' needs. Although community collaboration is a priority under the VAWA, more might be done in enlisting national professional and other associations in encouraging local affiliates to join in such collaborations.
While television and the movies may vividly illustrate the dangers of stalkers, dramatizations about how the justice system handles these cases are missing. If few law enforcement officers know about stalking crimes, virtually no stalking victim understands that what is being done to her is a crime. The result is that only a small proportion of stalking cases are reported by victims. Instead, they might complain of harassment or violations of an order of protection. The stalking component is only revealed when a homicide results. In most jurisdictions, nobody, other than a few domestic violence service agencies and shelters, is telling victims to file stalking complaints. In a few jurisdictions, these agencies are very aggressive and the authorities might see dozens or even hundreds of stalking cases. But such success is the exception, not the rule. The number of justice agencies that handle a significant number of stranger stalkings is very low. Yet these cases are far more common than supposed, based on the experience of several specialized stalking units that aggressively respond to such cases. Victims need to be made aware of the stalking laws, and it is the responsibility of the justice agencies to take on the task of community education about stalking. One special area of concern here is stalking among underserved populations. As the experience of the Dover Police Department shows, size of jurisdiction is irrelevant; stalking occurs in small towns as well as big cities and their suburbs. Substantial evidence from a variety of sources indicates that black women victims of domestic violence are often stalked, although less is known about other types of stalking against blacks. Anecdotal evidence also shows that stalking occurs among immigrant populations and in rural areas. However, special efforts will need to be made to reach those populations.
Special efforts also need to be directed at educating employers about stalking. A number of states, such as California, have recently enacted legislation that permits employers to file on behalf of their employees for court orders of protection against stalking at the workplace. These laws show a growing recognition of how stalking in the workplace is a significant policy problem. Although a detailed discussion of this topic is beyond the scope of this report, Hoffman and Baron have summarized the kinds of actions employers might take to mitigate workplace stalking.262
Justice system responses to stalking were nonexistent a decade ago. Today, there are a few jurisdictions that might be cited as having exemplary responses; in others, significant efforts are underway to improve their response to stalking. Even in the "best" jurisdictions, many gaps remain, especially in providing counseling and services to stalking victims. Despite these problems, steady improvement is evident. The threshold of success in the effort to effectively help stalking victims has not yet been reached, but it is in sight.
In sum, anti-stalking efforts have come a long way since 1990. Considerable policy-relevant research now exists to help agencies start anti-stalking initiatives. While few agencies have established special stalking units, those that have can also provide important assistance and guidance to their colleagues. However, availability of information is not enough. Agency leaders need to be told about the information base and its importance to their work. One way to get the word out is for federal funding to place a greater priority on stalking issues. Finally, some limited research on practitioner needs also should be conducted, especially on better identifying stalking cases.
This chart briefly summarizes legislative enactments that involve stalking and related issues in the past four years in the 50 states. Full legislative cites may be found at www.ilj.org/dv/index.htm by scrolling down on the left side of the page to the yearly compilations of violence against women legislation. These charts provide a state-by-state listing of relevant legislation, and include both state code and session law citations.
| State | 1998 Laws | 1999 Laws | 2000 Laws | 2001 Laws |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| AZ | Creating felony crime of aggravated harassment | -- | Authorizes employers to seek stalking injunction against harassment of employees | Amends fear requirement in definition of stalking to be fear of death; eliminating "physical injury" fear |
| -- | Increased penalty for stalking; expanded types of threats covered | -- | Strengthens laws setting waiver of filing fees with petition for anti-harassment court order | Eliminates court fees for persons seeking protection order against harassment |
| -- | Expanded behaviors covered by the harassment law | -- | -- | -- |
| -- | Authorizes issuance of a harassment injunction against a juvenile | -- | -- | -- |
| AR | -- | -- | -- | Authorizes issuance of employee harassment orders of protection upon employer petition |
| CA | Amends stalking law to include threats through electronic mediums (cyberstalking). | Adds stalking to list of crimes where continuances may be granted if prosecutor has a conflict with other proceeding | Establishes procedures for victims of domestic violence to keep confidential name change | -- |
| -- | -- | Sheriff to notify prosecutor in stalking cases where defendant released on bail. Prosecutor shall give notice of bail hearing to victims Court shall issue protective order, violation of which shall result in a no-bail warrant | Provides for establishment of training of parole officers to supervise stalkers upon release from prison | |
| -- | -- | Authorizes court to issue ex parte protection order against stalking when requested by member of community college police department | -- | -- |
| CO | -- | Consolidates all civil restraining orders issued by courts into one order | Amends telephone harassment law to include harassment by computer | -- |
| -- | -- | Increases felony penalties for stalking and repeat stalking | Increases penalties for menacing for display of or representation that article is a deadly weapon | -- |
| CT | Court may issue criminal restraining order after conviction for stalking | -- | -- | -- |
| DE | -- | -- | -- | Adds new felony crime of privacy violation by secret filming of another for purposes of viewing the body or undergarments of another |
| FL | -- | Enacts Three Strike law that applies to aggravated stalking offenses | -- | -- |
| GA | Amends definition of stalking by using term "safety" for "fear of death or bodily harm," and adds requirement for a pattern of harassing or intimidating behavior | -- | Amends stalking law to include acts undertaken by electronic communications and causing a third party to harass or intimidate the victim where order of protection issued | Provides that no court fee shall assessed of victim of stalking for issuance of order of protection or filing of protective orders |
| -- | Sentencing court may order evaluation of offender, issue order of protection, and to require treatment as a condition of non-jail sentence | -- | -- | Enacts Family Violence and Stalking Protective Order Registry Act |
| HI | -- | Knowing violation of temporary restraining order against harassment is a crime | -- | -- |
| ID | -- | Creates new misdemeanor offense of trespass of privacy | -- | -- |
| IL | -- | Amends harassment by telephone and electronic harassment laws to protect persons under the age of 18 | Stalking law to includes threats against a family member; incarceration is not a bar to prosecution for stalking and that stalking threats may be implicit in part or whole | Amends law making it a crime to take unauthorized picture of another person |
| -- | -- | -- | -- | Creates new crime of cyberstalking |
| -- | -- | -- | -- | Adds stalking to list of violent crimes under Victim Compensation law; adds provision authorizing payments for temporary lodging or relocation necessary as result of crime |
| IN | -- | -- | -- | Amends law making unauthorized picture taking of a person. |
| -- | -- | -- | -- | Authorizes filling of foreign orders of protection and prohibits collection of court fees for registration of foreign stalking orders of protection or motions to enforce such an order |
| -- | -- | -- | -- | Amends definition of stalking to include violation of pretrial order of protection or of probation or of foreign order of protection |
| -- | -- | -- | -- | Creates new requirement for reporting of threat or intimidation of school employee |
| -- | -- | -- | -- | Amends threat statute to make it a Class D felony to use school or government computers or fax machines to issue a threat |
| IA | Requires local agencies to collect information about stalking incidence and report to state | Restricts availability of bond for persons appealing a felony stalking conviction | Amends telephone harassment laws to include all forms of electronic communications | |
| -- | Rewrites the offense of stalking in violation of a court order | -- | -- | -- |
| Magistrate may issue a no-contact order at stalking or harassment arraignments; reissued for five years at conviction. Mandatory arrest where offender violates order. Minimum seven day sentence unsuspended penalty. | -- | -- | -- | |
| KS | -- | Prior stalking of victim is a factor in determining whether aggravating circumstances exist for sentencing guidelines | Amends stalking law to provide for electronically communicated threats | Provides that orders of protection shall be entered into national database, and defines abuse to include stalking |
| KY | -- | -- | Amends stalking law to expand the types of protective orders, violation of which results in an increased penalty for stalking | Creates felony crime of terroristic threatening |
| -- | -- | -- | Creates civil action for stalking | -- |
| LA | -- | Authorizes court to provide notice of stalking conviction to employer | -- | Redefines the crime of stalking to delete fear requirement in place of reasonable person standard , adds cyberstalking to definition of harassment, and adds a minimum jail penalty for its commission and mandatory psychiatric evaluation. Probation may not be imposed without court-ordered counseling |
| -- | -- | Increases age where enhanced penalty for stalking of a minor applies to under age 18 from previous 12 years of age | -- | -- |
| -- | -- | Requires court at pretrial release for defendant charged with stalking to consider threat or danger to victim | -- | -- |
| ME | -- | Requires employers to provide leave for specified crime victims from work to attend court, or obtain services needed because of or stalking | Warrantless arrests in misdemeanor stalking and related crimes where the arrestee and victim are members of same family | Amends laws authorizing issuance of stalking protection orders and provides explicit criminal penalties for their violation |
| -- | -- | -- | Amend requirements that employers to grant employees leave from work to victims of stalking to obtain services to remedy a crisis caused by that crime | Amends definition of course of conduct to include cyyberstalking |
| -- | -- | -- | Victim compensation law include coverage for psychological injuries due to threats of bodily harm | Makes editorial changes to definition of stalking and increases the penalty for stalking where defendant has 2 or more prior convictions |
| -- | -- | -- | -- | Amends definition of harassment to delete requirement that convictions be within 5 years of present offense |
| -- | -- | -- | -- | Forbids appointment of referees in cases where order of protection from harassment sought |
| MD | -- | -- | -- | Reenacts criminal procedure code, including authorization for warrantless arrests in stalking cases, and exclusion of psychological injury from coverage under victim compensation law |
| MA | -- | -- | Creates crime of criminal harassment for actions that seriously alarm victim and result in substantial emotional distress | -- |
| MI | -- | Prohibits use of the Internet or a computer system to communicate for purposes of stalking a minor | -- | -- |
| MN | -- | -- | Amends harassment law to include communication by electronic means | -- |
| -- | -- | -- | Limits application of harassment law to instances where there is a substantial adverse effect on victim; petition for order must so allege | -- |
| MS | -- | -- | Expands the types of orders of protection, violation of which increases the penalty for stalking | Reduces potential penalties for telephone harassment |
| MT | -- | -- | -- | Amend law requiring notification of victim upon release of stalker upon bail |
| NE | Expands definition of stalking | Forbids persons convicted of violating a stalking protective order to obtain permit to possess explosive materials | -- | -- |
| -- | Authorizes anti-harassment protection order and warrantless arrest for violation of order. Law provides for full faith and credit to out-of-state anti-harassment orders. | -- | -- | -- |
| NV | -- | Increases felony penalties for aggravated stalking and second stalking conviction | -- | Amends laws providing for orders of protection against stalking and harassment to eliminate court fees |
| -- | -- | Requires peace officer certification training to include instruction on stalking | -- | Creates new crime of harassment in public schools |
| -- | -- | -- | -- | Authorizes employers to obtain order of protection against harassment for its employees |
| -- | -- | -- | -- | Amends definition of crime of stalking and clarifies that venue for stalking includes the place where the victim was located |
| NH | Makes confidential any communications between a stalking victim and a crime counselor | Court may impose protective detention or electronic monitoring for persons charged with stalking or order violations where danger to victim is found | Adds new situations to definition of stalking, and amends authorization for issuance of civil orders of protection | -- |
| -- | -- | Amends definition of harassment to include electronic communication generated by computers | Establishes address confidentiality program for victims of stalking and other violence against women | -- |
