Jim Cooper's Orange County; On Behalf of Victims

Yes it all goes over the story. What was the reaction on the on the logo or where or what you're seeing it in actual counseling session at the county courthouse office of the Victim Witness Assistance Program of Orange County. It's one of six such offices located in all of the county municipal and superior courthouse buildings. The counselor is helping a victim to cope with a formidable sometimes intimidating legal justice system whenever a criminal action is involved. It's a program that helps thousands of people who are victims and witnesses of crimes here. Really examine it today. For our I AM I AM A Our I

am the I am the I am the. To be a victim of a crime is a traumatic often demeaning and shattering experience. But the whole criminal justice system that follows can be another trying ordeal the thousands of victims of crimes each year. These victims include those who were physically assaulted sexually attacked or even filled in who are victims of physical or sexual abuse. But there's an organization called the Victim Witness Assistance program that helps the victims deal with that second trauma. The criminal justice system itself. He had helped Freddie thousand clients in Orange County. And Jim Cooper and I look into it today. Hold Hold Hold Hold Hold Hold Hold on one rule in this case a victim

named Mary is receiving information and human concern from Cheryl Eckard a counselor getting direct assistance in obtaining a restraining order. Having been a victim of physical and mental abuse from a former male friend. About 500 cases of domestic violence most of them cases of battered women were handled by the sex offices of the victim witness program. More than twelve hundred other men and women who were victims of violent crimes were also helped another 800 cases where sexual assaults including those directed against children and rape cases involving Orange County women. Some 15 new crime cases resulted last year after police were put in touch with people through the Victim Witness program. In this office there are only part of the 16 full time professionals as well as the 50 volunteers who provide many services offered. They operate on a three hundred sixty seven thousand dollar annual budget provided appropriately through fines and penalty assessment collected by the courts from convicted criminals Superior Court said Linda McLaughlin knows

about the program but there's a very short sighted and as a municipal court. She now serves on the Board of Governors of the victim witnesses this is a program. From the perspective of this a very rare court and as a former municipal court judge whether the new value of the victim or the program. First time I'd like to thank you very much for your time and for coming here through focus on this program. From the perspective of value as an artist and with the work of the entire community. A blisteringly program is run principally by volunteers. Who care about this community. And. About people who unfortunately find themselves involved in a criminal situation. So we have with this program resource a very special resource. In our community and we have a very very fine program perhaps the best in the.

People in the court process or and limited in one point of view. Certainly there's an intimidating process certainly for. People who have never been involved in the court process at all. Drawing their right to understand what is happening to them and what is happening in the prior situation. Can be confusing. Can take a lot of time. And can be quite overwhelming. A sexual assault victim services project was established in 1981 and the special focus to victims of sexual assault for example with women who were victims of rape or children who were victims. Child molester. How does that especially help them. Certainly Vall and provide support for these people. Just support of one person to another person. But a good way of the volunteers and the new

executive staff of the victim witness for them are constantly experts in. Dealing with sexual assault or dealing with the psychological problems suffered. The staff and the volunteers are moving rather than spread throughout the state. Learning. How best to support your work with those people. Her counselor Sheila Tierney talked with Ken a witness in a burglary criminal case. His testimony is needed for the prosecution and he's hearing how the court system works. He's one of 30000 victims and witnesses directly helped us here in many ways. Someone help with money problem because of time lost at work due to assaults others are helped with marital problems that occur because of crime referrals are also made to many other agencies help a given to get money awarded to the victim and by court order has restitution from criminals when the victim suffers a loss of wages and medical bills or needs job retraining for zero Eckerd is the sort who we call it in criminal justice

graduate from UCI who'd known her third year as a counselor for the new suitors who operate to victims of crime. I think people know how the system works. Tell people all about it. We have lots of referrals for people. I don't believe you have to have options and alternatives.

Come to the women in the process. Thanks to all who try to give them counseling number one to sort through counseling who are but the people that need long term counseling with the financial assistance and quite expensive. When I grew up the other half where I don't have to I don't have to have that woman all the life. We have and people now in the studio who have a certain perspective about this program that cares about people who are victims of crime. Harriet Bemis is program coordinator for Orange County for the victim with the program. She's past

president of the Coalition Against Domestic Violence in Orange County a former member of the grand jury and chairperson of the Orange County Human Service Agency. Cecil Hicks had been the Orange County district attorney for the past 17 years. He'd been with a different attorney's office since 1958. He also served as an attorney in private practice into the assistant U.S. attorney a former instructor in criminal law at City College and Pepperdine University. Sarah Lawrence was the victim of a rape in 1988 when the accused rapist with the rest of the few months later she heard a victim witness program and received continuous help throughout the ordeal of the criminal trial. There were testimony and help from the victim witness program the rapist was convicted and is now in prison. But right now it works as a contractor's bookkeeper in Huntington Beach. I'm struck by the effort and the dedication I thought. When I was doing this story for the people who worked with you here. Not only the professionals but the volunteers how do you get that. Quality of dedication on a program like this. Some wonderful way those kind of

