Unrestrained Thanks Judge Refuses To Lift Protection Order, And The Woman He Turned Down Is Grateful

Robin Murray is grateful a judge wouldn’t let her do what she wanted to do.

Her boyfriend had broken her arm and sprayed Mace in her face and her 12-year-old daughter’s face.

Despite all that, Murray asked Judge Robert Burton to drop the protection order she had against Robert LaClef.

He refused.

“I thank God every day it didn’t happen,” the 41-year-old nurse said.

On Monday Judge James Judd ordered LaClef, 42, to serve the maximum sentence for aggravated assault - five years in the state penitentiary. LaClef, who pleaded guilty, will be eligible for parole after three years.

“Hallelujah,” Murray breathed afterward.

LaClef has a history of violence. He has been charged with assault three times, rape, domestic violence, imprisonment and robbery, said Traci Post, deputy prosecutor.

“The fact that concerns me is that you have the belief that you have the right to enforce your will on other people through force or violence,” Judge Judd told LaClef Monday.

LaClef and his attorney told the judge that his relationship with Murray had failed in part because she had lied to him about dating a black man - something he could not stand.

Murray began dating LaClef in 1994. Prone to jealousy and drinking, he had beaten her several times.

But on April 20 the beatings were the worst, starting late in the evening and lasting to the next morning.

LaClef flew into a rage, accusing her of looking at another man. He threw a bar stool through the air. It snapped her arm. He punched her in the face, bit her nose, choked her, kicked her in the left eye, ripped at her hair.

Murray’s daughter vomited, she was so sick from the Mace he sprayed at them.

Murray waited until her daughter made it safely to school and then called police. Her face was bleeding when the officers found her.

“I’m going to kill you, Robin,” LaClef shouted as they dragged him away.

Murray says she was confused and afraid, like many victims of domestic violence. There were days when she wanted to take him back. She wrote him letters in jail and, telling him she loved him.

“I kept thinking maybe I can change things,” Murray said.

Then she asked Judge Burton to drop the protection order.

“I thought, ‘I’m going to go through with this because he says it’s going to make him feel better,”’ Murray said. “But there was this deep-down gut feeling that said, “I hope this doesn’t happen.”

But Burton had seen her beaten face and would not allow it.

“Thank God. That was my gut instinct,” Murray said.

The judge’s action brought praise from victim’s advocates and prosecutors.

Domestic violence victims dropped within 14 days nearly half of the 661 protection orders issued to them during 1994, according to a Kootenai County study.

“It’s extremely frustrating to have them come in and tell us they don’t need it anymore when they have two black eyes,” said Judge Eugene Marano. He said refusing such a request only happens in extreme situations.

“Usually if the person wants to drop it we’ll drop it,” he said.

Murray’s face no longer bore the swelling and bruising on Monday. Her arm has healed. She told Judge Judd that she is now trying to heal her life and that of her daughter’s.

“I decided I couldn’t live in a constant state of fear,” she said. “I do not want my daughter growing up thinking this is OK. I want her to know I am a strong person.”

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