What brought about the recent changes in how California handles these cases?
James Knox: I don’t know if it was recent. I would point to – it’s almost 20 years ago now, probably is exactly 20 years ago – the O.J. Simpson case.
That case changed everything as far as the laws that were in place regarding domestic cases here. In the past, prior to O.J. Simpson 20 years ago, if you had an instance where there was a domestic violence criminal case, if the alleged victim didn’t come forward to testify at the trial, most of the time the cases would be dismissed. After O.J. Simpson, the legislature changed the law to allow the victim’s statement to the police officers to be read into evidence. And that’s unprecedented. You normally have this right to confront and cross-examine the other party.
But in California after O.J. Simpson, if you had a missing witness or a witness who all of a sudden changed their mind and said they didn’t want to testify against the accuser, the statement that they made to the police officer can then come into evidence. And I think after that, so about 1994, 1995, just shortly before I became an attorney, that’s really where we saw the big changes in the law. And then after that, we’ve just seen incremental changes that have strengthened those laws and, again, made these domestic cases, again, very difficult.
James Lawrence Knox is a partner at Milligan, Beswick, Levine & Knox, LLP. For almost three decades, Mr. Knox has been providing aggressive legal representation to clients facing criminal charges, as well as individuals involved in family law issues or facing administrative law proceedings. Mr. Knox, along with the other members of our legal team, is firmly committed to putting the needs of clients first and has a long and distinguished track record to show that he is a skillful litigator and knowledgeable legal professional.