| NJ | Increases the penalty for staling and harassment if stalking occurred while offender was incarcerated or on probation or parole | Replaces requirement for actual fear as element of stalking crime with requirement that defendant act knowingly that actions would place reasonable person in fear of bodily injury or death | -- | Amends stalking law to include cyberstalking |
| -- | -- | -- | -- | Permits voter registration by stalking victims without any street address |
| NM | -- | -- | -- | Amends crime victim compensation act to make victims of aggravated stalking eligible for coverage, in lieu of former limitation of second stalking victimization |
| NY | -- | Creates new crime of stalking, providing for misdemeanor and felony penalties | Makes technical changes to new stalking law | -- |
| NC | -- | Adds electronic mail to law for threatening communications by telephone | Creates crime of cyberstalking | -- |
| ND | -- | Adds clarifying language that harassment may be done by electronic communication | -- | -- |
| OH | Authorizes issuance of a civil anti-stalking protection order | Deletes provision limiting second stalking conviction for felony enhancement to stalking involving same parties | Amends stalking law provisions relating to mentally ill defendants | -- |
| -- | Limits increase in penalty for second offense of stalking or telephone harassment to where crime is against same person | Authorizes felony penalties for stalking where threat of harm is made, victim is a minor, weapon possession, violation of protective order and a single repeat offense. | -- | -- |
| OK | -- | News crime of false electronic communications, that hides message origin or contains information that is false, and which injures a person | Amends stalking law to increase penalties when stalking occurs in violation of permanent order of protection and clarifies that harassing behavior under the stalking law can include harassing or obscene phone calls and makes other language changes | -- |
| -- | -- | -- | Provides authority for court to issue orders against stalking as part of domestic violence order of protection and creates crime of falsely seeking order of protection for purposes of harassment and other purposes | -- |
| OR | -- | Amends telephone harassment law to include calls made despite order from telephone owner not to make such calls | -- | Adds cyberstalking to definition of stalking and of harassment (awaiting governor's action) |
| PA | -- | Adds electronic communication to definition of terroristic threat | Authorizes warrantless arrests based on probable cause in cases involving misdemeanor harassment or stalking or terroristic threats against a family or household member | -- |
| -- | -- | Makes editorial changes in harassment law; adds to definition of a course of conduct, use of threatening or obscene words, language, or actions | -- | -- |
| -- | -- | Definition of harassment by communication includes electronic communications; increased penalties for stalking where there has been a prior incident of violence | -- | -- |
| RI | Authorizes bail commissioner to issue no-contact order against persons charged with domestic violence | -- | -- | Amends definition of stalking to include cyberstalking, and providing penalties for cyberstalking in violation of protective order |
| -- | -- | -- | -- | Adds provision for civil liability of stalkers |
| SC | -- | -- | -- | Amends definition of stalking crime, of telephone harassment, and of unlawful eavesdropping, peeping tom or voyeurism |
| SD | -- | Includes stalking in definition of violent crime under victim rights act | Restricts contact between victim and defendant arrested for stalking | Amends definition of stalking to include electronic stalking |
| TN | -- | -- | Creates crime of invasion of privacy | Adds electronic communication to definition of stalking |
| TX | -- | -- | -- | Adds electronic communication to definition of stalking crime, expands scope of protection against threats to all members of household, and increases penalties for first stalking conviction from Class A misdemeanor to Felony of third degree |
| -- | -- | -- | -- | Creates new felony crime of unconsented photographs or videotape to gratify sexual desire |
| UT | -- | Violation of a stalking injunction is stalking crime. Second stalking conviction is felony. Court may issue a permanent stalking injunction when it holds in abeyance any conviction or plea; violation of order is a third degree felony | Makes technical correction to stalking law | Expands scope of protection against threats to all members of household. |
| -- | -- | -- | -- | Creates new felony crime of unconsented photographs or videotape to gratify sexual desire |
| VT | -- | -- | Stalking victims included in new address confidentiality program | Amends address confidentiality laws to provide access to address information by law enforcement for reasons other than arrest |
| -- | -- | -- | Telephone harassment or threats includes communication by electronic means; jurisdiction where such a crime is committed includes where sent and received | -- |
| VA | Amends language of statute authorizing issuance of stalking protection order | Stalking protection order may specifically prohibit contact of any kind with victim or victim's family | -- | Authorizes electronic registration of stalking and other orders of protection by clerk of court with state criminal information network system |
| -- | Increase penalties for stalking and violation of a stalking protection order | -- | -- | Creates civil cause of action for stalking, including punitive damages |
| -- | Authorizes a arrest without a warrant of persons alleged to have violated an anti-stalking order of protection | -- | -- | Amends definition of stalking crime to include cases where defendant "knows or reasonably should know" that his actions places another person in reasonable fear. |
| Prohibits purchase or transportation of a firearm by person subject to stalking order of protection | -- | -- | Amends law authorizing anti-stalking order of protection to extend hearing date requirement | |
| WA | -- | Authorizes district court to transfer civil antiharassment cases to superior court in specified instances | Crime to knowingly use false identity to send undesired mail to another for purposes of harassment or intimidation; civil damages provided | Adds stalking to crimes for which a victim may be provided with address confidentiality. |
| -- | -- | Adds stalking and violation of court order to sentencing guidelines Category V offenses | Decreases filing fees for petitions to obtain court order against harassment | Amends laws authorizing issuance of stalking protection order at request of parents of child being harassed to include cases where harasser is under age 18. |
| -- | -- | Amends harassment and stalking laws to include acts involving electronic communication | -- | Amends authorization for antiharassment order by establishing procedure for ex parte order and further provides that final order not required to be served where final order is not materially different and respondent served with temporary order |
| WV | -- | -- | -- | Increases penalties for stalking |
| WI | -- | -- | Provides that court fees in civil harassment order proceedings are paid by respondent if convicted for violating the order | -- |
| State | Grantee | Description |
|---|---|---|
| AZ | Mt. Graham Safe House | Provides services to domestic violence victims, including those who have been stalked by their abuser; advocates attend state POST training on stalking. |
| CA | San Diego District Attorney | Stalking prosecution unit includes one attorney and one investigator assigned to vertically handle all domestic violence-related stalking cases; complements existing unit staff assigned to stranger stalking cases. |
| -- | Los Angeles District Attorney | Stalking prosecution unit includes two attorneys and one investigator assigned to vertically prosecute most serious stalking cases in county. |
| -- | Alameda County District Attorney | Stalking prosecution team vertically prosecutes stalking cases in county and coordinates state efforts to collect data about stalking protection orders. |
| -- | San Joaquin District Attorney | Part-time stalking prosecution unit and one probation officer assigned to intensive supervision of stalkers on probation. |
| -- | San Francisco District Attorney | Stalking prosecution team to vertically prosecute all stalking cases in county. |
| -- | California District Attorneys Association | Offers multidisciplinary training program, including stalking seminar and training on stalking as part of domestic violence. |
| -- | Peace Officer Standards and Training Commission | Training of law enforcement using previously developed multimedia stalking training unit as part of training for first responders (40 sessions), detectives (5 sessions) and sexual assault first responders (20 sessions). |
| CO | Ending Violence Against Women | Coalition of state prosecutors, sheriffs, and coalitions against domestic violence and sexual assault. Sponsors statewide training on violence against women issues, including stalking. |
| -- | AMEND | Statewide training. |
| -- | Project PAVE | Provides group and individual counseling to domestic violence and stalking victims. Prevention education in schools includes stalking in curriculum. |
| -- | Violence Prevention Coalition (Durango) | Developing protocols for risk assessment, victim logs, employers, and other system professionals. |
| -- | Project Safeguard (Denver) | Assists with gaining orders of protection for domestic violence victims, including stalking victims (30 percent estimate) and provides related services such as name change and safety planning. |
| -- | Douglas County Sheriff | Domestic violence investigative unit also handles all stalking cases. |
| -- | 18th Judicial District Fast Track Prosecution | Stalking included in fast track prosecution program; special emphasis on training for CJ personnel, volunteers, and community in recognizing stalking and implementing new stalking law and in tracking stalking defendants' location through pretrial release. Emergency Protection Program using beepers and mandatory call-backs. |
| CT | Sexual Assault Coalition & POST | Developing sexual assault and stalking training materials. POST delivers training. |
| DE | Wilmington Police Department | Provides advocate services to victims of violence against women, including stalking. |
| GA | Athens/Clarke County Police Department | Special investigative unit for domestic violence crimes where no arrest was made, including protective order violations and stalking. |
| -- | Richmond County Sheriff's Office | Improved investigation of stalking related to domestic violence or sexual assault offenses through enhancement in staffing of special investigative unit. |
| IA | Iowa State Police | Developed a protocol/form for victims to fill out for police or prosecutor; held series of workshops. |
| MI | Prosecuting Attorneys Association of Michigan | Multidisciplinary domestic violence training that includes stalking component. |
| -- | Council Against Domestic Assault (Ingham County) | Provides help to women seeking court protection orders against stalking and domestic violence; coordinates with prosecutor's victim witness unit and receives police reports on order violation complaints where no arrest made. |
| MS | Lamar County District Attorney | Prosecutor assigned to handle domestic violence and stalking cases; also provides technical assistance to other prosecutors. |
| NV | Elko County Sheriff's Office | Purchased surveillance camera to help in stalking investigations. |
| NY | New York City Police Department | Special units for stalking investigation established in two precincts. |
| OH | Huron County Department of Human Services | Developed protocols for investigation and prosecution of stalking and for providing assistance to stalking victims; provides training and community materials on stalking prevention. |
| -- | Southeast Inc | Provides advocate services for victims of stalking to help with evidence collection, assists in gaining protection orders, provides short-term counseling, and arranges referrals for psychiatric assessment and counseling. |
| -- | Rocky River Municipal Court | Established support group for stalking victims. |
| -- | Youngstown Police Department | Hired full-time investigator for stalking cases. |
| OK | District Attorney for District 10 | Victim advocate helps domestic violence and stalking victims with orders of protection. |
| OR | Lane County Prosecutor protective order clinic | Assists victims with applications for orders of protection against domestic violence and stalking. |
| -- | Clatsop County Women's Resource Center | Funds court advocate who assists domestic violence/stalking victims in obtaining stalking orders of protection. |
| -- | Sexual Assault Support Services | Provides legal advocacy and other services to stalking victims, presently numbering about 16 per month. Works with legal services agency and law school clinic to assist with civil protection orders and university hearing process. |
| VA | Chesterfield County District Attorney | Assigned prosecutor to domestic violence and stalking cases. |
| -- | Winchester Women's Shelter | Developed stalking kits for victims, including cell phones, tape recorders, etc. |
| -- | Roanoke County Police Department | Held workshop on stalking. |
| -- | Henrico County (Richmond) Police Department | Special domestic violence unit has one officer assigned to all stalking cases (about 20 per year). Officer also does training for own (recruit, in-service), local, and regional agencies. |
| WV | Cabell County District Attorney violence against women prosecutor | One attorney assigned to violence against women cases spends 25 percent of time on stalking; conducts training. |
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This table summarizes the status of state cases filed through mid-March 2001. For each state, the cases are listed in the following order based on the nature of the offense: stalking, threat, telephone threat, harassment, and telephone harassment. Constitutional decisions are presented before statutory construction cases. Decisions of the highest state court precede decisions of intermediate courts of appeal, which are followed by trial court decisions. Finally, the most recent decisions are listed first except if they simply cite an older leading case decision.
