Restoration Magazine

Shot over the course of nine years, Home Truth chronicles one family’s incredible pursuit of justice, shedding light on how our society responds to domestic violence and how the trauma from domestic violence can linger through generations. In 1999, Colorado mother Jessica Lenahan (formerly Gonzales) experienced every parent’s worst nightmare when her three young daughters were killed after being abducted by their father in violation of a domestic violence restraining order. Devastated, Jessica sued her local police department for failing to adequately enforce her restraining order despite her repeated calls for help that night. Determined to make sure her daughters did not die in vain, Jessica pursues her case to the U.S. Supreme Court and an international human rights tribunal, seeking to strengthen legal rights for domestic violence victims. Meanwhile, her relationship with her one surviving child, her son Jessie, suffers, as he struggles with the tragedy in his own way.

“In 2008, Clan Star and the Indian Law Resource Center filed an amicus brief in support of Jessica Gonzales because all women and children, Indian and non-Indian alike, in the United States have the right to be protected from violence and to have protection orders enforced by law enforcement officials,” said Lucy Simpson, NIWRC Executive Director. “We recognized women are denied the right to have protection orders enforced by the police. Left with great discretionary power, law enforcement officials may, and frequently do, disregard violations of protection orders. This failure to enforce protection orders leaves women unprotected and vulnerable to ongoing violence. Even though the case did not arise on Indian lands or involve a tribal protection order, it had vast implications for Indian women and the enforcement of tribal protection orders by state law enforcement officials.”

The amicus brief was the first filed specifically to raise the voice of American Indian women before the Inter- American Commission on Human Rights. “We filed the brief to educate the Commission about the epidemic of domestic violence and sexual assault against American Indian women in the United States,” said Jacqueline Agtuca, Editor of Restoration, and former Public Policy Director of Clan Star, Inc. “We wanted to support Jessica Gonzales who is a tribal sister and Native American, but even if she was not, we also understood the rule established by the U.S. Supreme Court in Town of Castle Rock, Colorado v. Gonzales, 545 U.S. 748 (2005), extended to all women in the United States, including Indian women.”

Online resources:

An 8-minute video about the Lenahan case is available at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UvPtMCrl4J4

For additional information about the film, see http://www.hometruthfilm.com/thefilm/.

For additional information about the Lenahan/Castle Rock case, see the websites of the University of Miami Human Rights Clinic, the ACLU Women’s Rights Project, and the Columbia Law School Human Rights Institute.