Judge John Leventhal is the author
of “My
Partner, My Enemy,” a book chronicling his experiences presiding over the Brooklyn
Domestic Violence Court, the first felony domestic violence court in the nation.
In this New Thinking podcast, Judge Leventhal discusses memorable
cases from his tenure, the domestic violence court model, and why he felt it was important to write a book about
domestic violence. Judge Leventhal presided over the Brooklyn Domestic Violence Court from its opening in June 1996
until 2008. Since 2008, he has served as an associate justice of the New York State Supreme Court in the second department
of the appellate division.RAPHAEL POPE-SUSSMAN: Hi, this is Raphael Pope-Sussman
of the Center for Court Innovation. In today's podcast, we're joined by New York judge, John Leventhal
of the Second Judicial Department, Appellate Division in Brooklyn. From 1996 to 2008, Judge Leventhal presided over
the nation's first Felony Domestic Violence court, based in Brooklyn's Supreme Court. He has chronicled
this experience in a new book, My Partner, My Enemy, from Rowman and Littlefield. My Partner, My Enemy presents vignettes
of some memorable cases Leventhal heard in Domestic Violence court, as well as Leventhal's reflections on how
the justice system can best serve victims of domestic violence. Judge Leventhal, thank you for speaking with me today
and welcome. JUDGE JOHN LEVENTHAL: Thank you. It's my pleasure to participate in this podcast
on a very important subject. POPE-SUSSMAN: Why did you write this book? JUDGE
LEVENTHAL: Well, I was taken by all of the cases that I had and there were some that stuck out to me as very, very
unusual, which was emblematic of the types of cases that judges and people experience in their lives. I thought that
it would be helpful, not only to talk about the cases, but to bring it to dramatic attention, but also to make suggestions
as to how to better protect the victims, the scope of the problem, how the problem has somewhat abated since the
court was established in 1995, and also why we should have specialized courts to deal with domestic violence issues.
POPE-SUSSMAN: Can you describe to our audience, some of whom may not be familiar with the concept of a domestic
violence court, how that court operates? JUDGE LEVENTHAL: We started out as a pilot project in
the aftermath of a very celebrated domestic violence case, the Galina Komar case and, after that, this was really
the project of former Chief Judge Judith S. Kaye, who was really the innovator and mother of all problem-solving
courts in New York and the Center for Court Innovation who came up with all these good ideas and protocols for problem-solving
courts. What we learned at the very beginning is that people continually come back in domestic
violence situations and we were trying to pretty much break the mold and we started the domestic violence court as
a pilot project. It eventually became a model court where the justice department was sending judges and administrators
from all over the country to come watch our court and, eventually the state department was sending judges, administrators
and lawyers from all over the world to watch the court. POPE-SUSSMAN: What happens in domestic
violence court? JUDGE LEVENTHAL: Well, one judge handles the case from the arraignment, on the
indictment, to motions, to pleas, to either trial and sentencing. What happened was that, one of the things that
I learned when I visited Quincy, Massachusetts when I first started, in Quincy, misdemeanors are punishable up to
2-1/2 years for a misdemeanor and the judge had great power over them. What I was struck by that there was a great
