L’Affaire Boebert: Is “Saturday Night Alright for Fightin?”
Silt, Colorado is a pretty tiny town: 3,500 people. Not otherwise on America’s radar until two former spouses ran into one another at the Miner’s Claim Restaurant on Saturday night. We don’t know if that was by accident or design, but we do know that Jayson Boebert telephoned police for assistance with what cops call a “domestic.” The first round of facts suggest that his former spouse Congressman Lauren Boebert punched him. After the fact, Mr. Boebert offered to the Denver Post “I don’t want nothing to happen. Her and I were working through a difficult conversation.”
In the domestic violence world and in many other aspects of the divorce world, you can’t unring the bell. There was a time when police would be summoned and after a visit, matters would go away; as Mr. Boebert suggested it was all just a misunderstanding. Then police began to be sued for dereliction of duties in settings where “misunderstandings” were ignored and people later ended up dead or seriously injured. So today, when you dial 9-1-1 you need to realize that the police arrive to protect you but also to protect themselves and their municipal employers from lawsuits alleging they did not do enough to protect the public.
Until twenty years ago, cops would try to calm the situation and go home. Today, they are pushing people to file for relief under the Protection from Abuse laws and, often arresting one party for the crimes of assault or terroristic threats. Candidly, they are not very happy to encounter situations such as occurred in Silt where they come with lights and sirens to protect lives and find a 6 foot 3 inch 43 year old man say “Never mind” when asked how the cops can assist in protecting him from his 5 foot tall former wife.
Lawyers tell clients: “If you are in danger, call the cops.” That’s just common sense. But that advice is pregnant with other risks which are really unsettling and underdiscussed. If you are the spouse of a physician, an educator, a child care worker or anyone who interacts with the public, your “domestic” call could trigger a crisis. Many counties don’t make protection from abuse claims public. Perhaps that is because almost half of them are not prosecuted or withdrawn. But should the cops decide the incident merits an arrest, the world will be notified in one way or another. We have had “domestics” where the arrest has ended on the front page of the daily local paper; not because the alleged violence was noteworthy but because of the people or circumstances involved. At a minimum, any arrest is published on the state’s judicial portal.
An arrest is notice to the world that the person arrested may be a danger. Suppose you opened your newspaper or your “Patch” feed to find out that your physician has been arrested and charged with assaulting his/her spouse. You have an appointment for the next day with that physician. Are you going? Suppose you are the person managing that person’s medical practice. Do you want to continue to employ the doc who made headlines for allegedly smacking a spouse or a kid. Of course, that person is innocent until proven guilty but when 30% of the doc’s patients are calling to cancel or “re-schedule” procedures, who bears the pain of the hit on the practice’s revenue? Again, the Boebert case demonstrates that often the parties want their public conflict to just go away. But the local paper isn’t going to put the news that charges have been dropped above the front page fold when that occurs.
As lawyers we often have to present these realities to clients. They are justifiably angry because they are victims of their spouses’ behaviors. But if the news becomes public, employers feel obliged to terminate the alleged perpetrators to show the public that they are sensitive to customers/taxpayers/patients and their safety concerns. The physician earning a huge income and supporting a handsome lifestyle for his/her family is suddenly terminated because of a dust-up in the bar at the Miner’s Claim on Saturday night. Children who weren’t there and had nothing to do with their parents’ dispute are now taken from private school because the money isn’t there to pay after the doc is terminated.
It isn’t just physical violence. We commonly see clients who show us joint tax returns that are patently incorrect. Some are just stupid. Most are borderline fraudulent. When we tell the client that you can’t finance two houses, three cars and two private school tuitions on $10,000 a month in net earnings, their response is that they knew nothing about these misrepresentations. Then we have to explain to the client that the return is joint and that the liability for underreporting income is joint as well. Often the client will proffer that he or she is an innocent spouse; had no idea that income was underreported. At this point we have to gently “do the math.” “So, the return shows income of $10,000 a month net of taxes. From that you paid two mortgages totaling $7,500 a month, two tuitions summing to $5,000 a month and three care payments of $800 each. That’s basically $15,000 a month before food, clothing, gas or utilities. How do we tell the IRS that you didn’t know what these things cost when you live in the houses and drive your cars to take the kids to school?
Rule 1 is self preservation. If you are in real danger, you need to call for help. But assuming that Jayson Boebert was clocked by the honorable representative of Colorado’s 3rd Congressional District, perhaps he might have chosen to dine at one of Silt’s other culinary establishments and ordered a side of ice to reduce the swelling.
