If anyone believes that the Adam Walsh Act is not more harmful than helpful, you folks are closing your eyes to the collateral damages caused by this law. Congress and State lawmakers, ignored in enacting AWA, and continue to ignore the disastrous collateral consequences of AWA, to those affected by the law. This is but one of thousands of stories showing the blind eye of lawmakers and it will continue into the next generation, and beyond!12-22-2009 Michigan:
She paid the price for doing right
Detroit --Kari Norman believes she did the right thing when she called Romulus Police to tell them she found child pornography on her husband's computer.
But she wouldn't do it again.
"I made that call on March 19. That's the day my life fell apart," said Norman, 40, who claims she lost her home and her financial security and attempted suicide before testifying against her husband last month in Wayne County Circuit Court.
Christopher Scott Norman, 42, was sentenced Dec. 10 by Judge James Callahan to serve three to five years for his conviction on 12 counts of child sexually abusive activity and using computers to obtain child pornography.
Law in Michigan bars spouses from being called to testify against each other -- except in cases involving domestic abuse and child pornography. Experts say more women are making the gut-wrenching choice between living with a difficult or even dangerous partner and living without support.
"He's in jail. He has food and a place to sleep. My son and I have nothing," said the Missouri native who landed in homeless shelters after her airline employee husband of just three months was jailed.
"I called the police and asked whether it was illegal to have what I found on the computer. They told me they'd have to look and before I knew it, I had six police officers standing over my shoulder looking at the computer telling me they needed to arrest my husband," she said. "I did everything they asked of me. I drove to the airport to pick him up like normal and brought him home to a dozen waiting police cars. I helped them destroy my life."
Wayne County Prosecutor Kym Worthy, who has complained that she has little money to spend on much needed witness protection, said she can do nothing to help Norman.
"This illustrates that unlike television, a case is never over. There should be aftercare services for victims and some witnesses," Worthy said. "While this doesn't fit squarely into traditional witness protection, it shows the growing need for assistance after a trial is over in certain cases."
Beth Morrison is chief executive officer of HAVEN, a nonprofit organization in Oakland County that runs a shelter and offers care and counseling for victims of domestic assault. She said, "A lot of women make that tough choice. And for many, they eventually are very glad they did."
Morrison compared Norman's plight with the many women paralyzed by the choice of sacrificing their financial security and self-esteem to reveal a spouse's criminal incest.
"When a woman without a substantial support structure calls the police, her life can be completely disrupted. In that situation, you could lose your financial support, your home, your social status, your friends, your job," Morrison said. "I've heard a lot of women say the decision to take action like this was the most difficult and hardest thing they did in their lives, but it saved them their children."
Treated as hostile witness
Shortly before her husband was sentenced, Kari Norman and 12-year-old son Sam boarded a train for Kansas City. Her goal was to straighten out custody issues over Sam with his father, her previous husband in her hometown.
Then, Norman said, she wants to "disappear somewhere into America."
Kari Norman was treated as a hostile witness during the trial by both the prosecutor and her husband's defense lawyer.
The defense theory had been that she set him up, although her MySpace.com page still contains statements of dedication for her husband.
And despite the fact she is the one who alerted police, the prosecution accused her of trying to hide evidence, including marijuana she told police she found in the apartment and then hid from her husband.
"She got the squeeze from both sides," said Richard Krisciunas, the University of Detroit Mercy law professor and retired Wayne County assistant prosecutor appointed by the court to briefly represent Kari Norman.
"Statements she made to Romulus Police got taken out of context, but then she testified at the prelim that she loved him, and I think she said the same thing at the trial," Krisciunas said. "There was a lot going on here that was unusual, but in other ways common. I'm always amazed that witnesses like this come forward at all."
'I should have gotten away'
Norman is luckier than many because she has a mobile and marketable profession as a registered nurse, licensed to work in Michigan and Missouri. But she's frustrated.
"I'm tired of being the good wife. I should have ignored what I found and divorced him first. I should have gotten away from here and then turned him in later. I just didn't realize doing the right thing was going to be so wrong for me," she said.
Debbie McPeek, director of programs at Turning Point, the Macomb County shelter where Norman said she lived from Nov. 20 to Dec. 1, said, "There's always a price to be paid for speaking up and doing the right thing. Domestic violence survivors often pay that price."
McPeek said she has no personal knowledge of Norman's case and insisted every woman who comes to the shelter has a unique story.
"Some women don't act. Some are going to do what they need to do to survive one minute to the next," she said. "If they have social support, a buck available here and there to get out of town, parents or relatives to support them, they are more likely to report wrongdoing."
Turning Point serves about 500 people a year, half of them children with their mothers.
"People may not understand the decision process because these are not choices like deciding if I'm going to have a burger or salad for lunch," McPeek said. "It is very common to see these survivors who are isolated."
A whirlwind courtship
Kari and Christopher Norman married in January in Toledo, just two weeks after he discovered his middle school sweetheart on MySpace. She had recently divorced back home in a Kansas City suburb.
The Normans had been married for only three months when she said she discovered electronic folders on the household computer containing photographs from adult sex parties she said her husband and others organized through Craigslist at Metro Airport area motels.
Other files contained photos of children, toddlers to teens, nude and engaged in sexual activity -- material that Christopher Norman, a Southwest Airlines cargo operations worker, apparently downloaded from the Internet.
"I have nobody in Michigan, but I really don't have any family back in Missouri, either," Norman said. "In the movies, there are witness protection programs, but I guess that doesn't exist in real life. I know I have to find a way to make it on my own. It scares me." ..Source.. Doug Guthrie / The Detroit News
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