Anne Kelly, senior deputy district attorney for Boulder County, says domestic abuse cases are some of the hardest to prosecute. Working with victims to navigate sensitive topics takes a very delicate hand. The Boulder County DA’s Office recently received an award for their work on a new program to do just that.
Kelly has worked in several district attorney’s offices over the years. She has specialized in domestic abuse cases. She said that she joined the Boulder County office because she knew District Attorney Michael Dougherty was open to new ideas on complex problems.
Kelly pitched an idea to change how domestic abuse cases were handled and by Nov. 2020, the Domestic Violence Acute Response Team, of DV ART, was formed.
The DV ART focuses on a victim-centered approach to build trust with victims right away.
“Domestic violence is a really unique area of criminal law,” Kelly said. “... the dynamics and the psychology involved in these cases makes it very challenging to prosecute but also requires a lot of expertise on the patterns and things we can expect and the things that we know.”
According to Kelly, domestic violence victims are at their most willing to share information within 48 hours of an incident occurring. Often, she said, victims will retract or reverse their comments leaving offenders to go free.
Prior to the program’s launch, district attorney deputies might be assigned several cases at a time and be able to charge offenders quickly, Kelly said. However, those deputies may not be able to follow up with victims for a week or more, giving the victims time to change their testimony or willingness to talk to authorities.
The DV ART reviews cases from the night before in order to reach out to victims quickly. This allows the DA’s office to assess whether the victim needs support services and to collect information that will aid in the prosecution of the offender.
The team looks at the cases “really early on so that we can critically assess how much danger the victim is actually in,” Kelly said.
“DV ART seeks to learn about unreported violence, threats, access to firearms, and other coercive and controlling offender behavior. Those factors enable prosecutors to more effectively assess and respond to lethality risk and offender danger,” a news release from the Boulder County District Attorney’s Office states.
The DV ART also works with domestic violence support groups such as Safe Shelter of St. Vrain Valley and Safehouse Progressive Alliance for Nonviolence, or SPAN and local law enforcement agencies.
The DV ART program is unique in Colorado and has seen significant success, according to Kelly. The information gathered from this quick intervention, allows prosecutors to collect evidence, most of which can only be provided by the victim, that paints a better picture for a jury.
Since its launch the SV ART has reviewed 493 felony and 896 midemeanor domestic violence cases.
With that in mind, the program also trains police officers to help identify high-risk offenders better.
“In these types of relationships where an offender uses violence as one of their tools in their toolbox of coercion and control, it’s usually not the only tool. Training our officers to understand and ask questions that might reveal some of the other tools that an offender might be using to coerce and control their victim is really valuable in understanding how much risk an offender poses,” Kelly stated.
The information gathered by the DV ART and police can help a jury understand the charges against an offender even if a victim recants their testimony, Kelly said.
This work has resulted in the Boulder County DA’s Office receiving the National Association of Counties Achievement Award. The award honors “innovative, effective government programs that strengthen services for community members,” according to the news release.
“Our office is honored by this award recognizing our strong, innovative response on domestic violence cases. The Team members did an outstanding job developing this program to better support victims and hold offenders accountable. Our office cannot do this work alone; this award is the result of our united efforts with dedicated community organizations and law enforcement agencies,” Dougherty said in the news release.
With the national recognition, Kelly hopes that other district attorney offices throughout the state will look to the DV ART as an example and begin implementing the program elsewhere.
“For me personally, prosecuting domestic violence, assisting domestic violence victims is a huge passion for me. It is probably one of the most frustrating crimes for law enforcement to deal with because the psychology says a victim is not going to want you to do your job,” Kelly said. “... we are prosecuting and holding offenders accountable not just for the crime but also for the time period in which they have been able to use psychological warfare to make that victim believe they are not worth getting justice.”
