On April 22, 2024, the New Jersey Supreme Court decided the case Gloucester County case of C.R. v. M.T. The principal issue under N.J.S.A. 2C:14-16 concerned the standard for issuance of a final protective order under the Sexual Assault Survivor Protection Act.
Justice Wainer Apter wrote for the Court in relevant part: We defer to the trial court’s factual findings because they are supported by substantial evidence, and we find no error in the court’s legal conclusion. Clara testified that she is “affected by what happened every day.” She explained that she has seen multiple therapists, cannot sleep, has a hard time making friends or trusting people, and has “terrible intimacy issues.” She told the court that she feared for her safety, felt terrified each time she was unsure of her surroundings, and had a hard time going shopping on her own. She detailed how she had lost her “sense of self-worth,” and how the sexual assault had “destroyed her, honestly.”
The remand judge found her testimony “credible and believable.” The judge concluded that there was a “possibility of future risk” to Clara’s “safety or well-being” if the FPO put in place by the original trial judge were to be dissolved or modified. He therefore ordered the FPO to remain in effect.
We are not persuaded by Martin’s claims of error. Martin first argues that requiring only a “possibility of future risk” to a victim’s safety or well-being runs afoul of our analysis in C.R. I, because “unless one or the other party is dead, there is always a possibility, however miniscule, of future risk” and factor two would thus be met “in every single SASPA case.”
Martin misconstrues our statement in C.R. I that “it cannot be that simply filing for a protective order is sufficient to create ‘the possibility of future risk to the safety or well-being of the alleged victim,'” or “prong two would be met in every single SASPA case.” That means only that the procedural step of requesting an FPO cannot, in and of itself, satisfy one of the two substantive factors that are considered to obtain an FPO. It does not mean that negative consequences of sexual assault, such as trauma, anxiety, or fear, can be ignored simply because they may exist in many SASPA cases.
Sexual violence is common among both women and men. According to the Center for Disease Control (CDC), about one in four women and about one in 26 men in the United States have been the victims of sexual assault or attempted sexual assault. A greater percentage have been victims of criminal sexual contact.
