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Sonoma County, a diverse county of over one million acres is famed for its agriculture industry and recreation boasting a booming economy and a unique lifestyle for its citizens described by the theme Luther Burbank as the chosen spot of all the earth. Sonoma County is the place

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to live, work and play as we move into the 21st century. Led by the forward looking philosophy of its governing bodies. Sonoma County's 340,000 residents are a harmonious, successful blend of ethnic and economic backgrounds. We invite you to take a closer look at Sonoma County in

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the nineties with your host, Rich McGlinchey, Welcome to this edition of Sonoma County in the 90s. A very interesting program coming up here. We're gonna be talking about domestic violence, but we're also going to be talking about temporary restraining order clinic. We're gonna be talking to

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two people who are very deeply involved in this. They are both members of the Sonoma County task force on violence, Paula Oswald. The rose in the middle of us thorns here and District Attorney Mike Mullins and Michael, congratulations on your victory last year. Thank you. Rich

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takes a long time to get around to congratulate. Thanks a lot. Nonetheless appreciated. Well deserved. We're going to talk about domestic violence, the temporary restraining order clinic, things that are desperately needed in light of what's been happening in the last few years. And uh, Paula, I

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know you've been involved in this not only now, but before you're also one digression. You're also going into law, aren't you? Yeah, I'm a second year. Law student right now. Well, congratulations! One more year and then the barges and I don't want to think about that

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right now, Paulie. Well, first of all, let's ask you this. How long have you been involved with domestic violence issues? Well, I started in San Mateo County, I went through their volunteer training program and um, 1990. And um, and then I moved up here a couple

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a year later and started getting involved up here a little bit. And then I got involved with the clinic about a year and a half ago. Um, let's digress just a minute from the regular questions what prompted you to be involved in this? Was it personal

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experience? It's personal. It's my own experience. And um, I wanted to turn back and help some people that had helped me or, you know, give back to the community for the wonderful assistance that I was able to get to change my life around. That's very, I

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think that's wonderful for ladies and gentlemen, the audience, someone here who experienced the problems that they're now working with. And I think that's always very meaningful to any of us. Now, I have a number of questions here and I'm gonna ask them so whichever one of

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you wants to answer just jump in and if the other has something to say about it, by all means contributing. What is a temporary restraining order clinic? We'll go ahead and answer that. I guess what it is is a place where someone can go whose experience

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experiencing violence in their home? It doesn't have to be physical, it can be just a threatening type of environment to get help with the forms. They're very complicated. And usually a person who needs that type of help um, is under a lot of stress at that

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point in their life. And it's very complicated for them to sit down and understand and and fill out the forms with comprehension so that the judge can grant their order. Well, anybody that comes to it at a time like this, it's got to be an emotional

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mess almost to put it bluntly. Right? Yeah, it's it's a very difficult situation and oftentimes there's Children involved and there may be some type of little battle going on about who's gonna take care of the Children and how the Children are being uh sort of torn

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between in the situation. Um, and uh so often people come in and we'd ask people not to bring Children, but there often are in the clinic, small Children and older Children. And um and it does make it difficult, but it's important that the person gets the

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restraining order papers filled out. And that's the most important thing is people a lot of times are physically hurt too, aren't they? Sometimes we come in with people who have recently been beaten and they have been, you know, have physical marks on them. This next question.

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It's almost humorous except that nothing about this subject is humorous. Why is there a need for such a clinic? Well again I'd say that the the papers are very complicated and I wish the system were simpler and someone could just go and explain the situation and

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not have to do this legal procedure which I find is is the last thing the person is capable of doing. Um and if it's not done correctly they won't get their order signed and it may not mean that the judge doesn't believe that they need the

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order. It may be a technicality but you know normally they're pretty good about the judge's understanding that but it sometimes it does happen. I can give you a personal experience which before the clinic started in in in Sonoma County. Traditionally there was time allotted by the

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judges, usually at four o'clock in the afternoon to meet people who needed a temporary restraining order and a particular day might be a thursday or friday. And of course I would have business at the courts too. So sometimes I would go to the judge's chambers which

