ST. LOUIS (CN) – Samuel Scott spent five days in the St. Louis city jail on a misdemeanor domestic violence charge claiming he hit his wife, Marcia Johnson, in January.
On April 9, a California-based nonprofit organization called The Bail Project posted his $5,000 bond. Scott, 54, was also served with an order of protection the same day.
Instead of honoring the order, Scott allegedly brutally beat Johnson, who was found unconscious at around 11 p.m. that night. She died from her injuries several days later.
Scott is now charged with first-degree murder.
The incident sparked outrage in the St. Louis community. Many blamed The Bail Project, which says its goal is to pay bail for people in need and restore the presumption of innocence. Others wondered why Scott was held on just a $5,000 bond with an alleged history of violence.
In an era where reform advocates in the justice community are trying to abolish the cash bond system, which they claim unfairly jails poor people who are unable to afford low bonds due to their socioeconomic disadvantage, the Scott story has put a new twist on the balance between victims' rights and the rights of the accused.
‘A Whole Other Ballgame’
Jaszmine Parks is a legal advocate in the domestic violence community. She acknowledges that there are certain crimes where the cash bond system is unfair to impoverished defendants, but domestic violence charges carry an extra risk due to the inherently violent nature of the crimes, even if those charges are misdemeanors.
St. Louis County Prosecutor Wesley Bell recently announced that his office will not prosecute people on charges relating to low amounts of marijuana possession. Parks said that crime has a totally different dynamic than a domestic violence charge.
“It’s not just this is a bad relationship, these two people aren’t good for each other,” she said in an interview. “At the heart to domestic violence is about control over a person’s body, their mind, their finances, things like that. So when you’re dealing with a situation like that it’s very different than somebody selling weed.”
Parks added, “It’s about a person that for some reason decided that they are entitled to the body and the mind and the finances of another person and that’s a whole other ballgame. I think that requires people really understanding the nature and dynamics not just of domestic violence, but sexual violence and human trafficking. It’s not just about money or it’s just a bad relationship. It comes down to domination and trying to consume them and that’s the dangerous part.”
The St. Louis area domestic violence community is trying to use the tragedy of Johnson’s death as a teaching tool for the public. One in four American women will be involved in an abusive relationship and the lethality rate for a domestic violence victim goes up seven times when the abuser is served with an order of protection, as Scott was right before he was released.
And domestic violence knows no socioeconomic, race or even gender boundaries. Wealthy and poor women have an equal chance at becoming victims and men are at risk too, as one in nine of them are victims of domestic violence, according to the National Coalition Against Domestic Violence.
“There’s something about our society and something about our relationships and masculinity and femininity that culminates into this form of domination,” Parks said. “And until we begin to acknowledge that and the roots of it, I think domestic violence and sexual violence is not going to go away.”
Bail Disruptors