| State | Case | Type of Law | Citation | Issue/Holding |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| AL | Culbreath v. State | Stalking | 667 S.2d 156 (Ct. Crim. App. 1995), reh'g denied, 5/26/95, cert. denied 8/4/95 | Vagueness, overbreadth claims rejected (intent requirement ameliorates any vagueness problem; reasonable person standard is inferred from assault law antecedents). |
| -- | State v. Randall | Stalking | 669 So.2d 223 (Ct. Crim. App. 1995) | Vagueness, overbreadth claims rejected (terms "repeated" and "series" are not vague). |
| -- | Ivey v. State | Stalking | 698 So.2d 179 (Ct. Crim. App. 1995) aff'd 698 So.2d 187 (Ala. 1997) | Vagueness and overbreadth claims rejected under Culbreath. Prior conviction for contempt of court is not double jeopardy. |
| -- | Hayes v. State | Stalking | 717 So.2d 30 (Ct. Crim. App. 1997), reh'g denied, 12/19/97, cert pending 1/6/98; released for publication 10/6/98. | Intent to carry out threat is not required, but ability to carry out threat is required; substantial emotional distress standard is used, rather than fear of death or serious bodily injury. |
| -- | Morton v. State | Stalking | 651 So.2d 42 (Ct. Crim. App. 1994) | Violation of criminal order issued at bail hearing can be basis for aggravated stalking charge. Civil orders are not the only basis for increased penalties under the statute. Prior burglary is admissible to show defendant's pattern of behavior in harassing multiple victims |
| -- | Tanner v. City of Hamilton | Telephone threat | 668 So.2d 157 (Ct. Crim. App. 1995) | Harassment must include "fighting words" language. |
| -- | Ex parte N.W. | Harassment | 748 So.2d 190 (1999) | Harassment is not lesser included offense of menacing because conviction for the latter does not require fulfilling elements of crime of harassment. |
| -- | Brooks v. City of Birmingham | Harassment | 485 So.2d 385 (Ct. Crim. App. 1985) | Vagueness and overbreadth claims rejected ("fighting words" used). |
| -- | Conkle v. State | Harassment | 677 So.2d 1211 (Ct. Crim. App. 1995) | Verbal threat not constituting "fighting words" is not harassment. |
| -- | T.W. v. State | Harassment | 665 So.2d 987 (Ct. Crim. App. 1995), reh'g denied, 5/5/95 | Harassment may include obscene gestures that constitute fighting words to ordinary person. |
| -- | B.E.S. v. State | Harassment | 629 So.2d 761 (Ct. Crim. App. 1993) | Fighting words are not present to support harassment charge (no threat nor "probability of physical retaliation"). |
| -- | South v. City of Mt. Brook | Telephone harassment | 688 So.2d 292 (Ct. Crim. App. 1996) | First Amendment claim rejected (harassing communication crime does not involve face-to-face contact; "fighting words" doctrine inapposite). |
| -- | Donley v. City of Mountain Brook | Telephone harassment | 429 So.2d 603 (Ct. Crim. App. 1982), rev'd on other grounds, 429 So.2d 618 (1983) | Vagueness and overbreadth claims rejected (intentional acts of telephoning undercut vagueness and overbreadt issues). |
| AK | Petersen v. State | Stalking | 930 P.2d 414 (Ct. App. 1996) | Vagueness, overbreadth, and substantive due process claims rejected (term "repeated" means more than once, citing Konrad. "Knowing" conduct requirement defeats claim of potential for inadvertent violation; substantial core of covered cases much larger than any overbreadth potential). Statute only reaches telephone calls made solely to threaten or harass; reasonable person standard used. |
| -- | Wyatt v. State | Threat | 778 P.2d 1169 (Ct. App. 1989) | Victim's fear from threat must be reasonable; reckless behavior standard implies reasonable fear. |
| -- | Allen v. State | Telephone threat | 759 P.2d 541 (Ct. App. 1988) | Overbreadth claim rejected (defendant acts constituted reckless behavior, knowing falseness of report). Statute bars reckless acts taken with knowledge of falseness of reports; victim fear is required. |
| -- | Konrad v. State | Telephone threat | 763 P.2d 1369 (Ct. App. 1988) | Vagueness and overbreadth claims rejected (term "repeated" means more than once). |
| -- | McKillop v. State | Telephone harassment | 857 P.2d 358 (Ct. App. 1993) | Vagueness and overbreadth claims rejected (statute bars only calls having no legitimate communication purpose where only purpose is to annoy). |
| -- | Jones v. Anchorage | Telephone harassment | 754 P.2d 275 (Ct. App. 1988) | Vagueness and overbreadth claims rejected (intent test is used, rather than subjective response of victim). |
| AZ | State v. Musser | Telephone threat | 954 P.2d 1053 (Ct. App. 1997) | Overbroad (lawful threats included in statute's scope; law covers threats made during call made by victim, minimizing invasion of privacy element of crime) |
| -- | State v. Weinstein | Telephone threat | 898 P.2d 513 (Ct. App. 1995) | Overbroad (law covers common business practices) |
| -- | State v. Hagen | Telephone harassment | 558 P.2d 750 (Ct. App. 1976) reh'g denied, 5/9/76, rev. denied, 1/4/77 | Vagueness and overbreadth claims rejected (by specifying intent and nature of prohibited behavior, statute does not violate First Amendment; statute gave fair warning where conduct is clearly proscribed). |
| -- | Baker v. State | Telephone threat | 494 P.2d 68 (Ct. App. 1972) | Overbroad (use of obscene language is not evidence per se of intent to harass or threaten). |
| AR | Reeves v. State | Stalking | 5 S.W.3d 41 (1999) | Condition of probation banishing defendant from state for period of 7 years violates state constitution. |
| -- | Wesson v. State | Stalking | 896 SW2d 874 (1995) | Immediate ability to carry out threat is not required under terroristic threat and stalking laws. |
| -- | Dye v. State | Stalking evidence | 17 S.W.3d 505 (Ct. App. 2000) | Evidence of firearm and ammunition purchase is relevant to capacity to carry out threat |
| -- | Warren v. State | Threat | 613 S.W.2d 97 (1981) | Overlap with assault law (imminent injury threat versus protracted threats) is not unconstitutional. Threats need not be over long period of time. |
| -- | Webb v. State | Threat | 2000 Ark. App. LEXIS 770 (Ct. App. 2000) | Threat may be communicated by third party, but proof of victim receipt of threat is required. |
| -- | Arnold v. State | Threat | 2000 Ark. App. LEXIS 483 (Ct. App. 2000) | Victim testimony about prior criminal acts of defendant to prove victim fear is not relevant to whether threat made or with what purpose. |
| -- | Hartzog v. State | Threat | 2000 Ark. App. LEXIS 235 (Ct. App. 2000) | Evidence of intent to threaten may be inferred from victim's reasonable fear. |
| -- | Hagen v. State | Threat | 886 S.W.2d 889 (Ct. App. 1994) | Threat against fetus is necessarily threat against the woman. |
| -- | Knight v. State | Threat | 758 S.W.2d 12 (Ct. App. 1988) | Threat must be intended to instill fear; threat to third party did not do this (boasting). |
| -- | State v.Musser | Telephone harassment | 977 P.2d 131 (1999) | Overbreadth claim rejected because of lack of real and substantial danger of threat to protected speech, especially in context of law regulating, in part, conduct. |
| -- | State v. Hagen | Telephone harassment | 558 P.2d 750 (Ct. App. 1976) | Intent to harass must exist at time call is made. |
| CA | People v. Borrelli | Stalking | 91 Cal. Rptr.2d 851 (Ct. App. 2000) (rev. denied April 19, 2000) | Vagueness, overbreadth, and First amendment challenges rejected (threats are not protected speech and term "safety" is widely and commonly used, including multiple statutory uses). Nine acts over 15-month period is sufficient to show a single course of action rather than being nine isolated acts. |
| -- | People v. Ewing | Stalking | 90 Cal Rptr.2d 177 (Ct. App. 1999) | Vagueness challenge rejected (terms "alarms," "annoys," "torments," and "terrorizes" that constitute "harassment" have clear dictionary definitions. Severe and substantial emotional distress" requires evidence of degree, frequency, and duration of victim distress). |
| -- | People v. Falck | Stalking | 60 Cal. Rptr.2d 624 (Ct. App.), rev. denied, 4/16/97, 1997 Cal. LEXIS 1974 (1997) | Vagueness and overbreadth claims rejected (statute provides fair warning to offender and guidelines for police enforcement. Term "safety" in 'fear for safety' is not vague. Intent requirement refers only to intent to create fear. Intent to cause fear may be inferred from continuation of communications despite victim acts to avoid him and warnings from police and courts. |
| -- | People v. Halgren | Stalking | 61 Cal. Rptr.2d 176 (Ct. App. 1996) | Vagueness and overbreadth claims rejected (term "credible threat" is not vague, since intent to create fear is also required. No inhibition of protected speech exists). |
| -- | People v. Kelley | Stalking; Stalking order | 60 Cal. Rptr.2d 653 (Ct. App.), rev. denied, 4/23/97, 1997 Cal. LEXIS 2366 (1997) | Double jeopardy is not violated where acts in one course of conduct occur after contempt violation found. Section of law defining stalking in violation of protection order is sentencing enhancement, not element of crime. |
| -- | People v. Gams | Stalking; Stalking order | 60 Cal. Rptr.2d 423 (Ct. App.), rev. denied, 4/16/97, 1997 Cal. LEXIS 2032 (1997) | Due process claim rejected (victim can not consent to violation of order; hence, there can be no entrapment by victim). |
| -- | People v. Tran | Stalking | 54 Cal. Rptr. 2d 650 (Ct. App. 1996), rev. denied, 10/16/96 | Vagueness claim rejected (phrase "conduct serves no legitimate purpose" is not vague). |
| -- | People v. McClelland | Stalking; Stalking Order | 49 Cal. Rptr.2d 587 (Ct. App.), rev. denied, 4/17/96, 1996 Cal. LEXIS 2160 (1996) | Vagueness claim rejected (terms "harasses" and "credible threat" are sufficiently definite; terms "willfully" and 'maliciously" are defined in penal code). Felony penalty requires violation of both stalking bar and protective order. |
| -- | People v. Heilman | Stalking | 30 Cal. Rptr. 2d 422 (Ct. App. 1994), rev. denied, 8/25/94 | Vagueness claim rejected (term "repeatedly" is not vague in conjunction with intent requirement). |
