Maryland judges could soon be forced to grapple with a question traditionally left to poets: What makes a relationship romantic?

A bill strongly supported by the Glendening administration would allow judges to order abusers to stay away from someone with whom they have had a "dating relationship." Now, judges can issue such protective orders only on behalf of someone who is married or living with the abuser.

There is little disagreement in the General Assembly that the legislation addresses a deadly peril. In several well-publicized cases in recent years, Maryland women have been slain by rejected suitors they dated but never lived with. Advocates such as Lt. Gov. Kathleen Kennedy Townsend say the bill would close an important hole in the safety net protecting Marylanders against domestic violence.

But hearings in Annapolis last week showed that many legislators are vexed by the question of how to define "dating relationship." Those misgivings might not be sufficient to kill the bill, whose House version is sponsored by Speaker Casper R. Taylor Jr., but they are serious enough that passage is not certain.

As drafted, the bill defines dating as "a social relationship of a romantic nature which may or may not be a sexual relationship." It goes on to give judges three factors to weigh -- the length and nature of the relationship and the frequency of the interaction between the partners.

Advocates concede that words such as "romantic" are seldom found in the Maryland code.

But they point out that 20 other states have adopted similar laws and contend that judges here are up to the task of applying the bill's broad language to individual cases.

Skeptics, several on the House Judiciary Committee, wonder whether the language is impermissibly vague.

"What's a date? A dinner and a rose?" said Del. Carmen Amedori, a Carroll County Republican. "If we're talking about a date, are we talking about a date between a man and a woman, a man and a man, a woman and a woman?"

Amedori said she could not vote for the bill as written, but said she is acutely aware of the problem. Her husband, Carroll County State's Attorney Jerry F. Barnes, is prosecuting the case of Smith Harper Dean III, charged in the June 1997 killing of former girlfriend Sharon L. Mechalske and her date, Kent L. Cullison, in Hampstead.

"There's a need for something," Amedori said.

The committee heard testimony about that need from a woman who was not protected by current law.

Pamela S. Dalton of Frederick County told delegates that she was denied an order protecting her from a former fiance who turned physically abusive about nine months into their relationship.

Although they were building a house together, they hadn't lived under the same roof, so a judge determined she didn't qualify.

Even after the man was charged criminally with assault and false imprisonment, the law would not grant her a civil protective order -- which would have let police arrest him immediately if he approached her again.

"I thank God every day that I didn't marry that man," she said. "On the other hand, marriage to my accuser would have afforded me some legal protection from his abuse."

Advocates of expanded access to protective orders acknowledge that no court can deter a desperate person who has made up his mind to kill a former partner. But they contend the orders are effective in most cases, preventing confrontations that could escalate into violence and giving police ground to arrest violators before they can harm victims.

Nevertheless, some legislators have reservations about expanding the use of such "ex parte" orders -- which by definition are ordered after a court has heard from only one party to a dispute.

In a typical ex parte case involving a married couple, a woman goes to court and fills out a form seeking immediate help in dealing with an abusive husband.

If a busy District Court judge is persuaded by her story, he can issue a temporary protective order telling the husband to vacate the family home and stay away from his wife and children. He might have to wait a week for his day in court.

"The ex parte is completely antithetical to ordinary principles of justice because the court is only hearing one side of the story," said Del. Dana L. Dembrow, a Montgomery County Democrat. He worries that the orders are increasingly being abused by people -- especially men -- seeking an advantage over their spouses in divorce cases.

Despite his qualms, Dembrow supports the concept of the bill. He said the orders are not designed to dispense perfect justice, but to keep people from being killed.

Still, the problem of defining romance bothers him. He suggested the legislature might be better off opening up such orders to anybody who has reason to fear violence from another person -- giving the example of a man who has been threatened by the husband of a woman with whom he's having an affair.

Like several other members, he said he would like to "fix" the current bill.

Such talk makes advocates of the legislation nervous, because amendments can just as easily lose votes as gain them. They insist the bill is sound as is.

Marguerite Angelari, who chaired the work group that drafted the bill, said that of the 20 states that allow ex parte orders in dating relationships, 12 have laws that define the term. Four of those spell out factors for the court to consider, as the Maryland bill does, she said.

"We felt what we put together is as specific as any other states," said Angelari, a teaching fellow in the family law clinic at the University of Baltimore law school. "We never thought of trying to define romantic."

Pub Date: 3/05/99