{"id":29035,"date":"2025-10-31T06:12:08","date_gmt":"2025-10-31T06:12:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/29035\/"},"modified":"2025-10-31T06:12:08","modified_gmt":"2025-10-31T06:12:08","slug":"south-plains-women-say-justice-system-failed-to-protect-them-from-domestic-violence","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/29035\/","title":{"rendered":"South Plains women say justice system failed to protect them from domestic violence"},"content":{"rendered":"

LUBBOCK, Texas (KCBD) – Two women say the justice system<\/a> has not done enough to protect them from domestic violence, after a man is accused of committing more offenses while out on probation and bond.<\/p>\n

Amy Tidwell\u2019s estranged husband Courtney Gage pleaded guilty to continuous violence against the family in 2022. He was placed on eight years of community supervision, or probation. After being found guilty of violating that community supervision in April, he was sentenced to seven years in prison.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd then not 15 minutes later, he walked out of that courtroom just like we did,\u201d Tidwell said.<\/p>\n

After Gage appealed Terry County District Court Judge John Didway\u2019s ruling, Didway allowed him to remain on his original bond rather than requiring an appeal bond.<\/p>\n

\u201cA violent offender should not be getting out on an appeal bond. You want to appeal it? Okay, fine. I guess that\u2019s your right. But you should sit in jail while that process takes place,\u201d Tidwell said.<\/p>\n

Terry Co. district attorney questions bond decision<\/p>\n

Terry County District Attorney Jo\u2019Shae Ferguson-Worley said in most cases, when someone is sentenced to prison, they are taken back into custody immediately or their bond is substantially increased, often doubled, pending any appeal.<\/p>\n

She said her office shares the concerns about why bond was granted again in this case and believes the evidence her team presented supported a different outcome.<\/p>\n

Court documents from that judgment reveal Gage violated his conditions of probation more than 30 times.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn the very least, his life was supposed to be altered somewhat because of what he put me through and the pain and the permanent damage that he has caused me. And that hasn\u2019t happened,\u201d Tidwell said.<\/p>\n

Three of those violations include charges for assault in October 2024, assault family violence with a previous conviction in December 2024, and assault by strangulation with previous convictions in January 2025.<\/p>\n

Second victim describes attack<\/p>\n

Ashley Easley said she is the victim in the January case in Lubbock County.<\/p>\n

\u201cTwo and a half hours later, I was at home and Courtney was strangling me and I was, I thought that I was gonna die,\u201d Easley said.<\/p>\n

She said Gage bonded out soon after his January arrest, even though it was a violation of his probation in Terry County. She said she didn\u2019t get a phone call and only her home address was listed specifically in Gage\u2019s conditions of bond as somewhere he needed to stay away from.<\/p>\n

\u201cNot my gym, not my son\u2019s house where I\u2019m staying. No one had asked me these things. I had no idea to even think about those things. I thought the ankle monitor was there to protect me,\u201d Easley said.<\/p>\n

She said negligence and miscommunication between counties have left her feeling like she\u2019s on her own.<\/p>\n

\u201cEspecially with a judge that Courtney has been before repeatedly. Whatever is going on here is not normal,\u201d Easley said.<\/p>\n

Lubbock County responds<\/p>\n

Traci Wiseley, an assistant district attorney for Lubbock, said the county is doing what it can in Easley\u2019s case.<\/p>\n

\u201cMiss Easley has talked to three different attorneys in our office, as well as multiple advocates, both in person and on phone. She has been given information about crime victims compensation and how to be informed on our case. We do try to let our victims know what the process is, and it is just frustrating when it does take a long time. But we have had consistent contact with her about what\u2019s going on,\u201d Wiseley said.<\/p>\n

She said every case is at the mercy of the trial docket and there is a backlog in Lubbock.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd we try to be upfront with victims about that as well. But when your life is kind of on hold until a criminal case is resolved, that\u2019s very frustrating. And we understand that, but there\u2019s also not much we can do to make it move faster,\u201d Wiseley said.<\/p>\n

Tidwell said Easley\u2019s case gave her hope justice in her own case may come more quickly.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo it\u2019s like you\u2019re happy that maybe this, maybe this is it, maybe this will get the ball rolling. But at the same time, my God, it should not have taken another woman getting hurt,\u201d Tidwell said.<\/p>\n

Third arrest leads to bond revocation<\/p>\n

Gage was arrested again for assault against a family member in Garza County last month. <\/p>\n

\u201cMy heart\u2019s broken for me. It\u2019s broken for all of the victims. But like, the fact that Judge Didway did not do what he should have when we were here in April, when he sentenced Courtney Donovan Gage to seven years in prison and allowed him to walk out free with tighter probation conditions, Judge Didway allowed this to happen to this new victim,\u201d Easley said.<\/p>\n

The most recent arrest led to a bond hearing in Tidwell\u2019s case in Terry County in October. The new alleged victim, law enforcement and others testified. Judge Didway revoked Gage\u2019s bond, meaning he will not be let out of custody until his seven-year sentence in the Texas Department of Criminal Justice is served or he\u2019s granted an appeal.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe need for judges to start making the right decisions, looking at the evidence and taking these things seriously, because thank God this current victim is alive,\u201d Easley said.<\/p>\n

Ferguson-Worley said Gage has demonstrated a clear and documented pattern of violence against intimate partners. She said Judge Didway\u2019s ruling to keep Gage locked up \u201cprioritizes the safety of both the victims in this case and our community as a whole.\u201d<\/p>\n

Tidwell and Easley said they are looking forward to a better future.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou know, I hope that one of these days that our relationship is not just based on our trauma and what happened to us, and we can have a normal friendship. And I know that day is coming, and I look forward to that,\u201d Tidwell said.<\/p>\n

Gage remains in the Terry County jail. Judge Didway did not provide a comment because the case is still pending litigation.<\/p>\n

Copyright 2025 KCBD. All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"LUBBOCK, Texas (KCBD) – Two women say the justice system has not done enough to protect them from…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":29036,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[14571,14589,19625,14584,8388,2626,7990,19628,447,14576,7573,1522,2441,14572,14573,10866,19623,541,19626,19632,7403,168,170,169,1998,19630,14577,19631,19622,1997,4752,19629,14588,19627,19624,13655,14583,6878,7133],"class_list":["post-29035","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-lubbock","tag-amy-tidwell","tag-appeal","tag-ashley-easley","tag-assistant","tag-attorney","tag-bond","tag-brittany-crittenden","tag-charge","tag-community","tag-conditions","tag-conviction","tag-county","tag-court","tag-courtney-gage","tag-district","tag-domestic","tag-failed","tag-family","tag-joshae-ferguson-worley","tag-john-didway","tag-justice","tag-lubbock","tag-lubbock-headlines","tag-lubbock-news","tag-plains","tag-probation","tag-protect","tag-revocation","tag-say","tag-south","tag-strangulation","tag-supervision","tag-system","tag-terry","tag-them","tag-to","tag-traci-wiseley","tag-violence","tag-women"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29035","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=29035"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29035\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/29036"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29035"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29035"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29035"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}