| -- | People v. Norman | Stalking | 89 Cal. Rptr.2d 806 (Ct. App. 1999) | Victim fear from stalking need not occur at the same time as the stalking threats were made. |
| -- | People v. McCray | Stalking | 67 Cal. Rptr. 2d 872 (Ct. App. 1997) rev. denied, 1/14/98, 1998 Cal. LEXIS 52 (1998) | Term "repeated" refers to only following, since harassment definition requires proof of a course of conduct (there is no need to show repeated acts of harassment). |
| -- | People v. Carron | Stalking | 44 Cal. Rptr. 2d 328 (Ct. App.), rev. denied, 12/14/95, 1995 Cal. LEXIS 7521 (1995) | Intent to commit harm is irrelevant; intent is to create fear. Reasonable fear test is used for threat effect. |
| -- | People v. Butler | Stalking; Civil commitment | 88 Cal. Rptr.2d 210 (Ct. App. 1999) | Stalking is an offense subject to civil commitment as mentally disordered offender, since amended law covers crimes involving threat of force. |
| -- | People v. Gudger | Threat | 34 Cal Rptr. 2d 510 (Ct. App. 1994) | Overbreadth claim rejected (specific intent requirement limits overbreadth problem) Conditional threat is covered by statute (contra Brown). |
| -- | People v. Fisher | Threat | 15 Cal. Rptr.2d 889 (Ct. App. 1993) | Overbreadth claim rejected (there is no constitutional requirement that only intent to carry out threat can be penalized; not protected speech). |
| -- | People v. Hudson | Threat | 6 Cal. Rptr.2d 690 (Ct. App. 1992), rev. denied, 7/23/92 | Overbreadth claim rejected (intent to carry out threat is not required by constitution or by statute; third party to threat passing on threat to victim covered by law. |
| -- | In re David L. | Threat | 286 Cal. Rptr. 398 (Ct. App. 1991), rev. denied, 1/16/92 | Overbreadth claim rejected (statute does not reach substantial amount of protected speech). Threat can be communicated by third person. |
| -- | People v. Mirmirani | Threat | 636 P.2d 1130 (1981) | Statute void for vagueness (threats made with intent to terrorize defined as for political or social goals leave too much discretion as to its scope). |
| -- | People v. Butler | Threat | 102 Cal. Rptr.2d 269 (Ct. App. 2000) | Threat does not need to specify precise time or method of execution, since surrounding circumstances give meaning to words used. |
| -- | People v. Andrews | Threat | 89 Cal. Rptr.2d 683 (Ct. App. 1999) | Jury may infer that defendant intended that third party would inform victim of threat. |
| -- | People v. Bolin | Threat | 956 P.2d 374, 402 (1998) | Threat is not required to be unconditional. |
| -- | People v. Teal | Threat | 71 Cal. Rptr.2d 644 (Ct. App. 1998), rev. denied, 5/13/98 | Threat does not require that defendant saw or knew victim was home at time threat made outside home. |
| -- | People v. Brown | Threat | 25 Cal. Rptr. 2d 76 (Ct. App. 1993) (overruled by Bolin) | Conditional threat not covered by statute; construing explicit language of unconditional threat to include conditional threat raises constitutional issues. |
| -- | People v. Dias | Threat | 60 Cal. Rptr. 2d 443 (Ct. App.), rev. denied, 4/16/97, 1997 Cal. LEXIS 2152 (1997) | Conditional threat is covered by statute (contra Brown). |
| -- | People v. Mendoza | Threat | 69 Cal. Rptr. 2d 728 (Ct. App. 1997) | Ambiguous words may constitute threat when context taken into account, such as history of gang involvement. |
| -- | People v. Martinez | Threat | 62 Cal. Rptr.2d 303 (Ct. App. 1997), rev. denied, 6/25/97 | Threat meaning of ambiguous words is gained from surrounding circumstances. |
| -- | People v. Stanfield | Threat | 38 Cal. Rptr.2d 328 (Ct. App. 1995), rev. denied, 6/1/95 | Conditional threat is covered by statute (apparent condition, but condition is illusory). |
| -- | People v. Allen | Threat | 40 Cal. Rptr.2d 7 (Ct. App. 1995) | "Sustained fear" element of threat statute met (sustained means more than momentary; 15 minutes until police arrived sufficient). |
| -- | People v. Brooks | Threat | 31 Cal. Rptr.2d 283 (Ct. App. 1994), rev. denied, 9/29/94 | Conditional threat is covered by statute (contra Brown). |
| -- | People v. Garrett | Threat | 36 Cal. Rptr. 2d 33 (Ct. App. 1994) | Evidence of prior abuse is relevant to questions of intent to threaten and victims "sustained fear." |
| -- | People v. Melhado | Threat | 70 Cal. Rptr.2d 878 (Ct. App. 1998) | The term "immediate" modifying threat refers to the immediacy of the victim's response in understanding the prospect that a threat will be carried out in the future. |
| -- | People v. Toledo | Attempted threat | 96 Cal. Rptr.2d 640 (Ct. App. 2000) | Attempted threat can occur where threat made but not communicated to victim or victim not fearful where reasonable person would be. Overbreadth challenge rejected (an attempt requires threat which is not protected speech). |
| -- | People v. Benitez | Attempted threat | 105 Cal Rptr.2d 242 (2001) | Attempted threat occurs when victim is not in fear, although defendant intended to create fear. |
| -- | People v. Lopez | Threat; Civil commitment | 88 Cal. Rptr.2d 252 (Ct. App. 1999) | Threat of future violence is predicate offense under mentally disordered offender law authorizing civil commitment. |
| -- | People v. Hernandez | Telephone harassment | 283 Cal. Rptr. 81 (Ct. App. 1991), rev. denied, 10/3/91 | Vagueness and overbreadth claims rejected (there is no real danger of compromising First Amendment protections). |
| CO | People v. Baer | Stalking | 973 P.2d 1225 (1999) | Vagueness and overbreadth claims rejected (statutory language is interpreted to means that credible threat can occur before, during or after stalking behavior; as interpreted overbreadth claim is inapposite, since protected speech is not reached. Reasonable person test of threat undercuts vagueness. |
| -- | People v. Bastian | Stalking | 981 P.2d 203 (Ct. App. 1998) | Ex post facto objection rejected (although one element of crime occurred before law change increased penalty, crime was only completed after act became effective). |
| -- | People v. Hines | Threat | 780 P.2d 556 (1989) (en banc) | Conditional threat is covered by statute where contingency is controlled by defendant. |
| -- | People v. Smith | Harassment | 862 P.2d 939 (1993) (en banc) | Overbroad (law lacks "fighting words" limitation, nor is it limited in application to privacy protection). |
| -- | Aguilar v. People | Disorderly conduct | 886 P.2d 725 (1994) (en banc) | Overbroad (law lacks "fighting words" limitation). |
| -- | People v. Norman | Harassment | 703 P.2d 1261 (1985) (en banc) | Void for vagueness ("annoy or alarm" bar goes to core of law, but terms are undefined and without limiting standards). |
| -- | Van Meveren v. County Court | Harassment | 551 P.2d 716 (1976) | Vagueness and overbreadth claims rejected ("repeatedly" is not vague due to common usage; fighting words limitation restricts law's application). |
| -- | Bolles v. People | Harassment | 541 P.2d 80 (1975) (en banc) | Overbroad (anti-abortion mailing is protected speech; adding phrase "without legitimate purpose: would be void for vagueness). |
| -- | People v. Weeks | Telephone harassment | 591 P.2d 91 (1979) (en banc) | Vagueness and overbreadth claims rejected (statutory bar against use of "obscene" speech does not require Miller three-part instruction, since content is not core of crime, but invasion of privacy is; court can only speculate on whether other persons deterred from protected speech). |
| -- | People v. McBurney | Telephone harassment | 750 P.2d 916 (1988) (en banc) | Overbreadth claim rejected (terms "annoy" and "alarm" must be read in context with intent requirement and law's limitation to telephone messages). |
| CT | State v. Jackson | Stalking | 742 A.2d 812 (App. Ct. 2000) | Vagueness and overbreadth claims rejected (citing Marsala and Culmo). |
| -- | State v. Marsala | Stalking | 688 A.2d 336 (App. Ct.), cert. denied, 690 A.2d 400 (1997) | Vagueness and overbreadth claims rejected (statute on its face implicates speech, quoting Culmo. Facts of case permit stalking law application). |
| -- | State v. Cummings | Stalking; Harassment | 701 A.2d 663 (App. Ct.), cert. denied, 702 A.2d. 645 (1997) | Vagueness claim against stalking law rejected (citing Marsala) Vagueness claim against harassment law rejected (citing Snyder). |
| -- | State v. Culmo | Stalking | 642 A.2d 90 (Super. Ct. 1993) | Right to travel, vagueness and overbreadth claims rejected (statute in its entirety gives sufficient warning. Claims that terms "physical safety," "willful," "repeatedly," "following," and "lying in wait" are vague are vitiated by intent requirement). Law's reasonable man standard has both objective and subjective elements. No First Amendment rights are implicated, since speech used to prove crime, not as crime itself. There is no infringement on right to travel, since intent requirement limits application of law. |
| -- | Champagne v. Gintick | Stalking order | 871 F. Supp. 1527 (D. Conn. 1994) | Overbreadth claim rejected in denying injunction (right to associate with friends does not reach substantial amount of protected conduct under statute.). |
| -- | State v. Murphy | Mail harassment | 757 A.2d 1125 (2000) | First Amendment challenge overruled (content of letters admissible to prove intent to harass, even where content of letters is not admissible to prove harassment itself). |
| -- | State v. Snyder | Mail harassment | 717 A.2d 240 (App. Ct. 1998) | Vagueness and overbreadth claims rejected (statute proscribes abusive conduct not speech; prior judicial interpretation saves law from vagueness in "annoyance" language). |
| -- | State v. Snyder | Mail harassment | 672 A.2d 535 (App. Ct.) , cert. denied, 676 A.2d 1375 (1996) | Scope of law includes third party communications. Direct communication is not required where intent to harass exists. |
| -- | State v. Marsala | Telephone harassment | 684 A.2d 1199 (1996), cert. denied, 688 A.2d 329 (1997) | Vagueness claim rejected on procedural grounds. |
