Executive Councilor Raises Issues About Berlin Murder-Suicide; Judicial Branch Responds

By PAULA TRACY, InDepthNH.org, InDepth NH

BERLIN, NH — Executive Councilor Janet Stevens, R-Rye, says the state's law enforcement community and the Judicial Branch are not doing enough to help save domestic violence victims from further harm, like Sandra Marisol Fuentes Huaracha of Berlin, who was killed by her husband last month while he was out on bail.

But judicial officials said some of her four assertions are incorrect, do not involve them or are out of date. They contend they are making progress and conferring on areas where the system can be improved.

Stevens said the Judicial Branch has an internal domestic violence committee that only met once in 2023 and 2024, does not issue public minutes and that the Judicial Branch failed to spend $150,000 on a federal grant designed to identify gaps in the system due to a lack of staff.

She said the Judicial Branch also failed to follow through on creation of a domestic violence and sexual assault docket which she said could be helpful.

Stevens also said not all law enforcement are using a simple questionnaire that police can use to help better identify risks, and those can be brought to the court to help determine bail.

As state and local officials undertake some introspection on what went wrong in the case of the young Berlin woman killed by her husband while out on $5,000 bail for rape, kidnapping and theft charges against him, Stevens is asking for the gaps in the system to be filled.

Stevens, who is part of the state's Executive Branch which oversees police and is separate but equal from the Judicial Branch which handles court cases, said there are some areas of potential improvement.

She spoke before the Governor and the rest of the five-member Executive Council at a packed meeting in Pittsburg July 30, attended by many North Country lawmakers who are hearing from constituents about the murder-suicide in Berlin July 6 and what went wrong with the system meant to protect victims.

Fellow Executive Councilor Joe Kenney, R-Wakefield, said the $5,000 bail order was wrong given the severity of the charges which each carry a penalty upon conviction of 7 1/2 to 15 years.

He and Executive Councilor John Stephen, R-Manchester, held a roundtable discussion in July with the Chief Justice of the state Supreme Court Gordon MacDonald, Commissioner of Safety Robert Quinn and Attorney General John Formella to look at concerns raised by the case and both said they are undertaking their own review.

CONCERN #1 LAP SURVEYS ARE NOT USED BY ALL POLICE DEPARTMENTS

Stevens told Gov. Kelly Ayotte and the Council that the simple questionnaire can be the difference between safety or someone having to "lose their life."

She said the LAP assessment was launched in 2010 but it is voluntary and not all departments use it.

The Lethality Assessment Program survey is not being used uniformly across the state and if it had been used in the case of Fuentes Huaracha, she could have been connected with safe houses and supports to better protect her, Stevens said.

Berlin Deputy Police Chief Nathan Roy said Monday that the department uses the LAP survey but could not speak specifically to the case of Fuentes Huaracha because it is an open case still under investigation.

LAP is a law enforcement tool used to determine how dangerous a suspect is. The information can be brought to a court by police as evidence during a bail determination hearing on an arraignment, though it is not often done, court officials said.

The survey asks if the assailant has weapons or access to them, if he or she has children together and an important question "do you think he/she might try to kill you?"

Fuentes Huaracha, in her handwritten request for a restraining order, wrote that she feared Gleason would kill her if he had an opportunity.

If the victim screens as a high risk, Stevens said, a call is made to a 24-hour domestic violence hotline and the victim is urged by police to speak to an advocate for connection with crisis center services.

Stevens said a quarterly report by New Hampshire Law Enforcement to the NH Department of Justice indicates only about half the state's police departments report use of the "LAP" program.

She added a NH Judicial Branch report from 2022 considered the option "whether any screening tools," such as the LAP or an alternative one developed by the Battered Women's Justice Project, "would be appropriate for use as part of the court process in domestic violence cases," but nothing has been implemented by the courts, so far.

CONCERN # 2 A JUDICIAL COMMITTEE DOES NOT MEET REGULARLY AND DOES NOT HAVE PUBLIC MINUTES

Stevens also said the New Hampshire Judicial Branch Committee on Domestic Violence was created in 2022 but met only once in both 2023 and 2024 with no public minutes for what was said or done at those meetings since January, 2023 https://www.courts.nh.gov/resources/committees/nhjb-committee-domestic-violence.

But officials for the Judicial Branch said the committee has met six times since October 2024 and now meets monthly.

New Hampshire Judicial Branch spokesman Av Harris said the minutes are not being reported on the advice of counsel.

Stevens said she thinks there should be more transparency and that the committee could go into non-public sessions in cases where a person's reputation or other criteria under RSA 91-A are allowed and otherwise make known to the public what they are discussing.

The catalyst which prompted the creation of this Judicial committee was an incident in 2022 in which one of Stevens' constituents was almost killed as she left her place of work in Salem, Mass.

On 2021 Nov, 15, Richard Lorman shot his girlfriend, Lindsay Smith, in the head then later shot and killed himself. She survived.

Weeks before, Smith was denied a final domestic violence order of protection, though she had had a temporary order.

Three days after the shooting, New Hampshire Supreme Court Chief Justice MacDonald called for an internal review of the case and announced he was forming a task force to make a broader review of domestic violence policies and laws.

The internal report released in that case concluded that the denial of the permanent restraint was consistent with "all applicable laws and protocols."

The report listed seven "charges" to be explored by the task force for "improvement, both to court processes and to the law regarding IPV (intimate partner violence) more generally."

Stevens said the Judicial Branch must uphold its responsibility to victims as well as the separate but co-equal Executive Branch.

