When the System Fails: How the Evidentiary Abuse Affidavit Keeps Survivors from Falling Through the Cracks
Restraining orders go unenforced. Warrants sit unserved. Women die. Here's what documentation can change.
Two women in Minnesota are dead. According to recent reporting by MPR News, advocates say their deaths reveal dangerous gaps in the domestic violence prevention system, gaps that are not unique to Minnesota. They exist in every state, every county, and almost every community in America.
The warning signs were there. In many cases like these, there were restraining orders in place. There were warrants for arrest. There was a documented history of abuse. And still, the women died.
This is not a failure of awareness. It is a failure of systems and it is a failure that the Evidentiary Abuse Affidavit (EAA) is specifically designed to address.
And still, the women died…
“Ashley Kittelson was allegedly killed by her husband in International Falls on March 6.
Jennifer Marsaw and her 5-year-old son, were allegedly killed by her husband in Anoka County on March 18.”
The System Has Multiple Failure Points
To understand why documentation matters so much, you have to understand how many ways the system can, and routinely does, fail a survivor.
Restraining orders that never get served.
Research shows that a significant percentage of protective orders go unserved because abusers deliberately evade service, and law enforcement typically will not actively search for them. An order that isn't served isn't enforceable. The survivor is no safer than before she went to court.
Violations that go unprosecuted.
Even when a survivor reports a violation, police often take no action. They may not respond to the 911 call, decline to take a report, or fail to present the violation to prosecutors. The survivor reports. Nothing happens. She reports again. Still nothing. Eventually, she stops calling, not because the abuse has stopped, but because she has lost faith that calling will help.
No federal right to enforcement.
Many people do not know this: the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that domestic violence victims have no federal right to police enforcement of their protective orders. Sit with that a minute, let it sink in.
Enforcement is discretionary, meaning it varies by officer, by department, by county, by day. A restraining order is only as strong as the will of the system behind it.
Warrants that sit unserved.
Law enforcement agencies across the country carry enormous backlogs of unserved warrants. Domestic violence warrants compete for priority with every other type of warrant. In many jurisdictions, they simply do not rise to the top of the list until a woman is killed, and the warrant number appears in her case file.
What the EAA Does That the System Cannot
The Evidentiary Abuse Affidavit is a notarized, video-recorded legal document created by the survivor herself. It captures her account of the abuse in her own words, at a specific point in time and gives that account legal standing independent of whatever the system does or does not do next.
Here is how it directly addresses the gaps described above:
1. It creates a record that exists without law enforcement.
When police don't respond, don't file reports, or don't pursue charges, there is often no official record that anything happened. The EAA fills that void. It does not depend on an officer showing up, a prosecutor deciding to act, or a judge granting a hearing. It exists because the survivor created it.
2. It documents a pattern, not just a single incident.
Abusers depend on the system seeing only isolated incidents. The EAA captures escalation over time the text messages, the threats, the violations, the fear. That pattern is what judges and prosecutors need to understand lethality risk, and it is what advocates need to push for stronger protection.
3. It survives the survivor.
This is the EAA's most powerful and unique feature. If a survivor is later killed, seriously injured, or too afraid to testify, her documented words still can speak. The EAA is designed to be admissible even when the survivor cannot be present which means it has the potential to secure a conviction in the very worst outcomes.
4. It counters victim-blaming and pressure to recant.
Survivors are routinely blamed for their circumstances, pressured by abusers, and worn down by a system that seems indifferent to their safety. A notarized, timestamped affidavit on record makes her account much harder to dismiss. Her truth is documented before the pressure to deny it begins.
5. It supports warrant enforcement and judicial accountability.
When advocates and attorneys have an EAA in hand, they have something concrete to bring before a judge, a documented history that illustrates why an unserved warrant or unenforced order is a life-threatening failure. Documentation creates urgency where bureaucracy creates delay.
6. It captures what the law often cannot see.
Coercive control, financial manipulation, isolation, surveillance, threats, rarely leaves physical evidence. It is nearly impossible to prosecute without a record. The EAA captures these behaviors in the survivor's own words, before they escalate to physical violence, and before she is no longer able to speak.
What Else Must Change
The EAA is a powerful tool, but it works best as part of a broader system of accountability. Alongside survivor-led documentation, advocates and policymakers are calling for:
Mandatory lethality assessments at every domestic violence call so that officers are required to evaluate risk, not just respond to an incident.
Firearms removal at the scene of domestic violence arrests because firearms are used in the majority of domestic violence homicides.
Stronger cross-jurisdiction coordination so that warrants, orders, and case histories follow an abuser across county and state lines.
Fatality review boards with real authority so that every domestic violence death informs policy change, not just statistics.
Robust, sustained funding for advocacy programs because advocates are often the only consistent point of contact a survivor has with the system.
No Survivor Should Navigate This Alone
The deaths reported in Minnesota are not anomalies. They are the predictable result of a system that treats documentation as an afterthought and enforcement as optional. Until that changes, survivors need tools that work regardless of whether the system does.
The Evidentiary Abuse Affidavit is that tool. It puts legal power in the survivor's hands before a crisis, before a courtroom, before it is too late.
Questions survivors frequently ask:
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A restraining order is an important legal tool, but its protection depends entirely on enforcement and enforcement is not guaranteed. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Castle Rock v. Gonzales (2005) that domestic violence victims have no federal constitutional right to police enforcement of their protective orders. In practice, this means violations are sometimes ignored, warrants go unserved, and abusers face no immediate consequence for breaking the order.
The EAA is designed to function as a parallel layer of protection: it creates a documented, notarized record of ongoing abuse that gives advocates, attorneys, and judges the evidence they need to push for action even when the enforcement system stalls.
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No. While the EAA is specifically designed to be legally admissible and court-ready, its value extends well beyond litigation.
Survivors use the EAA as a safety planning tool, a record of escalating behavior that can inform lethality assessments, a document to share with advocates or attorneys when seeking protection, and a secure archive in case they need to relocate or change legal representation.
For many survivors, completing an EAA is the first time their experience is formally acknowledged in writing and that step alone can be meaningful and empowering, regardless of whether the case ever reaches a courtroom.
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The EAA can be completed through the secure platform at documenttheabuse.org, where survivors can access guided documentation tools.
Document the Abuse partners with domestic violence organizations, legal advocates, healthcare providers, and community partners across the country to ensure survivors have access to support throughout the process. You do not need an attorney to get started.
If you are in immediate danger, please contact the National Domestic Violence Hotline at 1-800-799-7233 or text START to 88788.
If you are a victim of violence, stalking, or harassment this link takes you directly to the Evidentiary Abuse Affidavit. CLICK HERE
If you need help immediately please dial 9-1-1