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as you know is really a small outer office occupied by the secretary and then the inter office occupied by the judge. And on one particular occasion I remember before we we got this really rolling, I was sitting in the judge's chambers waiting to speak to him

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about some criminal case coming up uh a woman came in and middle aged with two Children who of course didn't want to be their two small Children under six and I have kids and you know how they can be late in the afternoon. They're not happy,

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they're hungry. Um She had brought the packet of papers brought to her by the clerk and filled them out in the hall. Now there there was no place first of all to fill them out. You know, the hall and the Hall of Justice. Right. It's a

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cold concrete lined hall Canaveral. This, you know, with windows on one side, hardly a hospitable place, but it's not meant to be and it's not meant to be a place for somebody who has to fill out a long legal documents. All right. She's got two Children

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who are not happy. She's trying to fill out the form. She walks in the judge's chambers and the clerks by law cannot provide them with legal information. That would be totally inappropriate. So by law, they cannot give them help. The clerks downstairs who hand him the

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packet. All right. So, she's got the packet she might want to ask a question, but there's nobody to answer the question. She fills that out as best she can with the two kids here. She's walked into the judge's chambers and the secretary reviews the forum and

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there's a couple of places that are blank. So the secretary properly tells her that, well, you've got to finish the form and and here's the areas. And the lady tried to ask a question well, but I don't understand this particular question that Secretary of course by

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law cannot give her information either. So she says, I can't answer your question for you. And the woman left. Now, I was willing to bet that rather than persevere and try and get this information and get the document filled out, she gave up and went back

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home to maybe a dangerous situation. That's just one. But that happened every day and it was nobody's fault. It just happened. So something had to be done. One of the other reasons too. It reminds me that the clerks were saying that maybe 20 people would come

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in and ask for the forms, they'd go away and some of them would try to ask questions. But of course the clerk couldn't answer. But then at the end of the day, only 10 people were coming back with the forms to get them signed. So there

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were 10 other people out there that weren't getting their papers done And that was a real concern for the clerks. And one thing I really admire in this working with this project is the clerks caring about the community and they really were very frustrated and they

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could see that they wanted to help people but they couldn't bureaucracy rears its ugly head and unfortunately was involved in this for 25 years to Mike knows it just seems like many of the times when these things are done or even the laws are passed. The

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secretary can't help that you're not thinking in the in the real world. But the point is that could be a real, real complex problem. And like you say, I'm sure from what you two of you have just said, half the people did did not pursue the

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assistance they needed because the monumental forms. And this is where you people really come in, right. One of these two, it says on the forms that the forms have to be typed and many people don't know how to type. Don't have access to a typewriter even

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though there is one in the hallway as Mike was mentioning that same area to be doing a personal thing. You know, typing out these papers. It's not a good place to do it. And one of the things they allow us to do with the judges is

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to fill them out with with pens and that makes the process go a little a little bit faster. People can just naturally write out their situation so that they can write it down for the judge and it moves a little quicker, rest comfortably for a moment.

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Ladies and gentlemen, a special message after which District Attorney Michael Mullins and Paula Oswald and I will return. We'll talk more about domestic violence and the temporary restraining order clinic first. This important message. Amnesia last time on pueblo 8109 marco. Remember using this free cattle opposite

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for this free, low cost government publications on saving money, getting federal benefits staying healthy. And the catalog is free. Free information on educating our Children. Send your name and address to new catalog, pueblo colorado 81 oo nine. Don't forget like marco Marco, who's marco Welcome back

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ladies and gentlemen to this edition of Sonoma County in the nineties. We're talking about domestic violence and we're talking about especially temporary restraining order clinic uh, here in Sonoma County. We're talking with District Attorney Mike Mullins and Paula Oswald, both members of the Sonoma County Task

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Force on Violence. Uh, once again, whomever feels they'd like to answer the question 1st. Jump in who sparked the initiation of such a clinic? Let me jump in because paul doesn't like to brag about herself. Okay, come to know her over the last three years and

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it was really her idea. She, in a meeting of the task force told the task force about her experience in san mateo County. Both as a volunteer, what she observed and how it could be done. So people on the task force started talking about it. MS

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Kaswell actually picked up the ball and ran with it though. She contacted the courts about getting space. She contacted the Y. W. C. A. In order to provide training for the volunteers because you have to have someone who can give the volunteer the necessary information to

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help fill out the forms. She organized this group of people. I had observed a successful clinic in Sacramento County when I was there prosecuting a homicide case. I happened to be housed in the domestic violence unit. And I saw how well it worked in Sacramento County.