| -- | Gormley v. Director | Telephone harassment | 632 F.2d 938 (2d Cir.), cert. denied, 449 U.S. 1023 (1980) | Overbreadth claim rejected (risk of chilling Free Speech is remote and minor compared to evil addressed by statute). |
| -- | State v. Anonymous | Telephone harassment | 389 A.2d 1270 (App. Sess. Conn. Super. 1978) | Overbreadth claim rejected (law regulates conduct not speech; there is no need to limit terms "annoy" and "alarm" to fighting words as was required for disorderly conduct statute in same case). |
| -- | State v. Martino | Telephone harassment | 762 A.2d 6 (App. Ct. 2000) | Double jeopardy contention rejected where contempt of court conviction based on other acts distinct from telephone harassment calls. |
| -- | State v. Lewtan | Telephone harassment | 497 A.2d 60 (App. Ct. 1985) | Evidence from victim's tape of phone calls properly admitted. |
| DE | Snowden v. State | Stalking | 677 A.2d 33 (1996) | Vagueness claim rejected (term "repeatedly" refers to one series of acts, not two or more series for "harassment") Following on public roads is not constitutionally protected activity. |
| -- | Williams v. State | Stalking | 756 A.2d 349 (2000) | Enactment of new stalking law includes implied saving clause, maintaining old criminal charge. |
| -- | State v. Knight | Stalking | 1994 WL 19938 (Super. Ct. 1994) | Victim feeling of hopelessness from continued harassment meets requirement of "substantial emotional distress." No expert testimony required to prove this. Claim that act of "love" cannot be "malicious" act reflects an inability to separate fantasy from reality. |
| -- | Burnham v. State | Stalking Harassment | 761 A.2d 830 | Harassment is lesser included offense of stalking. |
| -- | Bilinski v. State | Threat | 462 A.2d 409 (1983) | Terroristic threat is lesser offense under extortion. |
| DC | United States v. Smith | Stalking | 685 A.2d 380 (1996), cert. denied, 118 S. Ct. 152 (1997) | Vagueness, overbreadth claims rejected (intent requirement in conjunction with "repeatedly" and "emotional distress" are constitutionally sufficient.) Objective "reasonable" fear test is required. Terms "repeatedly" and "course of conduct" do not require two series of acts, merely one. |
| -- | Washington v. United States | Stalking | 760 A.2d 187 (1999) | Evidence of prior order of protection properly admitted as relevant to stalking charge. "Unanimity" instruction not required because jury not asked to convict if either following or harassing occurred, only the latter component of stalking was charged. |
| -- | Postell v. United States | Threat | 282 A.2d 551 (1971) | Conditional threat is covered by statute. |
| -- | U.S. v. Baish | Telephone threat | 460 A.2d 38 (1983) | Jurisdiction lies in District where recipient of threatening call received call. |
| FL | Bouters v. State | Stalking | 659 So.2d 235, cert. denied, 516 US 894 (1995) | Vagueness and overbreadth claims rejected (conduct described by statute is not protected, clearly criminal. Reasonable person standard avoids vagueness fault). |
| -- | State v. Kahles | Stalking | 657 So.2d 897 (1995), aff'g, 644 So.2d 512 (Ct. App. 1994) | Vagueness, overbreadth claims rejected (citing Bouters). |
| -- | Folsom v. State | Stalking | 654 So.2d 128 (1995), aff'g, 638 So.2d 591 (Ct. App. 1994) | Overbreadth claim rejected (citing Bouters). |
| -- | Gilbert v. State | Stalking | 659 So.2d 233 (1995), aff'g, 639 So.2d 191 (Ct. App. 1994) | Vagueness and overbreadth claims rejected (citing Bouters). |
| -- | Huffine v. State | Stalking | 655 So.2d 103 (1995), aff'g, 648 So.2d 783 (Ct. App. 1994) | Vagueness and overbreadth claims rejected (citing Bouters). |
| -- | Pallas v. State | Stalking | 654 So.2d 127 (1995), aff'g, 636 So.2d 1358 (Ct. App. 1994) | Vagueness and overbreadth claims rejected (citing Bouters). |
| -- | Williams v. State | Stalking; Domestic violence order | 658 So.2d 665 (Ct. App. 1995), aff'd, 673 So.2d 486 (1996) (citing Johnson) | Vagueness and overbreadth claims rejected (citing Bouters). |
| -- | Perez v. State | Stalking | 656 So.2d 484 (1995), aff'g, 648 So.2d 784 (Ct. App. 1994) | Overbreadth claim rejected (citing Bouters). |
| -- | Salatino v. State | Stalking | 660 So.2d 627 (1995), aff'g, 644 So.2d 1035 (Ct. App. 1994) | Vagueness, overbreadth claims rejected (citing Bouters). |
| -- | State v. Barron | Stalking | 637 So.2d 384 (Ct. App. 1994) | Vagueness and overbreadth claims rejected (citing Bouters). |
| -- | State v. Baugher | Stalking | 637 So.2d 384 (Ct. App. 1994) | Vagueness, overbreadth claims rejected (citing Bouters). |
| -- | State v. Tremmel | Stalking | 644 So.2d 102 (Ct. App. 1994) | Overbreadth claim rejected (citing Kahles). |
| -- | Varney v. State | Stalking | 659 So.2d 234 (1995), aff'g, 638 So.2d 1063 (Ct. App. 1994) | Vagueness, overbreadth claims rejected (citing Bouters). |
| -- | Altingeyik v. State | Stalking | 659 So.2d 692 (1995), aff'g, 649 So.2d 943 (Ct. App. 1994) | Vagueness, overbreadth claims rejected (citing Kahles). |
| -- | Daniels v. State | Stalking | 658 So.2d 927 (1995), aff'g, 639 So.2d 624 (Ct. App. 1994) | Overbreadth claim rejected (citing Bouters). |
| -- | Koshel v. State | Stalking | 659 So.2d 232, cert. denied, 1116 S. Ct. 245 (1995), aff'd on other grounds, 689 So.2d 1229 (Ct. App. 1997) | Overbreadth claim rejected (citing Bouters). |
| -- | Morrison v. State | Stalking | 658 So.2d 1038 (Ct. App. 1995) | Vagueness, overbreadth claims rejected (citing Kahles). |
| -- | Polson v. State | Stalking | 654 So.2d 127 (1995), aff'g, 636 So.2d 695 (Ct. App. 1994) | Overbreadth claim rejected (citing Bouters). |
| -- | Ratcliffe v. State | Stalking | 660 So.2d 1384 (1995), aff'g, 651 So.2d 1205 (Ct. App. 1995) | Overbreadth claim rejected (citing Bouters). |
| -- | State v. Gonzalez | Stalking | 651 So.2d 185 (Ct. App. 1995) | Vagueness, overbreadth claims rejected (citing Kahles, Bouters). |
| -- | State v. Foster | Stalking | 661 So.2d 58 (Ct. App. 1995) | Overbreadth claim rejected (citing Bouters). |
| -- | Blount v. State | Stalking | 654 So.2d 126 (1995), cert. denied, 516 US 849 (1995) | Overbreadth claim rejected (citing Bouters). |
| -- | Saiya v. State | Stalking | 654 So.2d 128 (1995) | Overbreadth claim rejected (citing Bouters). |
| -- | Rosen v. State | Stalking | 644 So.2d 531 (Ct. App. 1994), cert. denied, 1648 So.2d 724 (1994) | Vagueness, overbreadth claims rejected (citing Kahles). |
| -- | Higgins v. State | Stalking | 656 So.2d 483 (Ct. App. 1995) | Vagueness claim rejected (citing Bouters). |
| -- | Marinelli v. State | Stalking | 706 So.2d 1374 (Ct. App. 1998) | Double jeopardy for two convictions for stalking exists where there was one course of action. |
| -- | State v. Jones | Stalking | 678 So.2d 1336 (Ct. App. 1996) | Acquittal of stalking in one case does not constitute double jeopardy for second charge of stalking based on first case post-arrest behavior; the two cases involve diferent events. |
| -- | State v. Johnson | Stalking protective order | 676 So.2d 408 (1996) reh'g denied, corrected, 21 Fla. L. Weekly S311 (Fla. 1996) | Double jeopardy following contempt of court order claims rejected (separate crime elements for both crimes). |
| -- | McKinnon v. State | Stalking | 712 So.2d 1259 (Ct. App. 1998) | State need not prove intent to cause fear, only that fear occurred as result of intentional acts. |
| -- | Goosen v. Walker | Stalking | 714 So.2d 1149 (Ct. App. 1998) | Repeated videotaping of neighbors is not conduct within constitutionally protected activity exception of statute. |
| -- | Butler v. State | Stalking | 715 So.2d 339 (Ct. App. 1998) | Reconciliation between harassing events goes against "continuity of purpose" element of stalking definition |
| -- | Waldowski v. State | Stalking | 708 So.2d 1015 (Ct. App. 1998) | Jury is not permitted to speculate that defendant was the unknown source of false complaints of child abuse as part of stalking pattern of conduct |
| -- | Gilbreath v. State | Telephone harassment | 650 So.2d 10, cert. denied, 514 U.S. 1112 (1995) | Vagueness claim rejected (terms "offend" and "annoy" are deleted from law as too vague; terms "abuse," "threaten," and "harass" are not vague). |
| -- | State v. Elder | Telephone harassment | 382 So.2d 687 (1980) | Overbreadth claim rejected (law is aimed at conduct, not content of speech). |
| -- | State v. Keaton | Telephone harassment | 371 So.2d 86 (1979) | Overbroad (statute's bar against obscene calls is not limited to calls where intent is to harass). |
| GA | Johnson v. State | Stalking | 449 S.E.2d 94 (1994) | Vagueness and overbreadth claims rejected (intent requirement overcomes any potential vagueness in non-consensual contact language. Constitution does not require that threat produce substantial emotional distress, merely fear). |
| -- | Fly v. State | Stalking | 494 S.E.2d 95 (Ct. App.), cert. denied, 1998 Ga. LEXIS 329, cert. denied, 119 S. Ct. 125 (1998) | Vagueness and overbreadth claims rejected (citing Johnson for holding that conduct is not protected by First Amendment). |
| -- | Kinney v. State | Stalking | 477 S.E.2d 843 (Ct. App. 1996), cert. denied, 1997 Ga. LEXIS 205 (1997), aff'd, 506 S.E.2d 441 (Ct. App. 1998) | Vagueness claim rejected (phrase "to contact" is well understood and in conjunction with intent requirement law passes muster). Double jeopardy is violated when state charges stalking after conviction for violation of protective order involving same acts. |
| -- | State v. Rooks | Stalking | 468 S.E.2d 354 (1996) | Stalking is not the same as common law assault; attempted stalking can be a crime although attempted assault can not. |
| -- | Crenshaw v. State | Stalking evidence | 515 S.E.2d 642 (Ct. App. 1999) | Showing similar course of conduct is valid basis for witness testimony about prior similar harassment by defendant |
| -- | Robinson v. State | Stalking | 456 S.E.2d 68 (Ct. App. 1995, cert. denied, 1995 Ga. LEXIS 619 (1995)) | Phrase "to contact" is readily understood. |