"Accountability and meaningful progress are not optional. They are obligations. The New Hampshire Judicial Branch has a duty to...sustain initiatives that protect and support victims of domestic and sexual violence," she said at the council meeting in Pittsburg.

"There are no publicly available meeting minutes from this organization," Stevens said.

"Secondly, judicial data transparency is the most pressing need identified by domestic violence advocates. Organizations working on the front lines to support victims of domestic violence consistently identified one urgent priority and that is judicial data transparency. Yet despite federal investments and grants and a clear mandate, progress has stalled," Stevens said.

CONCERN #3 THE JUDICIAL BRANCH LEFT $150,000 FEDERAL GRANT TO IDENTIFY DV GAPS ON THE TABLE

In June, 2023, Stevens said the Judicial Branch issued requests for proposals for a study to assess potential data gaps and do some statistical analysis of domestic violence and a separate study on the court's addressing of diversity and inclusion matters.

That led to the selection of the Wyoming Survey Analysis Center to get the grant. But two years later "due to a staffer leaving the judicial branch, the project was never launched and was stalled," Stevens said. The $150,000 was never spent.

"I tip my hat to the Attorney General who is trying to get an extension on using these federal funds...but this is not the first time that federal funds allocated to the judicial branch have stalled," she said.

CONCERN #4 NO DOMESTIC VIOLENCE DOCKET

In March 2022 the Judicial Branch had secured federal funding for a pilot for a dedicated domestic violence docket. Due to the absence of sustained interest, she said it was dropped. Judicial Branch officials said this is false and that it was not about lack of interest.

"We need to look into a dedicated docket," Stevens said for domestic and sexual violence.

"In 2012-13 the New Hampshire Judicial Branch secured federal funding to establish a dedicated domestic violence docket. When the federal funding expired, there is no indication that efforts were made to sustain the program with state funding and the program was abandoned. A critical need was identified, the money was in hand, and still - nothing was done. This failure is unconscionable. We need to look into a dedicated docket for domestic and sexual violence."

Harris said the docket was not implemented due to a lack of feasibility with the New Hampshire Circuit Court caseload and the need to meet statutory timelines for those case types.

"It was not due to a lack of interest," Harris wrote in a follow-up to a joint interview last week with the Honorable Kimberly Chabot, in Manchester who has overseen many domestic violence cases, Jessica A. Humphrey, New Hampshire Judicial Branch Program Manager and Harris.

RESPONSE FROM THE JUDICIAL BRANCH

Chabot has been a judge for more than 10 years and prior to that was a prosecutor.

Humphrey has a background in law enforcement, particularly domestic violence cases and runs the protective order registry and does a lot of work with victims, advocates and the community.

Harris said they welcomed the opportunity to address some of Stevens' concerns "because it can be confusing for people, like what are the different roles of the legislature, versus the judicial branch and the courts and law enforcement as well. Many many people, many hands touch domestic violence policy and domestic violence cases."

Chabot said the LAP protocol is a law enforcement function and separate from the courts.

"I have seen those. They have been submitted as exhibits in hearings, whether it is in a trial or a domestic violence hearing but that is strictly a law enforcement function," the judge said.

Humphrey said it is not standard practice for those LAP assessments to go to judges.

Harris said, "While a defendant's criminal history can be considered in a bail determination, arraignment and bail hearing as evidence to help assess whether the defendant is a danger to themselves or others, it is the responsibility of the prosecution to bring that evidence forward to a judge, bail commissioner or magistrate. Judicial officers are only permitted to make decisions based on the law and what evidence is presented to them in the particular case and are not allowed to do independent research outside of what is presented in court in order to make bail decisions."

Chabot was a district court prosecutor for 24 years before sitting on the bench and noted that protocol came out when she was in that prior role and there was a lot of training associated, pushed by former Franklin Police Chief David Goldstein.

"That is trained at the police academy," she said of the LAP.

The judge said she would estimate about one-fifth of alleged victims in an active arrest report participate in the survey which covers weapons, children and a lot of specifics and that many decline to fill out, likely for fear of retaliation.

Humphrey agreed and said "many decline services," which are also part of the process.

Chabot said she almost always asks if a domestic violence assessment was done during arraignments and that the LAP "gives me additional information separate, above and beyond what an officer would say."

"You have then some sense of the risks in selecting bail," the judge said.

Humphrey, who was a police officer when the LAP was introduced in 2010, said it is also helpful in connecting victims with referral services from local safe houses to mental health and substance abuse help.

"The numbers are hard to really assess any sort of effective response," she said, noting that some don't complete or finish the LAP surveys.

Judge Chabot said the internal judicial committee's size went from six to two and she was among the two original members who stayed. She said it took time to find commensurate voices for the multidisciplinary panel.

Stevens said she will be talking with Formella about the committee and the protocol issues as they relate to meeting minutes but the effort should be on transparency.

Stevens also said the fact the $150,000 federal grant to analyze potential gaps in domestic violence data was dropped, due to a lack of personnel, is "inexcusable. They wasted federal dollars" and never completed the study.

As for the LAP survey, she said "It's a decision-making tool and either that or another similar tool which is out there should be used uniformly in all domestic violence cases."

Another concern Stevens has is that she believes only 5 to 13 percent of domestic violence victims are represented by an attorney. This, she said, is far lower than the percentage of those charged with the criminal offense.

CRISIS HOTLINE

If you or someone you know is in need, there is a 24-hour hotline for domestic violence and sexual assault is 1-866-644-3574 and the website is here https://www.dhhs.nh.gov/programs-services/child-protection-juvenile-justice/child-protection-services/domestic-violence

This article first appeared on InDepthNH.org and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.