Back in the day, the first stop for any judge newly assigned to a domestic violence part, including this one, was a field trip to the Brooklyn courtroom of state Supreme Court Justice John Michael Leventhal. In 1996, Leventhal was named presiding judge of the nation’s first felony domestic violence court. In that role, he was the embodiment of intelligence, compassion and common sense in a twilight zone where mostly male abusers controlled their female victims through physical violence and emotional terror. The perpetrators rarely expected to be held accountable, and they rarely were, even by the wives and girlfriends they had shot, stabbed, beaten or choked. Until they met Leventhal. He showed them, the legal system and the public what a zero tolerance policy for domestic violence looked like. With his elevation to the Appellate Division in 2008, that first-hand lesson, unfortunately, is no longer available. But with the publication of Leventhal’s new book, “My Partner, My Enemy: An Unflinching View of Domestic Violence and New Ways to Protect Victims,” his wisdom on the subject is available to a new generation of domestic violence judges and practitioners. And wise he is.
This interesting and informative book begins with the hard, cold facts of domestic violence that continue to shock: 4 million incidents of intimate partner violence reported by women each year; leading cause of injury to women in the United States between the ages of 15 and 44; nearly half of all women murdered in New York City are killed by their husbands or boyfriends. And yet, it is a crime that remains underreported, particularly by gay, transgendered and minority victims.