| -- | Adkins v. State | Stalking | 471 S.E.2d 896 (Ct. App. 1996) | Otherwise innocuous act such as delivery of letter in public place may nonetheless be part of pattern of conduct constituting stalking. |
| -- | Jagat v. State | Stalking | 525 S.E.2d 388 (Ct. App. 1999) | Aggravated stalking law does not require victim awareness of surveillance where defendant knowingly violated pretrial release order based on simple stalking be conducting surveillance of victim. |
| -- | Todd v. State | Stalking Threat | 498 S.E.2d 142 (Ct. App. 1998) | Telephone harassment may be lesser included offense of terroristic threat except where there is no evidence raising lesser charge. Evidence of prior rape is admissible as showing intent and victim fear reasons, and as part of course of conduct |
| -- | Scott v. State | Threat | 484 S.E.2d 780 (Ct. App. 1997) | Corroboration needed to support victim's testimony of threat is provided by actions that followed threat, including wounding |
| -- | Lanthrip v. State | Threat | 218 S.E.2d 771 (1975) | Vagueness and overbreadth claims rejected (term "threat" is commonly understood; threats are never protected speech) |
| -- | Boone v. State | Threat | 274 S.E.2d 49 (Ct. App. 1980) | Victim terror is not required, focus is on conduct of making threat; conditional threats that are not covered by law are those "made merely to preserve the status quo." |
| -- | Masson v. Slaton | Threat | 320 F. Supp. 669 (N.D. Ga. 1970) | Vagueness and overbreadth claims rejected (threats are not protected speech). |
| -- | Constantino v. State | Telephone harassment | 255 S.E.2d 710, cert. denied, 444 U.S. 940 (1979) | Vagueness claim rejected (intent to harass is crux of law; hence, no vagueness in subjective response of victim as showing harassment). |
| -- | Harris v. State | Telephone harassment | 380 S.E.2d 345 (Ct. App. 1989) | Message left on machine is sufficient to constitute harassment, since law bars intent to harass plus calls. |
| -- | Troncalli v. Jones | Civil stalking suit | 513 S.E.2d 478 (Ct. App. 1999) | Civil suit for stalking is not authorized by criminal law |
| HI | State v. Snell | Stalking | 2000 Haw. App. LEXIS 222 (Ct. App. 2000) | Police officer may testify as expert that stalkers typically take "trophies" from their victims |
| -- | State v. Chung | Threat | 862 P.2d 1063 (1993) | Threats are not protected by First Amendment. Actual communication of threat is not required where threats made "in reckless disregard" if likelihood exists that communication through third party will occur. |
| -- | State v. Klinge | Threat | 994 P.2d 509 (2000) | Due process claim that statute defines two separate crimes, both independently requiring unanimous verdicts rather than a single verdict rejected (citing Schad v. Arizona, 501 U.S. 624). |
| -- | State v. Alston | Threat | 865 P.2d 157 (1994) | Threat via third party need not be communicated to victim (victim terror not required; statute merely requires that acts be made in "reckless disregard" of terror resulting). |
| -- | In re Doe | Threat | 650 P.2d 603 (Ct. App. 1982) | Threat requires proof of intent or reckless disregard, rather than likelihood of threat being carried out. |
| -- | State v. Meyers | Telephone threat | 825 P.2d 1062 (1992) | Jurisdiction lies in Hawaii where telephone call made to Hawaii resident. |
| -- | In re John Doe | Harassment | 869 P.2d 1304 (1994) | Free speech rights violated (harassment is a form of disorderly conduct, but aimed at single person. Police training precludes violent response to harassment acts in most incidents. Hence, higher standard required of police). |
| -- | Bailey v. Sanchez | Harassment injuncttion | 990 P.2d 1194 (Ct. App. 1999) | Equal protection violation claim rejected where statute provides for alternative bases for civil harassment injunction, but requires intent only where lesser degree of threat exists |
| -- | State v. Taliferro | Harassment | 881 P.2d 1264 (Ct. App. 1994) | State must show harassment acts likely to provoke violent response. |
| -- | In re Doe | Harassment | 788 P.2d 173 (Ct. App. 1990) | Objective test to be used in determining if "harassment" likely to provoke violent response. |
| ID | State v. Richards | Telephone threat Harassment | 896 P.2d 357 (Ct. App. 1995) | Vagueness and overbreadth claims rejected (law is directed at conduct not speech; use of telephone solely to inflict injury is not protected. Terms "obscene." "lewd," "lascivious," and "indecent" connote language with vulgar sexual overtones; term "profane" means abusive cursing language. Terms "harass" and "offend" are commonly used words.). |
| IL | People v. Bailey | Stalking | 657 N.E.2d 953 (1995) | Vagueness, overbreadth claims rejected (term "following" is construed to require additional intent to advance threat to victim; threat is not protected speech when part of unlawful conduct). |
| -- | People v. Nakajima | Stalking | 691 N.E.2d 153 (App. Ct. 1998), appeal denied, 699 N.E.2d 1035 (1998) | Vagueness and overbreadth challenges rejected (while Bailey is not dispositive because challenge here is to new law, defendant failed to preserve claims). Due process claim over absence of mens re is rejected (citing Cortez for implied culpability requirement). |
| -- | People v. Cortez | Stalking | 676 N.E.2d 195 (App. Ct. 1996), appeal denied, 684 N.E.2d 1338 (1997) | Vagueness and overbreadth claims rejected (statute proscribes only culpable conduct requiring intent. Terms "follows" and "surveillance" are not vague). |
| -- | People v. Rand | Stalking | 683 N.E.2d 1243. (App. Ct. 1997), appeal denied, 1998 Ill. LEXIS 1832 (1998) | Vagueness and overbreadth claims rejected (citing Cortez). |
| -- | People v. Zamudio | Stalking | 689 N.E.2d 254 (App. Ct. 1997) | Vagueness, overbreadth and due process claims rejected (citing Cortez). Stalking is nothing more than one type of common law assault. Requirement for two separate acts inhibits discriminatory enforcement. |
| -- | People v. Holt | Stalking | 649 N.E.2d 571 (App. Ct. 1995) | Vagueness, overbreadth claims rejected (explicit objective standards in law include reasonableness and intent components of stalking; there is no substantial infringement of protected rights). Statutory prohibition of stalking outside a building does not foreclose stalking within the same building. |
| -- | People v. Daniel | Stalking | 670 N.E.2d 861 (App. Ct. 1996), appeal denied, 677 N.E.2d 967 (1997) | Surveillance under law was shown although building that is in 2 parts separated the two individuals. |
| -- | People v. Sowewimon | Stalking | 657 N.E.2d 1047 (App. Ct. 1995) | Confinement of victim by defendant can be basis for finding "enforced surveillance" where surveillance occurs within a separate portion of a larger structure. |
| -- | People v. Soto | Stalking | 660 N.E.2d 990 (App. Ct. 1995) | Prior protective order issuance can not by itself prove earlier threats because higher level of proof required in criminal case. |
| -- | People v. Krawiec | Stalking | 634 N.E.2d 1173 (App. Ct. 1994) | Acts in furtherance of a threat do not require violence or even intent to commit violence. "Under surveillance" requires only that there be remaining in the vicinity, regardless of whether victim is present (e.g., "lying in wait"). |
| -- | People v. Young | Telephone threat | 727.E.2d 386 (App. Ct. 2000) | Proof of location to determine court's jurisdiction uses reasonable doubt standard |
| -- | People v. Peterson | Letter threat (intimidation) | 715 N.E.2d 1221 (App. Ct. 1999) | First amendment challenge rejected (threats are not protected speech). Testimony about victims' response to letter threats is admissible since it tends to show reasonableness of letters' tendency to create fear. Intent to carry out threat is not element of crime. |
| -- | People v. Parkins | Telephone harassment | 396 N.E.2d 22 (1979), appeal dismissed, 446 U.S. 901 (1980) | Overbreadth claim rejected (terms "abuse" and "harass" take restricted meaning from word "threaten" also in statute). |
| -- | People v. Klick | Telephone harassment | 362 N.E.2d 329 (1977) | Overbroad (statute applies to any call made with intent to annoy; no "unreasonable manner" limitation to save law can be inferred, since crime occurs when call made regardless of subsequent conversation content. |
| -- | People v. Karich | Telephone harassment Order violation | 687 N.E.2d 1169 (App. Ct. 1997) | Violation of protection order based on numerous telephone calls requires evidence of telephone call content intended to be harassing, notwithstanding statutory presumption that calls resulted in emotional distress. |
| -- | People v. Reynolds | Domestic violence protection order | 706 N.E.2d 49 (App. Ct. 1999) | Vagueness and overbreadth challenges to law's use of term "harassment" rejected notwithstanding that complained of acts differ from examples in statute where harassment presumed, since listing not exhaustive and defendant's intent to intimidate was not a proper purpose. |
| IN | Johnson v. State | Stalking | 648 N.E.2d 666 (Ct. App. 1995) | Vagueness claim rejected (intent requirement militates against vagueness). |
| -- | Johnson v. State | Stalking | 721 N.E.2d 327 (Ct. App. 1999) | Due Process challenge to sentencing enhancement rejected where he stalked victim while a prior stalking complaint was pending; there is no need for first charge to have resulted in conviction. Hence, there is no denial of right to jury trial on issue. Further, it was reasonable for legislature to enact enhancement; this is not an equal protection violation. Defendant's actions over a five or six hour period were sufficient to constitute a course of action under the stalking law. Jury could infer fear where no direct victim testimony given; evidence of prior acts is not double jeopardy when used to prove victim state of mind. |
| -- | Garza v. State | Stalking | 736 N.E.2d 323 (Ct App. 2000) | Jury could have inferred reasonable fear from victim statements of unease from 2 years of unwanted communications |