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They could use law students to do this. So I was familiar with that success. But it was really this Oswald who was the moving force and now the clinic has a different shape, but still she deserves really the credit. Now. Why don't you talk about it?

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How you really got it going? Yeah. And how it works. The thing I wanted to ask you and I think the public wants to know is how did it develop? Okay. I just want to start off by letting people know to where it is. It's not

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the Hall of Justice. So that's one thing I just want to put in there because people might be wondering about that. But how it got started basically was the, I was a student at Sonoma State and I wanted to do it as an internship to sort

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of have a little project to work on. And so being on the task force for a couple of years, this was one of the things that was presented to the board of supervisors. This was a thing that was needed in this county. So, um, I decided

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to work on that since I was interested in law and um, I already had experience doing restraining orders. Um, and so it was really easy because there were, everybody was ready for it to happen. So basically I just had to call a few people and say,

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I'm willing to sort of do the footwork and we'll go ahead and and see what we can make it into pauline Joslin at the courthouse was somebody who supported me and, and had wonderful ideas and really wanted to make this happen. Um, and uh, many other

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people at the courthouse and the District Attorney's Office Commission on the status of women. Um, and the Y W. C. A were very supportive of this. Um, you know, let me digress just for a moment. This is a beautiful idea. Uh, and the way you're evolving

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it or has involved or developing it if you will. Um, it is successful and it's going to be monumentally more successful in time. Michael, as an assigned. I often wonder why we don't address other problems similar to that where the mountain of paperwork handed to people

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who have limited knowledge of these things actually deters them from, from following through and getting justice done, shall we say and whatever the case may be. But I guess that's the world we live in. Well, sometimes it takes a special person with a lot of energy

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to get things going. Now you're talking about. I think what's important in having this show today is letting people know that there's people in the county that want to reach out and help people and have a place to come where they come in it it is

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a courtroom, but we're all very caring and concerned. Volunteers were not there because someone is paying us, we're there because we want to help our community and we want people to know that it's not okay to be treated in a threatening manner. It's not okay to

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be um, to be demeaned, it's not okay to be hit. It's not okay for um people to live in that type of situation. They deserve better and we can help them make the first step to get out and restraining order is an empowering process for an

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individual. Even though it's very complicated. Once a person gets that restraining order their hands and they get signed by the judge, that person's life has changed in a huge amount in a short period of time. Who are the persons who are the agencies that participate in

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this clinic? The court provides the space and coordinates are space allocation started out doing the clinic in two afternoons a week where shortly we're going to go to four afternoons a week. So the court helps us by giving us a courtroom that's open and we actually

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use the courtroom itself. The Y W. C. A. Provides the training to the volunteers and training is coordinated by the victim witness advocate. Currently we have one victim Witness advocate in our office. She Miriam Gaon has been charged with the responsibility of the overall coordination of

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this particular function. Although I think in the future there's going to be a need for at least a half time person separate and apart actually to do nothing but coordinate that particular clinic and that it's something that I want to develop in future budget sessions with

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the board of supervisors. This is a long range goal. There are a lot of other things the victim witness advocate can do. But right now this is her first priority. The the District Attorney's Office pays for the training out of our budget for the volunteers and

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we're going to continue to do that. The Volunteer Center of Sonoma County of course provides us with the Volunteers itself and then we have of course security with the Sheriff's Department who provides the overall security itself. The task force has been in the commission on the

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status that women really has been the overall moving for us if you will to try and coordinate. And despite her, her heavy schedule as a law student, Miss Oswald of course is involved in our meetings. We're going to start having meetings at least once a month

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for the temporary restraining the temporary store in our clinic. Right. It was once a month or two weeks. I can't remember. I think we're going to start off with two weeks. Okay We need to do it every two weeks to make sure we're coordinating our activities.

