Protective order requests explode with new Virginia law

2-19-2012 Virginia:

Virginia residents by the hundreds — some frightened, some angry — have flocked to their local courthouse in recent months to get a protective order under a new provision of state law.

They pleaded their cases before general district court clerks and then judges, hoping to get some relief from their abusers, tormentors or adversaries.

The volume of applications for protective orders in Virginia has soared since the new law that makes them much easier to get — removing obstacles that formerly existed for non-family members — went into effect July 1.

Statewide, the number of protective orders and emergency protective orders granted through general district courts increased more than 15 fold during the last six months of 2011 compared with the same period in 2010, before the law went into effect, according to data compiled by the Virginia Supreme Court at the request of the Richmond Times-Dispatch.

A total of 2,015 full protective orders and 4,941 emergency protective orders were granted during the first six months of the new law, from July 1, 2011, to Dec. 31, 2011. By comparison, only 141 full protective orders and 272 emergency protective orders were granted during the same six-month period in 2010, state figures show.

These figures don't include the number of preliminary protection orders issued statewide because the Virginia Supreme Court cannot yet capture that data accurately, a spokeswoman said.

Courts in Richmond and Chesterfield and Henrico counties — and to a lesser degree Hanover County — have been hit hard by the surge of requests. Collectively, the number of full protective orders in the four localities jumped from 13 in the last half of 2010 to 538 during the same period in 2011. Emergency protective orders spiked from 50 to 441.

The motivation for last year's change in state law was the nationally publicized death of University of Virginia student Yeardley Love, whose ex-boyfriend, George W. Huguely V, is on trial now in Charlottesville on a first-degree murder charge in her 2010 death. A number of high-profile cases of domestic violence in the Richmond area also fueled concern.

Authorities said it would have been difficult for Love to have received a protective order under Virginia's old law, which was deemed lacking compared with laws in many other states. ..For the remainder of this story: by Mark Bowes , Chris I. Young