| -- | Landis v. State | Stalking | 704 N.E.2d 113 (1998) | Proof of prior similar acts may be admitted into case-in-chief, but prior convictions are admitted only into sentencing hearing |
| -- | Burton v. State | Stalking; Stalking order; Privacy invasion | 665 N.E.2d 924 (Ct. App. 1996) | Double jeopardy claim rejected for stalking and privacy invasion convictions (charging facts for both offenses overlapped, however). |
| -- | Waldon v. State | Stalking | 684 N.E.2d 206 (Ct. App. 1997) | Jury could infer intent to threaten and fear from victim description of six encounters in public places within one year period. |
| -- | Haynes v. State | Harassment; Intimidation | 656 N.E.2d 505 (Ct. App. 1995) | Double jeopardy claim rejected since intimidation and harassment are distinct crimes. |
| -- | Hott v. State | Telephone harassment | 400 N.E.2d 206 (Ct. App. 1980), transfer denied, 409 N.E.2d 1082, cert. denied, 449 U.S. 1132 (1981) | First Amendment claim rejected (obscene telephone calls violated victim's privacy and are not protected). |
| -- | Leuteritz v. State | Telephone harassment | 534 N.E.2d 265 (Ct. App. 1989) | Telephone harassment law is not applicable without intent of only nonlegitimate reason for call; reasonable man test of intent. |
| IA | State v. Beecher | Stalking | 616 N.W.2d 532 (2000) | Double jeopardy does not attach until trial begins; violation of protective order is not a lesser included offense of stalking, since provision in stalking statute making stalking in violation of order a felony is a sentencing enhancement, not element of crime. |
| -- | State v. Limbrecht | Stalking | 600 N.W.2d 316 (1999) | The several acts complained of constitute a threatening course of conduct even if individual acts in isolation could be seen as only harassing. |
| -- | State v. Bellows | Stalking | 596 N.W.2d 509 (1999) | Violation of out-of-state stalking protection order may be used to enhance penalties for stalking in state. This is not enforcement of order under full faith and credit clause. |
| -- | State v. Neuzil | Stalking | 589 N.W.2d 708 (1999) | Stalking is general intent crime (mean to commit act without regard to specific results). |
| -- | State v. Milner | Threat of arson | 571 N.W.2d 7 (1997) | Vagueness and overbreadth challenges rejected (threats not protected speech even when directed at public official under claim of political speech. Speech was within "hard core" of prohibited acts). |
| -- | State v. Mulvany | Harassment | 600 N.W.2d 291 (1999) | First degree harassment is not lesser included offense of stalking where stalking may be proven without harassment. |
| -- | State v. Fratzke | Letter harassment | 446 N.W.2d 781 (1989) | Overbreadth claim rejected with statutory interpretation (statutory requirement that communication have no legitimate purpose eliminates overbreadth objection. Offensive language can not however take away legitimate purpose of protesting to government action. "Fighting words" exception has especially high standard when police officers are target). |
| -- | State v. Jaeger | Telephone harassment | 249 N.W.2d 688 (1977) | Vagueness claim rejected (phrase "obscene, lewd or profane" is not vague due to specific intent element of law). |
| KS | State v. Whitesell | Stalking | 13 P.3d 887 (2000) | Vagueness and overbreadth claims rejected (citing Rucker; otherwise valid law not directed at protected speech does not violate 1st Amendment). Intent to place victim in fear may be inferred from circumstantial evidence. Defendant's prior acts may be used to prove credible threat. News articles saved by defendant about spousal murders admissible to show intent. Victim's testimony use of term stalking not legal conclusion, but representation of her fear. |
| -- | State v. Rucker | Stalking | 987 P.2d 1081 (1999) | Vagueness claim rejected where legislative amendments now provide objective standard and include statutory definition for harassment, course of conduct and credible threat. Phrase "repeated course of conduct" is not vague, but is one of common understanding. Phrases "apparent ability" and "legitimate purpose" are based on objective standard and not vague. |
| -- | State v. Bryan | Stalking | 910 P.2d 212 (1996) | Void for vagueness (undefined terms "alarms," "annoys," and "harasses" are vague without objective measure; term "following" however is sufficiently comprehensible). |
| -- | State v. Zhu | Stalking | 909 P.2d 679 (Ct. App. 1996) | Telephone calls can be both part of a campaign of "following" and acts of harassment under law providing alternate methods of stalking. |
| -- | State v. Gunzelman | Threat | 502 P.2d 705 (1972) | Vagueness claims rejected (terms "threat" and "terrorize" are adequately defined by Code and dictionary). |
| -- | State v. Miller | Threat | 629 P.2d 748 (Ct. App. 1981) | Cross burning is physical act that constitutes threat; speech not required. |
| -- | State v. Knight | Threat | 549 P.2d 1397 (1976) | Threat may be implied; third person involvement in carrying out threat permitted where intent to terrorize exists. |
| -- | State v. Thompson | Telephone harassment | 701 P.2d 694 (1985) | Overbreadth claim rejected (intent to harass is element of crime, not missing from law). |
| KY | Poindexter v. Commw. | Stalking | 1996 Ky. App. LEXIS 156 (Ct. App. 1996) | Vagueness and overbreadth claims rejected. |
| -- | Welch v. Commw. | Stalking Probation violation | 988 S.W.2d 506 (Ct. App. 1999) | Violation of no-contact provision occurs where defendant makes continued harassing hang-up calls without any conversation. |
| -- | Thomas v. Commw. | Threat | 574 S.W.2d 903 (Ct. App. 1978) | Overbreadth and vagueness claims rejected (terms "threat" and "terrorize" well understood; threats not protected speech). Threat may be conditional; victim fear of immediate harm not needed; intent to complete threat not relevant. |
| -- | Musselman v. Commw. | Harassment | 705 S.W.2d 476 (1986) | Void for vagueness and overbroad (law lacks fighting words limitation that can not be added by judicial interpretation). |
| -- | U.S. v. Sturgill | Harassment | 563 F.2d 307 (6th Cir. 1977) | Overbroad (citing Gooding v. Wilson, 405 U.S. 518 (1972) and Acker v. Texas, 430 U.S. 962 (1977)). |
| -- | Yates v. C. | Telephone harassment | 753 S.W.2d 874 (Ct. App. 1988) | Vagueness and overbreadth claims rejected ("fighting words" doctrine is inapplicable to private communications by telephone; law regulates harassing conduct, not speech). |
| LA | State v. Rico | Stalking | 741 So.2d 774 (Ct. App. 1999) | Following victim from one location to another and then to another is one continuous act, rather than a pattern of conduct involving at least two separate acts. |
| -- | State v. Meunier | Telephone harassment | 354 So.2d 535 (1978) | Vagueness and overbreadth claims rejected (terms "annoy," "harass," and "embarrass" "take color" from surrounding words, limiting their scope). |
| -- | State v. Martin | Telephone harassment | 491 So.2d 458 (Ct. App. 1986) | Specific intent to harass may be inferred from voluntary act that rationally may be expected to annoy or harass. |
| ME | State v. Porter | Threat | 384 A.2d 429 (1978) | Overbreadth claim rejected (threats not protected speech). Statute is interpreted to apply only to person who made threat or third party who adopts threat in repeating it. |
| -- | State v. Thibodeau | Threat | 686 A.2d 1063 (1996) | Objective reasonableness of victim fear is not essential element of threatening, since intent to place in fear is sufficient. |
| -- | State v. Lizotte | Threat | 256 A.2d 439 (1969) | Intent to carry out threat and actual fear are not required; the crime committed is causing fear to ordinary person. |
| -- | State v. Ilsley | Letter threat; Harassment order | 595 A.2d 421 (1991) | Letter to third party in same home violated harassment order. |
| -- | State v. Cropley | Harassment | 544 A.2d 302 (1988) | Overbreadth claim rejected (harassing conduct is not protected speech). |
| -- | State v. Hills | Harassment order | 574 A.2d 1357 (1990) | Vagueness claims rejected (term "harassment" is commonly understood). |
| MD | Streater v. State | Stalking; protective order evidence | 724 A.2d 111 (1999) | Prior criminal acts evidenced on face of protective order that was admitted into evidence is not admissible to show intent without hearing by trial judge on possible prejudice. |
| -- | Piper v. Layman | Stalking protective order | 726 A.2d 887 (Ct. Spec. App. 1999) | Validity of protective order is not moot where permanent order recorded; order may have future repercussions. |
| -- | Caldwell v. State | Harassment | 337 A.2d 476 (Ct. Spec. App. 1975) | Vagueness claims rejected (intent requirement saves statute from vagueness). |
| -- | Pall v. State | Harassment | 699 A.2d 565 (Ct. Spec. App. 1997) | Statute requires warning to cease and desist harassing conduct. |
| -- | Galloway v. State | Letter harassment | 744 A.2d 1070 (Ct. Spec. App. 2000) | Vagueness and overbreadth challenges rejected (terms "alarm" and "serious annoyance" are not vague where law requires specific intent to harass; there is less need for notice where words are in common use and defendant has been asked to stop his behavior. Law regulates conduct not speech). Evidence shows invasion of victim privacy: the objective of the law. |
| -- | Von Lusch v. State | Telephone harassment | 387 A.2d 306 (Ct. Spec. App. 1978), cert denied, 283 Md. 740 (1978) | First Amendment claim rejected (harassment is not protected speech). Harassment purpose need not be sole intent of actor. |
| MA | Commw. v. Kwiatkowski | Stalking; Stalking order | 637 N.E.2d 854 (1994) | Void for vagueness in instant case (statute could be interpreted to require more than 2 patterns of conduct). For future, only single pattern or series of events will be needed to be shown. |
| -- | Commw. v. Matsos | Stalking | 657 N.E.2d 467 (1995) | Kwiatkowski not applied retroactive to convictions before decision made where vagueness claim not raised at trial; defendant's behavior came squarely within statute's bar). |