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One of the issues we were worried about is whether or not we might be gender biased and we found by running some numbers that we serviced about 480 people, About 480 since we started 420 of those were women and 60 were men. So we all recognize

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that the clinic itself is not and cannot be of course for one gender. We can't just do it for women. We do it for men and women. And one of the concerns we've had is whether or not we might be giving a restraining order to somebody

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who's actually a better that issue has risen and we've developed some procedures to try and provide the court with information after the fact if somebody happens to come in that has a pending criminal case. So we're working on, there are always issues that need to be

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worked on like this. But that's one of them were approaching. I think that that that can be a problem. Let me ask something digressing from their questions down to ask you a temporary restraining order is issued by the court who requests that you No. Why don't

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you explain how that works? Well um that the person finishes filling out what they fill out an application and a declaration with the declaration. That's sort of a little story about what the situation is and then they take the papers down to the Clerk's office. And

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they give them they give them over there at 4:00 and the judge signs them. There's not really any other intervening group agency that helps or assist the person. Um, other than that there's family court mediators who helped review review the papers to make sure that they're

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filled out correctly. Um, but then they just go straight to the judge. That's interesting. I'm just wondering if the audience in general realized how they come about. But what you're saying, if I understand you correctly is the woman who comes in and fills out these papers

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with your help will say then goes over to the clerk's office. Attorney is not involved in this point or they might they don't have to be involved at all. They could be involved. But a lot of people simply can't afford it. And the group that we're

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servicing are people that do not or cannot afford to have an attorney available for them. All right, we have to pause again for another important public service announcement after which Mike Mullins, Paula Oswald and I will be back. We'll talk more about Domestic violence and certainly

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more about the temporary restraining order clinic. 1st. This important message. Listen to the heartbeat of the earth. All life depends on that beat the earth has always provided for us today. As in the past, we must keep this heart strong. Give back to the Earth call

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1 800 the soil for your free action packet harmony, a partnership with a healthy land. Welcome back to the final segment of this edition of Sonoma County in the nineties. We're talking about domestic violence. We're talking about the temporary restraining order clinic. We're talking to two

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people who are vitally involved in this district Attorney. Michael Mullins mike. I'm not gonna say Michael, I've known him too long and Paula Oswald and they're both members of the Sonoma County Task Force on violence. And they've given us a lot of information about the importance

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of the temporary restraining order clinic and how it operates. But we have a few more things. I want to know one of the problems and vision for the continued operation of the clinic. Well it's growing okay. So budget is a number one issue is I I

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said it's going from, we started two days a week, two afternoons a week. We're going to four afternoons a week. So I think there's a need for at least half time person in addition to the victim witness advocate that's currently coordinating this to do nothing but

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try and coordinate this particular activity. It's not a big budget item but I can see in the future that we're gonna need someone simply to address a lot of issues. For example, we've got a long term plan for a central repository for restraining orders so that

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on one data bank, a police agency, any police agency in the county could on a 24 hour basis, plug into our data bank and find out. Is there a restraining order against, against Cynthia smith right now? Right now that doesn't exist. That's something that needs to

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be developed. I think for the future, you know, restraining orders can be issued after normal duty hours. There's an emergency protective order uh that was created by statute approximately three years ago. That allows the police to be able to contact the judge directly on a sunday

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afternoon and obtain an emergency protective order. We need a means to put that protective order once it's issued into this data bank also. So even though there's, there might be a restraining order, let's say against Jon jones who's not supposed to approach his estranged wife. Maybe

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the wife lives in santa rosa but works in Petaluma. So both police agencies need to be aware of this particular protective order. Um That's something for the future. And I don't think that's a high budget item, but it's something that we need. So somebody needs to

