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SALT LAKE CITY -- The slaying of a 16-year-old West Wendover girl, allegedly by a boy she had dated, illustrates the urgency of creating a mechanism for people in a dating relationships to obtain protective orders, domestic violence advocates say.
Utah is one of the few states that does not extend those protections.
Legislation to establish such orders will be studied by a legislative committee this summer after the bill failed to advance through the 2011 session.
Rep. Paul Ray, R-Clearfield, said that as HB205 was debated in committee, some lawmakers didn't seem to think there was need for the legislation.
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A senior at West Wendover High School who reportedly once dated 16-year-old Micaela "Mickey" Costanzo was arrested for investigation of homicide in connection with the girl's death."That right there gives you a perfect reason," Ray said Monday of the circumstances of the West Wendover slaying. (The slaying occurred in Nevada, therefore it would not be subject to Utah law.)
Ned Searle, director of the Utah Office on Domestic and Sexual Violence, said there were 11 dating violence homicides in Utah between 2004 and 2010. Moreover, according to the 2007 Rape in Utah survey, nearly 16 percent of rapes and approximately 18 percent of attempted rapes against Utah women are committed by boyfriends or ex-boyfriends.
Although the slaying of Micaela "Mickey" Costanzo occurred in Nevada, "I think it's close enough I'm going to use it as an example in the first interim meeting in May," Searle said. "Sometimes, I just don't know what to do to get people to believe that this is an issue."
Lawmakers have considered such proposals in six previous sessions, but Ray was the first Republican to sponsor the legislation.
While referral to interim study is the most consideration the legislation has received, some lawmakers opposed the legislation over concerns the protective orders would be abused and Second Amendment rights would be affected.
"I feel we've taken every precaution necessary to protect innocent people's rights while offering this protection to victims," Ray said of HB205.
Searle said the amended bill had even passed muster with the National Rifle Association.
Stewart Ralphs, executive director of Legal Aid Society of Salt Lake and a member of the Utah Domestic Violence Council, said while charges have not yet been filed in the West Wendover case, people in dating relationships need the same level of protections as cohabitants, who can obtain protective orders under current law.
In a legislative hearing earlier this year, Ralphs told lawmakers that the issue of dating violence is not confined to teenagers.
"We see domestic violence in college. We see it in retirement communities when retired people are getting back in the dating scene," he said.
Nevada authorities have not yet filed charges in the West Wendover slaying. Sources told the Deseret News and KSL-TV that she and the suspect, Kody Cree Patten, 18, had dated in the past.
"If that's the case," Ralphs said, "it certainly buttresses the need for this type of legislation."
Ray's bill was intended to fill a gap between the state's statutes on protective orders and civil stalking injunctions.
"The missing piece that this bill tries to address is a people who are in a dating relationship but there have not been multiple acts of domestic violence," Ralphs said during a committee hearing in January.
Under HB205, the protective order would be in place for 180 days and unless a firearm was used to intimidate or against the dating partner, no firearms restriction would be leveled.
E-mail:mcortez@ksl.com
