OKLAHOMA CITY (KFOR) – A new law taking effect at the beginning of November is believed to change the way Oklahoma prosecutors handle domestic violence cases.
“What this new bill aims to do is to increase how many domestic violence cases we can take to jury trial and get convictions,” said Madeline Coffey, the Head of the Domestic Violence Division for the Oklahoma County District Attorney’s Office.
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The law allows for prosecutors to use victim statements from police, within one week of an incident, without requiring the victim to testify at a preliminary hearing.
“The victim signs an affidavit for a protective order, or the victim testifies at a protective order hearing. Now, those can be used subsequently in pre and post-trial hearings. So that the victim doesn’t have to come back before the court and be traumatized again and face her abuser again and relive these events again. So, it’s really a huge nod to the domestic violence world,” said Attorney General Gentner Drummond…