This state has a funny way of dealing with domestic abuse cases.

If you’re a man and you beat your wife or girlfriend, you can get the case dismissed by having your victim tell the judge she doesn’t feel like testifying. It doesn’t matter that you paid her off or threatened to kill her. But if you’re a female charged with the same offense against a man and he says he doesn’t want to testify, your case will not be dismissed; you have to face trial.

Boston Bruins player Milan Lucic beat and strangled his wife a year ago, but she refused to testify, and charges were dismissed.

The victim had a right not to testify under the spousal privilege law, which allows someone to refuse to testify against a spouse based solely on the fact that they’re married. Most states have exceptions so that the privilege can’t be used to protect batterers and child abusers, but our political leaders think it’s just fine to give abusive men total control over the legal system.

When Lucic’s wife told the court she didn’t want to testify, the judge dismissed the case even though charges could have been proven without her because she made an urgent 911 call, which is admissible under the excited utterance rule. Anytime a person makes a statement under excitable conditions, the statement is admissible as evidence. The judge in the Lucic case inexplicably refused to admit the victim’s 911 statement.

A few months later, Taunton Mayor Shaunna O’Connell was arrested for domestic abuse against her husband. In her case, like Lucic’s, her spouse told the court he did not want to testify. But unlike the Lucic case, O’Connell’s was not dismissed. The prosecutor insisted that the case not be dismissed because Shaunna’s husband made statements during a 911 call that can prove the charges. Trial is set for December 12.

Lucic’s case is exactly the same as O’Connell’s except for one thing:

O’Connell is a woman who abused a man and Lucic is a man who abused a woman.

People used to care about this kind of unfairness, but these days giving a batterer a discount if he hurts a woman has become the norm. Makes sense considering that women still don’t have full and equal “protection” of the laws under the Fourteenth Amendment. Without equal protection, women are less protected by the laws that are supposed to keep them safe. This is obvious beyond the need for research but a gender bias study was done several years ago in Massachusetts and the results showed pervasive bias against women across our legal system.

Many other states conducted similar studies and found similar results. It should come as no surprise then that the number one violent crime facing police in every city and town is domestic abuse, mostly men against women.

If Mayor O’Connell was smart, she would file a motion to dismiss her case on the grounds that continuing to pursue charges against her is discriminatory. At a minimum, such a motion will force the prosecutor and the judge to explain why she is being treated differently than men whose cases were dismissed when their female victims refused to testify. Watch the prosecutor and judge squirm as they struggle to explain why they refused to use women’s 911 calls to prove charges against men.

And keep your eye out for the case against New England Patriots player Jabrill Peppers. He, like O’Connell, is charged with assault and battery by means of a dangerous weapon. He, like O’Connell, abused an intimate partner. But unlike O’Connell, his victim was female so plans are likely underway to tank his case even though his victim doesn’t even have a right not to testify because she was not his wife. Plus, prosecutors have an excited utterance from her that they can use to prove the charges even if she disappears.

If charges against Peppers are dropped, we may as well make domestic violence legal – just like they did in Russia a few years ago. Idiots persuaded Russian lawmakers that it would be good for Russian society if they decriminalized domestic violence for first time offenders. Overnight the rates of woman abuse skyrocketed. Things got so bad that advocates filed a complaint with an international court of human rights, which condemned the move as uncivilized, inhumane, and discriminatory against women.

Massachusetts women deserve better and politicians need to understand that abortion is not the most important women’s issue – violence is. Put more bluntly, Dead women don’t need abortions.

Wendy Murphy is an attorney and longtime victims’ advocate.

Boston Bruins forward Milan Lucic leaves Boston Municipal Court after appearing in response to domestic abuse charges earlier this year. (Matt Stone/Boston Herald)
New England Patriots safety Jabrill Peppers (Matt Stone / Boston Herald, File)