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coordinate this. Everybody, everybody's got to know what everybody else is. Restraining orders are put into a system now it's a statewide system that's mandatory that they have to be put into that. So a police officer should be able to look it up and see that it's

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in the system. But what happens is they like many counties want to have it on file. So they have the piece of paper in their office so they know that it's valid or whatever. But um I think that with the emergency protective order is often times

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um police officers aren't really clear about how they're supposed to be used and how much leeway they have in and issuing them. And what can happen is they'll just say you need to go get a restraining order next week and they really should be issuing those

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restraining orders immediately for those people. Um I don't know what type of level they expect the person to have to be in. But most of them if they feel that they're being threatened at all, they should immediately get an emergency protective order at least at last

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for what five days. And then you know it's just a five day thing and then later they can go for that temporary restraining order. If the judge doesn't believe there's enough reason then that can be dealt with and that's the judge's decision. But I think that

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the police officers should be should be more, you know, freer and issuing those emergency protective orders even though there's a state system. I think a local system is needed though on top of that because it takes too long in my experience to retrieve that particular information

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for the local police department. That's all the restraining order. You know, not only empowers the victim which is one way to look at it but it also empowers the police. Imagine the frustration of a policeman who comes by the home, the estranged wife is distraught. Maybe

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there's a broken window, typically some vandalism to the home and he asked if this is a misdemeanor that now not occurred in his presence. So he has limited powers of arrest under that circumstance. If there's a restraining order now, he could perhaps affect that arrest easier

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even though he didn't see that particular vandalism. So it empowers the police to take greater action than they would be able to take in a normal circumstance. Yeah, if if the person who's the defendant is on the restraining order and they're anywhere near the presence of

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the house, then, you know, 100 yards is usually the limit, then they can be arrested for contempt of that order. Uh, we have about three questions in about three minutes. What kind of training do your volunteers need? The training is very, very important. It's two Saturdays.

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We have them three times a year. Our next training will be coming up in january and um, it consists of understanding the dynamics of a domestic violence relationship, how to work with someone under stress. And of course, very lengthy process of going over the restraining order

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forms because every person who comes in, the clinic has got a different situation and um, some of the orders that we do fill out are the domestic violence restraining also civil harassment, which can be a neighbor and a neighbor situation. Um, but the family law situation

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if someone already has some type of divorce proceeding going on, Most of our volunteers are not trained for, that's not part of the training. Some of people are paralegals and they already know how to do those forms so they can do them. But um, otherwise it's

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mostly domestic violence and civil harassment. Um, and the trainings are the two Saturdays. There are approximately from 9 to 3 or 9 to 4. Um, and there at the courthouse to, and if anybody's interested in finding out about the training, they can contact the county volunteer

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office and they can fill out an application with john Matheny and um, she'll get the number to me. So I can contact the people are interested in. That number is 5 to 7 to 317. We're down to about a minute here. And one of the things

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that I ask is, um, what could a person do, who is afraid who's being abused or something like that And it's the weekend. How do they get help? Call the police Department where they live, where the violence is occurring or the threat of violence is occurring.

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The local police department then or if you live in the county, you call the Sheriff's Department has the ability to call a judge. If the facts are sufficient to obtain emergency protective order, that's what they need to do. Should it occur after duty hours. Okay. We're

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going to about a minute and I just kind of want to wrap up our program by stressing some of the key points. And that is that we do need volunteers, right? You can don Matheny at the personnel office for the county of Sonoma. That number is

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5-7-317. And I see by my friend over here we're out of time. So thank you. Thank you. My pleasure to have you back and incidentally, maybe in the spring you can come back and we could go into this further. We'd love to ladies and gentlemen program

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Sonoma County in the 90s. I'm rich. My guests, District Attorney Mike Mullins and Paula Oswald, both members of the Sonoma County Task Force on Violence. I'll be back with you next week with other members of the county government family or a related agency until then. Good

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night. Good luck and good health to number one. If you're a subject of violence, take care. Take involve yourself. I guess I should say in the temporary restraining order committee. Thank you for being with us and good night. Mhm