Stalking and the Military: A Proposal to Add an Anti-Stalking Provision to Article 134, Uniform Code of Military Justice

• Author: Major Joanne P.T. Eldridge
• Pages: 06

116 MILITARY LAW REVIEW [Vol. 165

STALKING AND THE MILITARY:

A PROPOSAL TO ADD AN ANTI-STALKING PROVISION TO ARTICLE 134, UNIFORM CODE OF MILITARY

JUSTICE

MAJOR JOANNE P.T. ELDRIDGE1

[T]here is an [] epidemic that is spreading across this country, and it is called stalking. It may come as a shock to my colleagues that today the leading cause of injury among American women is being beaten by a man. And nationally an estimated 4 million men kill or violently attack the women they live with or date.2

-Senator William Cohen, 1992

This is Fort Campbell, home of the Army's elite air assault division. In just the past two years, three soldiers stationed here have been charged with killing their wives or girlfriends. One of the victims was Ronnie Spence, murdered by her ex-fiance, Sergeant Bill Coffin, in front of their baby daughter in their trailer home near the Army post . . . . Domestic violence cases involving Fort Campbell soldiers routinely show up in [Kentucky Chief

District] Judge MacDonald's courtroom, and he says Army commanders routinely ignore his court orders that are supposed to protect abused spouses. In the case of Ronnie Spence, the judge had issued this emergency protective order requiring Sergeant Coffin to stay at least a mile away from Spence at all times. But Coffin violated that order the day he drove off the Army post and killed her.3

-CBS correspondent Bill Bradley, 1999

I. Introduction

Stalking is harassing or threatening behavior directed by one person toward another. A stalker will frequently follow the targeted person and direct repeated and unwanted communications, such as letters and telephone calls, to the targeted person or that person's family.4 These behaviors may escalate to threats against the person or the person's family, and they may be precursors to violence that will culminate in assault or murder.5 Stalking is an epidemic that affects hundreds of thousands of ordinary people every year.6 Annually, stalkers victimize more than one million women.7 More than ten million American women and men report that someone has stalked them at some point during their lifetime.8

To combat criminal stalking, all fifty states and the District of Columbia passed anti-stalking statutes9 between 1990 and 1994. Congress enacted a law to protect victims of interstate stalking in 1996.10 The mil

tary, though not immune from the societal issues of stalking and domestic violence, currently has no specific provision in the Uniform Code of Military Justice11 (UCMJ) that makes stalking a crime.

This article reviews the increasing prevalence of stalking as a crime in society and addresses the unique nature of stalking offenses. It examines the enactment of anti-stalking legislation by the states and the federal government. The article discusses stalking within the military, including recent cases and charging practices, and notes the need for a military anti-stalking provision. This article recommends an amendment to the Manual for Courts-Martial12 and proposes a specification for an anti-stalking provision under Article 134, UCMJ.

II. Stalking in Society

1. Nature of Stalking Offenses

   Stalking is an issue of current societal concern, from the halls of Congress13 to newspapers14 and prime time television.15 One psychiatrist with experience as a stalking victim describes stalking as social terrorism.16

   "Stalking generally refers to harassing or threatening behavior that an individual engages in repeatedly, such as following a person, appearing at a person's home or place of business, making harassing phone calls, leaving written messages or objects, or vandalizing a person's property."17 These actions may, but do not necessarily, include threats of injury or other harm and may, but not necessarily, signal future violence.18 Although not every stalker overtly threatens the victim, a stalker's course of conduct-by its

   very repetition-causes the victim to feel fear. According to the Department of Justice's 1996 Report to Congress, stalking behavior is characterized by the repetition of certain actions accompanied by the intent to cause fear:

   Stalking is a distinctive form of criminal activity composed of a series of actions (rather than a single act) that taken individually might constitute legal behavior. For example, sending flowers, writing love notes, and waiting for someone outside her place of work are actions that, on their own, are not criminal. When these actions are coupled with an intent to instill fear or injury, however, they may constitute a pattern of behavior that is illegal.19

   Typically, a stalker's behavior escalates from merely annoying to seriously threatening. Over time, a stalker's actions can become "obsessive, dangerous, violent, and potentially fatal."20

