{"id":10455,"date":"2009-01-04T14:25:03","date_gmt":"2009-01-04T19:25:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.law.harvard.edu\/ethicalesq\/?p=10455"},"modified":"2011-08-05T14:53:13","modified_gmt":"2011-08-05T18:53:13","slug":"lets-not-overlook-the-death-of-melissa-batten","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/ethicalesq\/2009\/01\/04\/lets-not-overlook-the-death-of-melissa-batten\/","title":{"rendered":"let’s not overlook the death of Melissa Batten"},"content":{"rendered":"

. . . Melissa “Missy” Brooks Batten (1972 – 2008) . . . <\/strong><\/em>\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I<\/strong><\/em>t was no surprise to find Harvard Law School graduate Barack Obama [HLS ’91] on the cover of the current issue of the Harvard Law Bulletin<\/em><\/a>, when it arrived last month.\u00a0 I was surprised, however, while belatedly thumbing through the Bulletin<\/em> on New Year’s Day, to read about Melissa Batten, a 1997 HLS graduate.\u00a0 Melissa wasn’t featured because she left her job as a public defender in 2002 to become a successful video game developer<\/a> for Microsoft. Instead, her story is briefly sketched in the following In Memoriam item<\/a>:<\/p>\n

Melissa C. \u201cMissy\u201d Brooks Batten<\/strong> \u201997 of Renton, Wash., died July 29, 2008. She was a developer in Microsoft\u2019s games division in Seattle. Prior to moving to Washington, she was a public defender at the Mecklenburg County Public Defender\u2019s Office in North Carolina, where she handled hundreds of cases and worked in the domestic violence court. On July 21, Batten filed an emergency temporary protection order against her husband. Eight days later, he killed her before killing himself. Donations in Batten\u2019s memory can be made to the Eastside Domestic Violence Program in the Seattle area: www.edvp.com.<\/p>\n

T<\/em>hat’s right: A former assistant public defender who specialized in domestic violence cases was shot to death by her estranged spouse a week after obtaining an order of protection. I winced when I first read Melissa’s memorial blurb, feeling both the loss and the irony of her violent death.<\/p>\n

Then, as a blogger, I thought: “Why haven’t I heard about her death in the blawgisphere?”\u00a0 Since my failure to get around to any but a tiny number of other weblogs is virtually legendary, I thought the fault might be mine and Melissa might have indeed received coverage on law-related websites.\u00a0 Searching this morning, however, I found quite a few posts at gamer blogs (see, e.g.<\/em>, here<\/a> and there<\/a>), but only one on a “blawg” about Melissa’s death: Skelly’s pointer<\/a> at Arbitrary and Capricious<\/em> to a Dagblog<\/em> post<\/a> by the anonymous Articleman<\/em>, who I have since discovered<\/a> is a Chicago lawyer and Harvard Law graduate.\u00a0 Articleman<\/em>‘s post [“The Murder of Melissa Batten: Please Give and Help Prevent Domestic Violence<\/a>,” Dec. 21, 2008] is a thoughtful essay well worth your time (and extracted below).<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a> The legal community needs to mourn and remember Melissa, and this post is our small effort to that end.\u00a0 For news reports of her gunshot murder by her husband Joseph Batten<\/a>, see this Seattle Times<\/em> article<\/a>; an emotion-filled SeattlePI<\/em> column<\/a>, and a post at Maholo<\/em><\/a>.com with Fast Facts about Melissa.\u00a0 As Dagblog<\/em> recounts, “On July 29, he confronted her in the parking lot of the Redmond apartments where she had moved, and took her life with eight shots from a 9 mm handgun, before dispatching himself with one.”\u00a0 Like Articleman, I think it is especially important to note that:<\/p>\n