Bullied by the Judicial System
Finding My Voice Against Abuse and Bullying Within the Judicial System
By Marie Stevenson
Warning: This article contains detailed descriptions of abuse that may be upsetting to some readers. Please proceed with caution if you have experienced trauma related to abuse.
In an article published in the November 20, 2024 Fergus Falls Daily Journal, Heather Kantrud discussed the plight of abuse victims in rural communities. “A Weapon Hiding in Plain Sight: Combating Domestic Violence in Rural Communities” was an important discussion on this issue. If you have not read it, I strongly encourage you to do so. Heather’s article quoted from a book that explored the challenges facing abuse victims in small towns. While the article focused primarily on the problem of domestic abuse, the same challenges face victims of child abuse. Heather’s article contained many good and relevant points that should be taken to heart by those of us striving to help abuse victims caught in these types of frightening home situations.
As a victim of child abuse myself, the points and nuances made in Heather’s article hit very close to home. The terms “victim shaming” and the “need for change in [the] legal framework” were of particular interest to me. In my own case, some of the physical abuse I endured started before I was six months old and still in a crib. As children, we were not allowed to laugh, or to cry, and we weren’t allowed to speak at the table; instead, we sat in stone-cold silence. Girls, in particular, were viewed with greater disdain and outright contempt. And I thought this was normal. As the years progressed, I remember the intense yelling, the slaps, and the bleeding. I remember hiding when a fit of rage started or continued for hours on end. At the root of everything we did was a petrifying fear that we were going to “get it.” I also remember lying in my bed at night, pretending to be asleep, listening to what my mother had to endure. When I did sleep, I had recurring nightmares that my abuser was chasing me, trying to kill me.
Because I was the youngest of eight children, I was the last one in the home. Once I no longer had siblings around to help bear the brunt of the verbal abuse, I became the sole target, and succumbed to depression and suicidal thoughts. I eventually confided in school staff and counselors. At age 15, I was hospitalized in a treatment program for 19 days where I heard the stories of other child abuse victims like myself, and watched as those victims frequently turned to drugs or alcohol to numb their pain. I turned 16 while still in the hospital, and after returning home, decided I had to try to fix things and find a solution by myself. A licensed counselor told me I had to get out of that home.
Heeding his advice, I packed all of my belongings into two paper bags and moved out. For over seven months, I slept on the couch at a friend’s tiny 1-bedroom apartment before renting my own apartment later that year. It was a full year before I experienced the joy of sleeping in a real bed again, loaned to me by an elderly woman. I worked up to three jobs to support myself. I was the talk of the town, but didn’t tell most people what had caused me to leave home, because I didn’t know whom I could trust.
At 17, my mom moved in with me. My abuser came looking for me at my place of work and confronted me in a room full of restaurant patrons, demanding to know my mother’s whereabouts. I was terrified! When I refused to divulge her location, he stormed out of the building with fury in his eyes. I called my mom on the phone and frantically begged her not to open the door if he looked for her at my apartment. I suffered a massive panic attack after he left, fearing for my own and my mother’s safety. When my future husband began dating me over a year later, he was shocked to find that even after a brief, uneventful, public encounter with this man, I was physically unable to speak. It took many years after we were married to overcome some of that trauma. My husband helped me to achieve some measure of a normal life by giving me a sense of safety, security, and stability. This helped me to overcome the panic attacks that had plagued me as a teenager, and I was panic-attack free for over 24 years. However, the intense fear of my childhood abuser never went away.
Survivors of abuse not only struggle with their past but often face new battles in the legal system, as my own experience demonstrates. My husband and I moved our business and family to Fergus Falls in September 2000, and in all of the years since then, I had only confided small portions of my childhood history to three people in this entire community. Business owners, associates, and delivery drivers knew me as a competent woman, able to confidently handle the demands of a high-volume international business with my husband. No one, not even people from church, knew or would have guessed what my childhood was like or that I was deathly afraid of anyone. That was the stigma of being a child abuse survivor – I didn’t talk about it. Seeking to protect my privacy and vulnerabilities, my husband didn’t tell his relatives any details about my past either, afraid that someone would use it against me someday.
Some of you may recognize my name from an October 26, 2024, article in the Fergus Falls Daily Journal’s yearly breast-cancer awareness edition entitled “Don’t Delay, Like I Did: Lessons and Reflections from a Breast Cancer Survivor.” In that article, I detailed my cancer journey, but also explained that the reason I delayed my diagnosis resulted from a series of events where a group of individuals contacted someone from my childhood of whom I was deathly afraid and sent him a wealth of sensitive information about me, causing me significant distress. The person they contacted, first without my knowledge and then against my wishes, was my childhood abuser. Because they refused to voluntarily stop their actions, I followed a suggestion from our local police department and contacted two separate attorneys who sent four cease and desist letters in an attempt to avoid litigation. However, this group of individuals refused to agree to cease contact with my childhood abuser. Eventually, based again on a recommendation from our local police department, I filed a lawsuit in Otter Tail County District Court. The justice system is supposed to enforce the law fairly and help protect vulnerable members of the general public from further victimization, or so I thought.
The judge in my case actually suggested that my reaction of suffering five panic attacks as a result of these intentional, repeated contacts with my childhood abuser was “completely divorced from rational processes.” Really? Is it “completely divorced from rational processes” for an abuse victim to fear her childhood abuser, when she can still remember the severe sting of his slaps, the taste of the blood in her mouth, and the subsequent choking and gagging sensation over 40 years later? Is it completely divorced from rational processes for an abuse victim to be terrified, when she has been warned by family members about possible threats to her own physical safety? I considered this statement by the judge to be shockingly ignorant and appalling!
