After overcoming hidden battle with domestic abuse, judge advocates for victims in and out of courtroom
Besides sitting on the bench, Judge Ashleigh Parker, a judge for the 10th Judicial District in North Carolina, also runs seminars and lectures specifically for judges about how to spot signs of domestic abuse.
After she makes clear that physical abuse isn’t the only form of abuse—that there are also other types, including emotional, financial, religious, legal, sexual and discriminatory abuse, Parker asks the judges in her seminars to look at the pictures of survivors. She clicks her PowerPoint, and up pops a photo of her—dressed in her judicial robe, cherry red gavel in her hand, standing in front of the American flag. An audible gasp passed through the room, Parker says.
By her count, she suffered from emotional abuse during eight of her 10 years of marriage to her then-husband. By day, she would listen intently to stories of domestic violence in her courtroom. By night, she would go home and experience abuse of her own.
She explains that her colleagues were none the wiser. After all, she would show up for work without bruises or broken bones.
She finally had a chat with her pastor and had her “aha” moment, realizing that she was actually a victim. It was another two years until she finally left him.
“In the summer of 2022, right before we separated, I was in the worst physical health in my life,” she says. “I was 34, and my body was shutting down. If I had not left, I would probably be dead.”
She has brought her experience with her to the bench, where she is the lead child support judge in Wake County, North Carolina, and she’s one of two abuse, neglect and dependency judges. In 2024, she finally felt strong and powerful enough to rebuild herself, so that she could help others—specifically judges—truly understand abusive relationships.
For instance, she would note that just because her face wasn’t dotted with bruises—and even though she’s a Type A personality—confident and self-aware—that doesn’t mean that she might not need a restraining order.
“Here I am in domestic violence court every day, and I couldn’t even help myself,” Parker says. “When you look at systematic narcissistic abuse, if you took someone’s heart out of their body, it would be black and blue. I wanted the judges to recognize it.”
The impact of abuse
At the start of her 10-year marriage, Parker was thrilled. Her then-husband was sweet like molasses, peppering her with compliments and surprising her with gifts. Some might describe it as classic narcissistic love bombing. But to Parker, who had long dealt with racism as the only Black girl in Hickory, North Carolina, teeming with imposter syndrome, she thought that this was a sign of true love.
Sure, her then-husband would often give her the silent treatment, before resurfacing a week or two later and gaslighting her into doubting her words and actions, Parker says. He often punished her passive-aggressively for perceived minor offenses. And then there was the pathological lying.
“People don’t understand the impact of these forms of abuse,” Parker says. “It will wear you down. You can’t sleep, you can’t eat, and all your energy is going into that person.”
Parker says self-love is the key to pulling yourself out of the horrific abuse cycles that she hears day in and day out in her North Carolina courtroom.
Behind the data
According to 2021 data from the U.S. Department of Justice’s Bureau of Justice Statistics, which tracks crimes, criminal offenders and victims of crimes, 76% of female murders are perpetrated by someone a victim knows—and 34% are killed by an intimate partner.
And while Parker says she wasn’t in a physically abusive relationship, one in five suicides involve intimate partner issues, according to a September 2023 study published in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine.
Becoming an advocate
Parker dove into research, listening to podcasts and lectures, tearing into books about the various types of abuse, and how to set boundaries.
Judges are at the frontline of abuse, so if they can spot the signs of emotional abuse and become trauma informed, they can be advocates, she says.
For example, Parker says, when an alleged domestic violence victim entered her courtroom, Parker adjusted the room, so that the alleged victim wouldn’t have to be near the alleged abuser and could feel more at ease.
Judge Damion McCullers, a district judge in Wake County who attended one of Parker’s presentations this summer, says while judges always try to be more mindful of abusive situations, he’s now more attuned to not-so-obvious forms of abuse.
And that’s exactly why Parker says she’s so committed to these talks.
“I’m really educating myself and others to say, ‘It’s not always what it seems,’” she says. “Be open to that.”
See also:
When policies afford legal professionals discretion, they should choose to be trauma informed
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