Apr 20, 2018 4 min read

It was with a mixture of sadness and hope that we viewed Monday’s signing of legislation known as Tierne’s Law.

The sadness comes from the fact that it took the death of a local woman at the hands of her estranged husband to spur this action in Harrisburg. But the hope arises because this law could spare other domestic violence victims, and other families, from such horror.

It was a year and eight months ago that Tierne Ewing was abducted by Kevin Ewing and shot to death in a barn in West Finley Township. Kevin Ewing then took his own life. The deadly incident came less than two months after Tierne Ewing was held hostage by her husband and tortured for nearly two weeks before she was able to get help. At the time of the murder, Kevin Ewing was free on bond.

Tierne’s Law, along with a number of other pending pieces of legislation in Harrisburg, could help reduce the chances that domestic violence victims will be killed by their abusers.

Under Tierne’s Law, the Pennsylvania Commission on Sentencing will develop a model pretrial risk-assessment tool that can be used by Common Pleas Court and district judges who are setting bonds to determine whether a person accused in a domestic abuse case poses a serious threat and should be barred from contact with the alleged victim. Violation of such a prohibition could result in the forfeiture of bail and the jailing of the defendant. The measure also requires continuing education on the subject for district judges and Common Pleas Court judges. Finally, the law will add strangulation to the list of felony offenses for which police can arrest an alleged abuser without a warrant.

Said Gov. Tom Wolf as he signed the bill into law, “We mourn Tierne’s loss with her family, and while we can never fix what they’ve had to go through, Tierne’s Law will help us prevent senseless and horrible situations like this one from happening to more Pennsylvania families, and will hold perpetrators of domestic violence and abuse accountable for their heinous crimes.”

When Tierne’s Law was approved by the state Senate last month, six other bills were forwarded to the state House for consideration. They would:

• Ensure that law enforcement protection is available to an alleged victim before or while protection-from-abuse orders are being served.
• Remove third-party safekeeping as an option for a domestic violence suspect who is under a court order to relinquish firearms.
• Make it easier for a court to extend a protection-from-abuse order when a domestic violence suspect is released from jail.
• Allow domestic violence victims who live in public housing to be moved to another unit.
• Amend the state constitution to create a crime victims’ “Bill of Rights.”
• Make it easier for victims of domestic abuse to remove the names of their alleged abusers from a shared telephone plan.

It’s our hope that Wolf will soon be signing all of these measures into law to provide greater protection for those who are victims of domestic violence. There is no one piece of legislation – or even a collection of legislative efforts – that can ensure the safety of all people who suffer domestic abuse, but any step that reduces the dangers they face is welcome.

Because of the ordeal that Tierne Ewing endured, some other abuse victim in Pennsylvania might avoid the same fate.

Said state Sen. Camera Bartolotta, who sponsored Tierne’s Law, said, “Tierne’s memory will live on and on as an angel for those who don’t have a voice. She will be with us forever.”