The whole point of that legislative push was to prosecute batterers and killers even if their victims had been intimidated into silence. The laws made spousal battery a crime against society as well as the victim. People like Fay and Smith deserve credit for opening those doors, whatever else they may have done later to disappoint in other areas.
It's time to ask what has happened to that urgent perspective of a quarter-century ago. The numbers of dead victims — usually women — grows, as does the number of children devastated by such carnage.
Staria Silvia's now-motherless twin girls had been given interesting middle names by their mother. One is called Faith and the other Hope. But apparently there was no Charity in Staria's life.
Maybe we all share the blame for that.
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This Just In
, Speaker of the House, Rhode Island Supreme Court, government