| -- | Commw. v. Bibbo | Burglary (stalking predicate) | 20001 Mass. App. LEXIS 2 (App. Ct. 2001) | Jury in resolving burglary charge based on intent to commit stalking may consider prior acts as part of required course of conduct crime element. |
| -- | Commw. v. Delaney | Stalking protective order | 682 N.E.2d 611 (1998), cert. denied, 118 S. Ct. 714 (1998) | Intent is not required for violation of protective order. Constitutional issue was raised but not argued. |
| -- | Commw. v. Alphas | Stalking; Order violation | 762 N.E.2d 575 (1999) | Stay-away order in divorce decree is equal to order of protection for purposes of enhancement of stalking law for violation of order. |
| -- | Commw. v. Butler | Harassment order | 661 N.E.2d 666 (App. Ct. 1996) | Overbreadth claim against no-contact order rejected (term "contact" is clear) Anonymous sending of flowers violated order. |
| -- | Commw. v. Basile | Abuse prevention order | 712 N.E.2d 633 (App. Ct. 1999) | Violation of no-contact provision of court order may be violated by mere presence in vicinity of victim; jury must infer whether contact was intended. |
| -- | Commw. v. Richards | Electronic harassment | 690 N.E.2d 419 (1998) | Fax is not covered by law against annoying telephone calls. |
| -- | Commw. v. Wotan | Telephone harassment | 665 N.E.2d 976 (1996) | Term "repeatedly" requires three or more harassing calls. |
| -- | Commw. v. Strahan | Telephone harassment | 570 N.E.2d 1041 (App. Ct. 1991), rev. denied, 576 N.E.2d 685 (1991) | Desire to harass must be sole purpose of calls to sustain conviction, notwithstanding harassing effect. |
| MI | People v. Coones | Stalking | 550 N.W.2d 600 (Ct. App. 1996) | Double jeopardy not violated by state punishing both stalking and contempt of court for order violation. Violation of protective order and bond conditions make contact acts per se "illegitimate" notwithstanding defendant's "ends justify means" argument that acts were to preserve marriage. |
| -- | People v. White | Stalking | 536 N.W.2d 876 (Ct. App. 1995) | Vagueness claims rejected (statues provide fair notice; terms' meanings can be easily ascertained and possess common and generally accepted meaning). Statutory rebuttable presumption of stalking after being asked to discontinue contacts provides due process since connection to victim's state of mind and fear is reasonable. It is not double jeopardy for defendant to first plea to misdemeanor charge with different dates from later felony plea dates. |
| -- | People v. Ballantyne | Stalking | 538 N.W.2d 106 (Ct. App. 1995) | Vagueness and overbreadth claims rejected (Citing White). |
| -- | Staley v. Jones | Stalking | 239 F.3d 769 (6th Cir. 2000), reversing in part, district court decision, 108 F. Supp 2d. 777 (W.D. Mich. 2000) | Vagueness and overbreadth challenges rejected (state court rulings limiting law's application per statute does not limit constitutionally protected "legitimate conduct" activities to illustrative examples in law; fair notice of proscribed conduct is provided by law) |
| -- | Staley v. Jones | Stalking | 108 F. Supp. 777 (W.D. Mich. 2000) | Double jeopardy claim rejected for lack of standing (only charged with one crime). Vagueness challenged accepted in part (phrase "includes, but not limited to" is read to modify statute's concern with unconsented contact; phrases "constitutionally protected action" and "legitimate purpose," as interpreted in White, are overbroad, infringing upon both press rights and right of petition government). |
| -- | People v. Kieronski | Stalking | 542 N.W.2d 339 (Ct. App. 1995) | Stalking is not limited to face-to-face contacts. |
| -- | Haverbush v. Powelson | Harassment civil liability (emotional distress) | 551 N.W.2d 206 (Ct. App. 1996), appeal denied, 564 N.W.2d 37 (1997) | Intentional emotional distress injury award is affirmed (extreme and outrageous behavior was proven; reasonableness test for intent is same as reckless behavior). |
| -- | People v. Taravella | Telephone harassment | 350 N.W.2d 780 (Ct. App. 1984) | Vagueness and overbreadth claims rejected (statute provides clear warning; law punishes maliciously intended conduct, not speech). |
| MN | State v. Orsello | Stalking | 554 N.W.2d 70 (1996) | Vagueness claims rejected ( law is interpreted to require specific intent to harass or stalk with adverse effects). |
| -- | State v. Loewen | Stalking | 565 N.W.2d 714 (Ct. App), rev. granted, 1997 Minn. LEXIS 685 (1997) | Orsello rule retroactive. |
| -- | State v. Romans | Stalking | 1997 WL 600455 (Ct. App. 1997) | Orsello rule retroactive (citing Loewen). |
| -- | State v. Bowen | Stalking | 560 N.W.2d 709 (Ct. App. 1997) | Orsello specific intent rule is applied retroactively to require new trial to prove intent for harassment conduct. It is not double jeopardy for felony conviction based on predicate misdemeanor on different dates. |
| -- | Prell v. State | Harassment | 1998 WL 2408 (Ct. App. 1998), rev. denied, 3/26/98 | Orsello intent rule is not applicable to harassment pattern, only underlying acts. |
| -- | State v. Davisson | Stalking | 1997 WL 292159 (Ct. App. 1997), rev'd on other grounds, 1998 WL 747135 (Ct. App. 1998) | Orsello ruling requirement is met. |
| -- | State v. Davis | Stalking; Harassment | 1997 WL 259946 (Ct. App. 1997), rev. denied, 8/5/97 | Orsello requires reversal of conviction for engaging in pattern of harassment, but not stalking. |
| -- | State v. Murphy | Threat | 545 N.W.2d 909 (1996) | Threat statute is not limited to oral or written threats. Implied threats to commit future violence are covered by law. |
| -- | State v. Farzan | Threat | 2001 Minn. App. LEXIS 30 (Ct. App. 2001) | Circumstantial evidence of intent can be drawn from victim's reaction and prior relationship as evidenced by existing order of protection. |
| -- | State v. Murphy | Threat | 545 N.W.2d 909 (1996), on remand, 1997 Minn. App. LEXIS 1236 (Ct. App. 1997) | Physical acts alone may constitute threat. |
| -- | State v. Dolgalevsky | Threat | 2000 Minn. App. LEXIS 341 (Ct. App. 2000) | History of hostility and victim reaction provide circumstantial evidence of intent to create fear. |
| -- | State v. Kehren | Threat | 2000 Minn. App. LEXIS 15 (Ct. App. 2000) | Instructions on elements of crime were sufficient to allow trial judge to refuse instruction on transitory anger where arguments permitted during trial; victim fear helps show intent. |
| -- | Sykes v. State | Threat | 578 N.W.2d 807 (Ct. App. 1998), remanded, 1997 Minn. App. LEXIS 1236 (Ct. App. 1997) | Court has jurisdiction over threat originating in England where received in state. |
| -- | State v. Marchand | Threat | 410 N.W.2d 912 (Ct. App. 1987), rev. denied, October 2, 1987 | Terroristic threats include threats of future actions. A continuing tirade in face of victim's evident fear is circumstantial evidence of intent and negates any claim of transitory anger. |
| -- | State v. Schweppe | Threat | 237 N.W.2d 609 (1975) | Intent may be established through reasonable inferences from circumstances of the incident including victim reaction. Defendant may terrorize or cause extreme fear through third party where defendant knows or should know threat likely to be passed on to victim. |
| -- | State v. Tellinghuisen | Threat | 1998 Minn. App. LEXIS 558 (Ct. App.), appeal denied, July 16, 1998; 1998 Minn. LEXIS 432 (1998) | Conditional threats are covered under statute. Threat context is relevant where defendant had history of violent abuse towards victim. |
| -- | State v. Fisher | Threat | 354 N.W.2d 29 (1984) | Defendant knew or should have known that threat to third party would be communicated to victim. Evidence of prior threats is admissible to show intent and motive; transitory anger defense was rebutted by evidence of prior threats and continuing tirade for 6 hours. |
| -- | State v. Idowu | Threat | 2000 Minn. App.LEXIS 36 (Ct. App. 2000) | Direct communication of threat to victim is not required. |
| -- | State v. Spencer | Threat, harassment order | 1998 Minn. App. LEXIS 856 (Ct. App. 1998) | Evidence that victim applied for protection order after threat issued is probative of meaning of threat even if victim's reaction not an element of the crime. However admission of order itself is prejudicial since it tends to show that judge already found a threat to have been made. |
| -- | State v. Jones | Threat | 451 N.W.2d 55 (Ct. App. 1990) | Transitory anger is not covered by threat law. |
| -- | State v. Lavastida | Threat | 366 N.W.2d 677 (Ct. App. 1985) | Instruction on transitory anger defense not required when instructions submitted covered all elements of the crime. |
| -- | State v. Machholz | Harassment | 574 N.W. 2d 415 (1998) | Overbroad, (statute not limited to non-expressive conduct and offensive conduct in a public meeting not directed at any individual did not constitute fighting words). |
| -- | State v. Schmidt | HarassmentStalking | 612 N.W.2d 871 (2000), aff'ing 1999 Minn. App. LEXIS 958 (Ct. App. 1999) | Conviction voided under Machholz is not a bar to new charges under stalking section of law not affected by ruling, since there was no final decision in case on merits. |
| -- | State v.Mullen | Harassment | 577 N.W.2d 505 (1998) | Orsello intent rule does not require proving intent to commit pattern, just underlying crimes. |
| -- | State v. Anderson | Harassment | 1996 WL 722099 (Ct. App. 1996) | Double jeopardy protection violated in use of earlier plea involving same acts to prove pattern for enhanced penalty. |
| -- | Robbinsdale Clinic v. Pro-Life Action Ministries | Harassment | 515 N.W.2d 88 (Ct. App. 1994), rev. denied, 1994 Minn. LEXIS 445 (1994) | Constitutionality of underlying order may be collaterally attacked on appeal of contempt conviction. Order was overbroad because harassment injunction was not content neutral. There is no presumption that Clinic acts on behalf of patients not desiring to hear message. |
| -- | State v. Egge | Harassment protection order | 611 N.W.2d 573 (Ct. |