   1. Types of Stalking

      Stalking may occur between people who know each well or people who do not know each other at all: "The motivations for stalking cover a wide range of desires for contact and control, obsession, jealousy, and anger-and stem from the real or imagined relationship between the victim and the stalker."21 Based on the relationship with the victim, stalkers generally fall within one of three categories: intimates or former intimates, acquaintances, or strangers.22 Because research in this area is still in its infancy, very little information is available to predict who will become a stalker, particularly in acquaintance or stranger stalking cases.23

   2. National Stalking Survey

      The National Institute of Justice and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention sponsored the first national study on stalking in the United States from November 1995 to May 1996.24 Researchers obtained data for

      the study, known as the National Violence Against Women (NVAW) Survey, from a nationally representative telephone survey of 8000 American women and 8000 American men.25 The NVAW Survey consisted of detailed questions about the survey participants' experiences with violence, including stalking.26 The survey "define[d] stalking as 'a course of conduct directed at a specific person that involves repeated visual or physical proximity, nonconsensual communication, or verbal, written, or implied threats, or a combination thereof, that would cause a reasonable person fear,' with repeated meaning on two or more occasions."27

      The NVAW Survey found that more than ten million Americans- over eight million women and two million men-had been stalked at some time in their lives.28 Women are the primary victims of stalking, and men are the primary perpetrators.29 The NVAW Survey confirmed that most stalking victims know their assailants.30 Young adults are the population

      most at risk of becoming targets for stalkers.31 The average stalking case lasts for 1.8 years, and cases involving intimates or former intimates last an average of 2.2 years.32

      Stalkers engage in a course of conduct which, considered in context, causes reasonable fear in their victims.33 Despite the high level of fear described by the victims, however, less than half of the stalkers overtly threatened the victims.34 The NVAW Survey found that only around half of all stalking victims reported the stalking to the police.35 Female victims were more likely than were male victims to obtain protective orders against their stalkers.36 Most victims who obtained protective orders reported that their stalkers had violated the orders.37 Only thirteen percent of women and nine percent of men reported criminal prosecutions of their stalkers; charges included stalking, making threats, harassment, vandalism, trespassing, breaking and entering, disorderly conduct, and assault.38

      Criminal convictions resulted for about half of those prosecuted for stalking or related crimes.39

      Stalking has strong negative psychological effects on its victims. Concerned about their personal safety, stalking victims reported seeking counseling, missing work or not going back to work at all, and taking a variety of extra precautions-excluding police reports or protective orders-to protect themselves.40 Such self-help measures included obtaining a gun, changing addresses or moving out of town, hiring a private investigator, consulting an attorney, varying driving routes, moving to a shelter, refusing to leave home, getting public records sealed, requesting assistance from family and friends, and avoiding the stalker.41 Commenting on the reaction of the criminal justice system to the impact of stalking

      on the victims, one domestic violence expert noted, "Everyone minimizes [the fact] that this kind of behavior freaks people out."42

   3. Relationship Between Stalking and Domestic Violence

      Results of the NVAW Survey demonstrate a compelling link between stalking and domestic violence.43 Estimates suggest that battered women account for as many as half of female murder victims, and experts believe that stalking may precede a significant number of such murders.44 Eighty-one percent of women stalked by an intimate or former intimate partner were also assaulted by that partner, and thirty-one percent were also sexually abused by that partner.45 Male stalkers are much more likely to physically or sexually assault their intimate partners-in short, to be batterers-than men in the general population.46

2. State Responses to Stalking

   1. California's Anti-Stalking Law

      Beginning with California in 1990, every state enacted anti-stalking legislation.47 The 1989 murder of young actress Rebecca Schaeffer by a male stalker drew attention to the crime of stalking in California.48

      Although typically cited as the impetus for the California law, the Schaeffer murder was not the sole basis for the statute. The domestic violence murders of four women by the men against whom they had protective orders are at the heart of the nation's first anti-stalking law. California Municipal Court Judge John M. Watson initiated the stalking legislation in response to the failure of existing laws to protect women from their domestic abusers...