The judge claimed that I was “(unreasonably) outraged” at what the Defendants had done. Was I really being “unreasonably outraged” when my adversaries sent sensitive information about me directly to my childhood abuser or when I found out that one of the people who approved the initial contact with him was a Licensed Professional Clinical Counselor (LPCC) who was also aware that I was living away from home while still in high school? Was I really being unreasonably outraged when these people were made aware of my history, my fear, and my first panic attack, yet chose to disclose my private information to him despite this knowledge?
The judge in my case also stated, “Average members of the community might … respond to the report of such conduct with a groan or an eyeroll, but little more” and perhaps interject an “Uff-Da.” Reading those comments for the first time, in the judge’s order, brought back memories of all of the victim blaming and shaming I had experienced over the years. Some people simply don’t understand the mindset of abuse victims, the struggles to overcome the effects of that abuse, and how long-lasting those impacts can be. I didn’t expect an experienced district court judge, who took an oath to be fair and impartial, to be one of those people. Based on the reactions I have received from people who have heard my story, I think average members of this community would have reacted much differently than the way the judge suggested.
After what I have seen of the legal system, it is no wonder that many abuse victims decide not to come forward and prosecute their cases. While attempting to stop behavior that was causing me severe distress (and which ultimately delayed my cancer diagnosis and treatment, worsening my prognosis), I had to tolerate defense attorneys who attempted to humiliate me for my panic attacks, downplayed my childhood abuse, hired private investigators to surveil me inside and outside of my home, repeatedly violated a protective order, and demanded access to all of my medical records from birth onward – including the records related to my recent breast cancer diagnosis and surgery. I also had to tolerate a judge who appeared to me to be inherently biased, minimizing my childhood abuse by stating that I had only spoken about it “colloquially,” and trivializing the perpetrator’s actions when he stated that they failed to rise above the level of a “petty oppression.” Based on my experience, any action that causes a woman to suffer a panic attack and fear for her own safety does, indeed, rise above the level of a petty oppression. Perhaps an average member of our community should inform this judge that there is nothing colloquial about child abuse and that intentionally targeting and terrorizing an abuse victim, despite knowledge of the victim’s vulnerabilities and her severe reaction to a prior event is more than a “petty oppression.”
Finally, the judge stated that I had “no right” to tell the perpetrator what he could or could not do, nor did I have a right to prevent the perpetrator from sharing my private information with my childhood abuser, even when that included my private email addresses and efforts that my husband and I had taken to protect me from him over the years. As a victim who was petrified of her former abuser, I apparently had no rights at all, not even to protect myself, according to the judge in my case.
After I grew deeply concerned about the legal system in Otter Tail County, the defiant language of the Defendants in their court papers threatening further contact with my childhood abuser, and the unwillingness of the judge to deal with any of the perpetrator’s morally reprehensible behavior, I filed for a Harassment Restraining Order (HRO) in Dakota County. I felt that I was being bullied – by the Defendants, by their attorneys, and by the judge – to close my mouth, back down, and let them run roughshod over me – no matter what it did to my emotional, physical, and psychological health. What I found in Dakota County was a refreshing change! In stark contrast to what I experienced locally, the judge in Dakota County was sympathetic to what I had endured. He stated during the HRO hearing, “I know you’re afraid of your [childhood abuser], and frankly you have every right to be and any person that’s gone through what you’ve gone through would have those rational reasons for it.” The judge in Dakota County also made it abundantly clear to the perpetrator that further actions taken against me would cause him to sign an HRO “in a hurry.”
The road to escaping and overcoming child abuse was a long and complicated journey for me. Attempting to stop people from bullying me and my family 30-35 years later based on their knowledge of this abuse was even more of a challenge. I only wanted safety, security, and privacy. Instead, the secrets I held for so long have come out into the open as a result of forwarded emails, legal filings, court documents, depositions, and protective order violations. Furthermore, the judge refused to address any of the numerous protective order violations, even though the violations involved sensitive deposition testimony about abuse and the release of my private medical records. Over a four year period of time, the judge never issued a single word of rebuke to the Defendants or their attorneys regarding any of these violations. Not one.
Something must be done in Otter Tail County to protect abuse victims FROM the legal system. What I have had to endure from defense attorneys and an OTC judge should never happen to anyone again, no matter how tone-deaf they may be about the long-lasting effects of child abuse. We cannot allow the weakest among us to be bullied this way. If we keep allowing abuse victims to be marginalized and belittled in the courtroom and during the legal process, fewer and fewer victims will have the courage to come forward and fight the battle, especially those who need our help the most.
To other women or abuse victims in Otter Tail County reading this article, I would like to issue a warning. Because of the statements made by Judge Kevin M. Miller during my case, and because of the many other irregularities I have witnessed, I would strongly caution abuse victims to carefully consider whether or not to have their case heard by Judge Miller. I would also recommend that any woman seeking an HRO consider whether to request a different judge to hear her case, or whether to seek her HRO in a county other than Otter Tail, if possible. I had more success finding empathy, understanding, and justice through a judge in another county than I did in Otter Tail County.
I sincerely thank my husband, daughters, family, friends, and all those who stood by me during these difficult years. I am still attempting to overcome the lingering effects of the abuse from my childhood, but you have helped me to face my fears and given me the courage to start talking openly about it. I have found my voice. I want to step forward and help other women and abuse victims to find theirs. I love this community and I love the people that live in it. Together, we can make it stronger than ever. Let us all work together to do so.
Marie Stevenson
Fergus Falls, MN
