"The thing is, you can only get a domestic-violence charge
now if you are a wife beater, not a girlfriend beater,"
Jeff Lazarus, a law clerk for public defender Robert Tobik
told the Plain Dealer.
    There have been no rulings on the motions yet but people who
deal with battered women say they are stunned. 
    "It's a bad, bad thing," Cathleen Alexander, director of the
Domestic Violence Center in Cleveland told the Plain Dealer.
"We're very worried that some victims will not be granted 
the protection they need because they're not married. That 
could jeopardize people's lives.
    Some lawyers, the paper reports, believe that the vagueness 
of the amendment could lead to it being overturned based on 
the U.S. Constitution's 14th Amendment guarantee of equal 
protection under the law. 
    If a judge were accept the public defenders' office argument
it would mean that  a married victim of domestic violence would 
have more protection than an unmarried neighbor beaten by a 
live-in lover, and married and unmarried defendants would be 
treated differently as well.
©365Gay.com 2005 
 
 

 
Court Okays Police Cameras in Restrooms 
Youngstown—An Ohio appeals 
court has ruled that police can 
hide video cameras in public 
restrooms without warrants from 
courts. The decision puts Ohio at 
odds with U.S. Supreme Court 
rulings that people in public 
restrooms have a "reasonable
expectation of privacy."
In a December 18 ruling, the Seventh 
Ohio District Court of Appeals in 
Youngstown upheld the public indecency 
conviction of James Henry of Empire by 
a Jefferson County jury in October, 2001.
The U.S. Supreme Court has routinely 
ruled against secret surveillance in 
public restrooms, locker rooms, jail 
cells and dressing rooms, saying that 
such cameras constitute illegal searches 
and thus violate the Fourth Amendment.
Henry, an openly gay man, was arrested 
as a result of an investigation conducted 
by Saline Township Police Chief Kenneth 
Hayes and Jefferson County Prosecutor 
Bryan Felmet at an Ohio Department of 
Transportation rest stop on Ohio 7 near 
the Ohio River between Toronto and East 
Liverpool.
During the five-month investigation of 
sexual activity there, video cameras 
hidden in light fixtures recorded the 
action of every man who entered the men’s
 restroom for shifts of eight hours at a 
time.
Henry, 47, was one of 13 gay, or suspected 
to be gay, men who were notified of their 
arrest by mail in July. One of the men 
arrested had never been to the rest area, 
though his car had.
Since two of the cameras monitored the 
parking lot, police could see if men were 
accompanied on their visit to the rest 
area. Police did not arrest men who arrived 
at the park with women, although in some cases 
those men walked around the restroom with 
their genitals exposed.
Henry was in the restroom for a total of 47 
seconds on May 9, 2001. The tape shows Henry 
entering, standing at the urinal, and leaving 
the restroom.
But at the trial, prosecutors convinced a jury 
that because Henry stepped back from the urinal 
before fastening his pants, his conduct could
 have been interpreted as masturbation by someone 
walking into the restroom.
Prior to trial, Henry’s attorney, Sam Pate of 
Steubenville, attempted to suppress the tape on 
constitutional grounds.
Jefferson County Common Pleas Judge Joseph Corabi 
allowed the tape, which then became the only piece 
of evidence at the trial.
In their unanimous opinion, the three-judge panel 
said that Henry had "no reasonable expectation of 
privacy so long as he remained in the common area."
Chief Hayes had removed the privacy dividers 
between the urinals in order to give the cameras 
a clearer view.
Those dividers have since been replaced. But that 
information did not come out during the trial, and 
was not known by the appeals court.
Judge Mary DeGenaro wrote the decision for the 
court. At the August hearing, DeGenaro made it 
clear to Pate that she would focus on Henry’s 
conduct at the urinal, not whether or not the 
cameras constituted an illegal search.
DeGenaro cited a 1987 Fifth District case where 
two male defendants were arrested in a rest area 
pit toilet with no door lock having oral sex. That 
court also said that the defendants had no right 
to privacy.
But unlike Henry’s case, where the only witness 
to any restroom activity was a camera, an Ohio 
highway patrol officer had observed the men prior 
to their arrest.
Another legal reference used by the court was a 
1982 First District decision where the court 
allowed University of Cincinnati security officers 
to look under the short stall doors and through 
openings between the stall frames to arrest people 
for sexual activity.