Can I get a witness? No, really

There's a dust-up in San Mateo, thanks to a strongly worded editorial written by Deputy District Attorney Morris Maya that argued a grave danger posed by one of Leland Yee's bills.

What, a Yee bill that's not brilliant? As if.

Anyway, the Yee's bill would, according to the article, create an exception for domestic violence victims similar to what exists for sexual assault victims which protects them from being jailed for not testifying.

The DAs Association also opposes the bill as it takes away a key tool in prosecuting cases. Witnesses to domestic violence are most frequently victims or children (who can be victims as well, for that matter).

Maya wrote, rather poetically:

"Every domestic beating will be ended with the phrase, 'If you testify, I will kill you,' " he wrote in his letter to the editor, which the Daily Journal published Friday. "Successful prosecution of domestic violence will go down and ... cemeteries will become much, much more crowded."

So Yee, natch, had a press conference:

Maya wrote the letter as an individual, not as a representative of the district attorney's office, but it prompted Yee to hold a news conference Wednesday in front of the San Mateo County courthouse in Redwood City during which he called for the bill's passage and denounced Maya's "offensive and insulting rhetoric."

Yee was flanked by victims' rights group leaders as well as by Katina Britt, a domestic violence victim ordered jailed in that same courthouse in December 2005 for refusing to testify. Britt remained free pending her appeal and ultimately was never jailed.

"What irks me about (Maya's) column is it's fundamentally wrong to re-victimize victims," said Yee, D-San Francisco. "For him to sensationalize and exaggerate what may be the potential problems with this particular bill, it makes me wonder - does this guy really understand domestic violence cases, not just the law, but the psychology of it?"

Tap, tap, okay Mr. Yee, but the point is that the people who are trying to prosecute violent offenders can't do it without witnesses. It's like a tough love thing. Yee's supporters say the victims are in a better position to decide if they can testify or not. If they can see through swollen eyes or talk through split lips, I guess.

There's a lot more to the psychology really at work here than what Yee seems to comprehend. No one WANTS to jail a victim of domestic violence. But how do you break the cycle and jail the offenders? There's no winner in this situation.

I hope the DDA doesn't get fired for writing the piece.