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witnesses for legislative hearings and leading seminars for police. A former prosecutor, she said she was inspired by the mid-1990s murders of two teenage domestic violence victims, including one who was strangled and whose body was set on fire.
• "We all go, 'Oh my gosh, she's in danger,' but when a victim is strangled and survives, no one seeks the blood or the bruising or the swelling," she said. "It's hard for them to understand that she's just like the victim who was stabbed or shot and survived."
• Still, bills have stalled in some states as oppo

nents, including defense lawyers, say that enough laws are in place to protect victims and that new measures will create excessive prosecution.
• William Umansky, a former domestic violence prosecutor and a criminal defense lawyer in Orlando, Fla., said he thought his state's law was flawed because it allows for felony prosecution without objective proof of a victim's injury. He said it gave prosecutors too much leverage to secure guilty pleas.
• "Domestic violence is always bad, but the way I see it commonly prosecuted, there's no ligature marks on the woman's throat, no evidence of bruising. Just the verbal allegation, and all of a sudden, there's a felony charge," Umansky said.
• Lawmakers in some states have been inspired by testimony from victims and their families.
• New Hampshire passed its statute two years ago following the October 2009 murder of Melissa Charbonneau, who was fatally shot by her estranged husband a

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