Former Lynn judge, son fight domestic violence

MARBLEHEAD – When former Lynn District Court Presiding Judge Joseph I. Dever was first appointed to the bench in 1987 there were 187 restraining orders issued that year.Women were responsible for requesting 95 percent of those court interventions based on allegations they were victims of domestic abuse. By the mid-1990s, the annual number of restraining orders issued by the Lynn court had exceeded 3,000.”Clearly the problem was worsening, but there was also a new effort to educate police departments about domestic violence in the home and its causes,” said Dever, a Marblehead resident who as mandated by state law retired in August 2005 age 70.”Today, I think the number of petitions has diminished, and that’s directly due to better training and more public awareness of the problem. Most police departments have an officer assigned to handle cases involving domestic violence. There’s a different attitude by law enforcement today. They take it very seriously.”Despite the decrease in restraining orders, advocates trying to curb domestic violence know well that dour economic times typically lead to a spike in incidents.”There’s no question that the petitions increase as the economy slows down. It happens everywhere. Domestic violence and domestic disputes know no social or economic lines. We have batterers in the heart of Lynn and on Marblehead Neck,” said Dever. “It can be a different kind of abuse but it’s just as lethal.”According to Dever, when he retired the percentage of plaintiffs was no longer 95 percent female. Rather, it was 45 percent men, 55 percent women. “That’s a big change from when I came on the job,” he said. “I used to hear a familiar refrain from defense attorneys that these cases were mainly domestic disputes, but over the years that changed, too. It was almost apocryphal that in my last month on the bench, I heard these same attorneys saying, ?Your honor, at least there was no relationship between the plaintiff and the defendant.’ “As a member of the court’s judicial response team, Dever often was awakened in the night to sign an emergency restraining order, also known as a 209A. He soon became familiar with Help for Abused Women and their Children (HAWC), the North Shore’s largest shelter and counseling service for victims of domestic violence.”HAWC was an indispensable institution while I was at the Lynn court,” said Dever, who was appointed presiding judge at Lynn District Court in 1995. “I saw firsthand the wonderful work that the advocates did for victims and their families.”Earlier this month, Dever was named to the HAWC Board of Directors, tapped for his long experience in judicial matters and understanding of domestic violence and its root causes. He already has attended one board meeting and is nurturing a list of ideas on how to continue the struggle against domestic abuse.”I hope that in terms of communication with the various courts, with law enforcement and the bar advocates, I can prove helpful to HAWC,” said Dever, who prior to becoming a judge was head of the Essex County public defender’s office.The retired judge’s son, attorney Joseph P. Dever, 41, also of Marblehead, has been at his father’s side in the struggle to curtail domestic violence.The younger Dever, a partner in the Lynnfield-based law firm Riley & Dever, volunteers his services to the many victims under HAWC’s wing, offering legal counseling and helping them navigate the court system.Even before his father became a HAWC board member, the attorney was participating in the organization’s law clinic. There were other connections to HAWC as well, such as Ray Carey, another board member who was the attorney’s track coach at St. John’s Preparatory School.”On the fourth Tuesday of every month, myself and other lawyers meet with the women at HAWC who have signed up in advance. They come into the law clinic and talk about their legal situations,” said the attorney, noting the women’s problems range from child support and divorce to issues r