KIDS' DEATHS PROVE `BIG LIE' OF HOME VIOLENCE.

Byline: Dennis McCarthy 

The anger starts to percolate inside Judith Kullman, as it always does when she reads these stories - reads about the latest domestic violence killing to shock Los Angeles.

A wealthy entertainment attorney shot to death his two 18-month-old twins Sunday before taking his own life.

His wife threatened to leave him and take the kids, so William John Billick, 53, found a way to stop her. He killed the children and himself.

Kullman, a victims advocate for seven years in the domestic violence unit for the Los Angeles City Attorney's Office, sits at her desk in the Van Nuys Courthouse on Monday morning, reading the details and looking for the line so often buried deep in many of today's violence stories.

The big lie. The one she says victimizes battered women twice. She finds it on the jump page.

Police had been to Billick's house in September 1995 on a domestic violence call. He had been arrested, but the case was dropped because his wife decided not to press charges.

Kullman cringes. The big lie again.

``It's not up to her to decide whether to press charges or not,'' she says. ``It's the state's right. She doesn't have the power to drop charges.

``It's against the law to beat somebody up, period. It's the same as if a mugger beats somebody up. The law's been broken. It doesn't make any difference if the victim is a wife or a stranger.''

A few miles away in Northridge, Gail Pincus, director of the Domestic Abuse Center, is also busy fighting the big lie.

She will drive over to the Van Nuys Courthouse on Monday afternoon and testify as an expert witness in another domestic violence case.

Pincus has testified in more than 50 such cases for the L.A. City Attorney's Office, cases that often end in convictions even though wives did not testify against the husbands who beat them, she said.

``In some ways, the things that used to be done by prosecutors were inexcusable,'' Pincus says, referring to cases being automatically dropped when a wife refused to testify.

``The City Attorney's Office has come a long way, though. Now, when a victim either changes her story or wants the charges dropped, if the evidence is strong enough, they'll go forward with prosecution.

``With expert witnesses on domestic abuse, pictures and good police reports, these cases aren't being dumped anymore just because a wife won't testify,'' Pincus said.

To understand why a battered wife, after calling police for help, would decide not to file charges or want to testify against her husband, all you have to do is sit at Kullman's desk in arraignment courtroom 101 at the Van Nuys Courthouse and listen.

Listen and watch the women walking in wearing sunglasses and heavy makeup to hide the bruises and black eyes.

``Usually, I know as soon as they walk in that they want to drop the charges,'' Kullman says.

``They'll have gotten that call from their husband in jail begging them not to press charges, saying he's sorry for beating her up - or saying he'll kill her when he gets out, if she testifies.

``Or the woman will be hit with the economic hammer, realize that while her husband's in jail there won't be any money coming in for her and the kids,'' she says. ``They'll want to believe him when he says he's a changed man and won't do it again.''

Kullman will empathize with these women, be their friend. Then, patiently, she will explain the law.

It's not up to them to file charges or not. It's the state's decision now. A crime has been committed. Somebody's got to pay.

``They're astounded to find that out, and most of them are relieved,'' she says. ``They're glad to know the decision is not theirs. Now, they can honestly tell their husbands in jail that there's nothing they can do about it.''

Kullman talks about the repentant husband who told her how he would get down on his knees and pray that his wife would just wise up and do as he said, so he wouldn't have to beat her. It wasn't his fault she wouldn't listen.

Or the woman given a pair of black eyes by her husband because he didn't like the way she touched his car.

She asked Kullman to drop the charges because the more she thought about it, the more she realized she had probably ``provoked'' her husband into violence.

``I tell them you can provoke anger, but you cannot provoke violence,'' she says. ``And that's what domestic abuse is, pure violence.

``It cuts across all economic, racial and religious lines, and it's all about power and control.''

Over the years, Kullman has earned the nickname ``Guardian Angel'' with many of the women she has helped escape an abusive relationship.

She appreciates the praise, but she's been at this job long enough to know the ugly truth no one wants to face - that there is no way to prevent a domestic violence murder.

Whether it's inside a $1 million mansion in Beverly Hills or a $300-a-month, one-bedroom apartment in a low-income area of the Valley, ``if somebody wants to kill someone, they'll kill someone,'' Judith Kullman says.

``I've been to enough funerals to know that.''