Triggs v. Triggs

Maryland Supreme Court - 2003 

This case concerns the severity of penalties available to an egregious violator of a protection order.  A victim of abuse obtained a protection order against the abuser. Subsequently, while the children were in his care, the abuser made a steady stream of tormenting phone calls to the victim over 4 days, promising to kill their children in very specific ways, putting the child on the phone and causing her to scream, threatening to have the mother raped and killed while he watched, etc. Due to the extraordinary efforts of an inter-jurisdictional SWAT team, he was located and the children were recovered without physical harm.

On appeal, the issue was whether the abuser could be sentenced to 18 years in jail for 18 separate violations of the protection order (18 phone calls), or whether the doctrine of “lenity” (i.e., leniency toward defendants) should apply to merge the sentences. The MD Attorney General's Office put out a call for an amicus brief to defend the defendant’s appeal to the state’s highest court. DV LEAP responded, and, with assisting pro bono counsel’s extraordinary efforts, filed a compelling amicus brief which amplified in important ways the arguments presented by the parties (including presenting social science information indicating that the lethality risks to the family were extreme).

The brief was on behalf of DV LEAP, the MD Women's Law Center and the MD House of Ruth. The high court of Maryland unanimously affirmed the appellate court's decision upholding the sentence, and even more importantly, affirmed that multiple violations of protection orders may be punished by extensive incarceration when appropriate.

Click here to read DV LEAP's amicus brief.  Click here to read the court's opinion.

The law firm providing pro bono representation, King & Spalding LLP, also received the Maryland Pro Bono Award  for its dedication in this case.