HOUSTON -- A Montgomery County man is the first to be convicted under a new Texas law that allows evidence of repeated domestic violence to lead to harsher sentences.
Bobby Joe Duke, Jr. already had the distinction of being convicted of robbery, forgery and burglary, and stood accused of being an abusive boyfriend as well. Now he has the distinction of being the first prosecuted and convicted under a Texas law that allows that repeated abuse to earn him more time in prison.
He beat her unmercifully almost to death, said the woman s former mother-in-law Patricia Cox. She was beaten almost beyond recognition.
When a passing driver on Highway 105 near Cleveland picked up Mary Malissia Cox in May of last year, she had two black eyes, a fractured nose, and multiple bruises covering her arms and legs.
This was a battered woman if ever there was one, said Montgomery Prosecutor Adrienne Frazior. This is the life this woman led over and over again, and suffered at the hands of someone she thought loved her.
A month later, Cox was assaulted again. This time, the same Conroe police officer who met her at the Montgomery County Women s Shelter after the first attack responded to a disturbance call at the Conroe Motel 6 on Interstate 45. Cox said Duke jumped through the passenger side window of her car and hit her repeatedly in the chest.
Still, the battered woman would not testify against her boyfriend. But prosecutors, with photographic evidence of injuries, witness and police officer accounts of at least two vicious attacks, put Duke on trial with a new prosecution tool.
In September 2009, the Texas legislature created a new offense of Continuous Family Violence. It is a third-degree felony with a sentence range of 2 to 10 years and a $10,000 fine. It requires proof of two or more incidents of family violence in a 12 month period and is designed to hold repeat abusers more accountable.
Without the new statute an individual attack could have been deemed a Class A assault -- only a misdemeanor offense that might lead to a sentence as lenient as probation.
Under this new law we're able to charge them with a third-degree felony with two actual assaults without having a conviction on the first one, said Frazior. And this tool that the legislature has given us to prosecute this allows us to seek a higher penalty and really send a message to batterers and victims alike that we won't tolerate this violence in our community.
The trial lasted just a day and a half and included other critical evidence, including phone calls from jail where Duke continued to threaten his girlfriend:
I don't like to be mean to you. I hate to be mean to you. But you have to open your mind and close your mouth sometimes. And this is one of those times, Duke said in the recorded conversations that were played for the jury. Every time you look in the mirror I hope you see me, he said to his girlfriend. Every time you close your eyes to go to sleep I hope you see me.
With his prior felony convictions taken into account, Judge Lisa Michalk of the 221st District Court on Wednesday sentenced Bobby Joe Duke Jr. to 15 years in prison.
I think it's great, said Patricia Cox. I think he should have been put away for longer than 15 years myself.
And it also helps us prosecute domestic violence for the seriousness that it is, added Frazior. These cases are under reported and under prosecuted.
Prosecutors say they have several other Montgomery County cases in progress where they plan to seek convictions under the same statute.
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