Domestic Violence Fatality Response Team (“DVFRT”)
Under Section 741.316(1), (2), Florida Statutes, the Florida legislature created the Domestic Violence Fatality Response Team (“DVFRT”) to review and analyze fatal incidents, such as homicides and suicides caused by or related to domestic violence.
At the local level, the DVFRT decides the scope and types of homicides to be reviewed including:
- deciding what types of fatalities will be included and if they involve intimate partner violence only, adults only, closed cases, murder-suicides, near-fatal, suspicious deaths or other specific categories;
- evaluating how many fatalities the team plans to review each year;
- determining the purpose of the review
- establishing whether the team will review several cases to evaluate aggregate data for trends or conduct one comprehensive review with the purpose of identifying specific systemic gaps.
Section 741.316(2) explains: “The purpose of the teams is to learn how to prevent domestic violence by intervening early and improving the response of an individual and the system to domestic violence.”
Part of the DVFRTs’ role is to “make policy and other recommendations as to how incidents of domestic violence may be prevented.”
As explained in the Florida handbook for DVFRTs, teams can improve safety for victims of domestic violence while providing “insight into meaningful and constructive ways to hold perpetrators accountable for their violent behavior.” See Florida Coalition Against Domestic Violence, Domestic Violence Fatality Review, A Guide for Florida’s Domestic Violence Fatality Review Teams, p.4. https://www.myflfamilies.com/sites/default/files/2022-10/FCADV%20DVFRT%20Guide6-2017_0.pdf
As part of their review of a homicide or suicide, teams interviews friends, family, co-workers, and others close to the victim or to the perpetrator of the domestic violence about the circumstances surrounding the particular events.
As explained in Section 741.316(4), all information obtained by a DVFRT is confidential, privileged from discovery, and are not to be introduced in evidence at any proceeding.
Team members and those attending a meeting of the DVFRT may not testify in any proceedings with regard to records or information produced or provided to the DVFRT. As explained in Section 741.316(5), the “teams are assigned to the Department of Children and Families for administrative purposes.”
Members of DVFRTs might include law enforcement, court clerks, court administrators, child protection service providers, medical examiners, and other named categories.