people seem to be attracted to this. And we've never had a problem really in recruiting we have wonderful staff and. Somehow it's sort of a natural selection process and the right people seem to arrive and they want to help and they're interested and some of the people who are on our staff and also who volunteer have actually been involved in a crime in some way. Some may have been sometimes I've been on jury duty but sometimes I've actually been victims of a crime so they have this special empathy and special feeling about it. I have that question now and as usual you've been in the criminal business of Criminal Justice with her so long. Have you been struck by the abundance of literature concerned media attention focused on criminals and the rights of criminal and concern for the criminal as opposed to what seems to be a scarcity of the same materials on the rights of the victims. The concern for the well the contrast of the overwhelming if you sat down and stacked

up the literature on one side and stacked up the literature on the other side one would fill the room and one of the victims would fill that table and it is only very recent that I think we've been able to get the public really concerned and interested in the status of victims and the problems of experience. But even so if you were to go through a trial today you would notice that the entire emphasis on how do we get that way how do we get so much that way that the concerns of the accused in the criminal and even after conviction then concerns of the right that are who convicted as opposed to the person who's the victim. Well I think. The reason that the system works that way is that the criminal justice it didn't work that way was that the victim appears in court and participate as a witness and then leaves and no one sees or hears from the from the victim again. The accused is there in court every minute during the entire process and of course if the accused then

convict it once he becomes convinced that he is still part of the system and in the system everyone thinks focusing their attention and their money on him and we just kind of lose sight of that just rips off. It struck me so many times that the victim in a crime go through to go through two traumas. First the problem of being in the crime. Second the trauma of going through the whole criminal justice system with no matter how humane it tried to be if they were pretty sometimes often impersonal and sometimes even demeaning process. And no one knows more about that than you would you tell us how the crime happened and then what you went through. Afterward. I was riding my bike. STARR. I thought completely gone up on neighborhoods will follow the leveler song. What area we're talking about. Orange orange orange. This man could not man. He had two knives cutters. Please tell me where you

threw the thimble bodies. Wets I didn't know that at the time but it still scared me. And he took me through an abandoned gas station and let me try and then rob me and put me. On Laysan I thought at that time. Then it was over. But that hadn't even started. Once they caught him and all the emotional problems. Of the trial had just started life would be hard for you now in the in the. In the luxury of hindsight to say which were the worst form of the crime itself where you were the victim. For the whole long long ordeal the ordeal of a particular product because that one didn't happen the other wouldn't. I would say equally. They have equal. I would lead you to water one motional problem anyway because something happened to you that

death of that well and then you've got to go to court and you're looking at strangers in their queue thinking of things that you have no right to be accused of. And they're all strangers you know. And yet in the court system the whole power yes very friendly caring home. I think we relevant question of the movie that you could be on the program if if in what way did the victim with the program help make that ordeal that second ordeal are going through the criminal. Justice process the prosecution. How did they help you. If it wasn't for them I wouldn't I couldn't have gone through there's only there's more than one trial you know going back to court. If it wasn't for them I don't think I would have continued with that. I mean they gave me can you with support. They were always there always. I didn't have to retell the story the stranger always there. I got calls you know saying you know do you need anything. They were

they were crying. I think in all fairness to the people who work with you people. All of your deputy. A deputy you had so many things going he didn't have time to worry about the victim of the thing. Have you got enough money. Did you get your help problem do you have a mortgage problem. Are you going through a divorce because of that. At that at that. Who from his perspective how much can a deputy really do when he's got a big heavy caseload. Well from the from the counseling standpoint the dept. can't do a whole lot. In part because the deputy it's you not trained to do that kind of thing. But you know we've we've really managed to do two things I think that one is Victim Witness Assistance. And the other stablished last year a special unit in our office that's going to handle rape cases child abuse cases. KURTZ article Constitution verticle probably want to talk about that so that when we have a rape victim that victim is not exposed at least from our office standpoint

through a succession of lawyers and with succession of investigators. Were neuer will handle that case from the very start at the municipal court over all the way to require through the trial the sentencing. So you notice that that you mention that you know that all these were strangers. Well what we hope to do is to have a friend in the system in the in the lawyer and the investigator in our office is someone that you can turn to that group and then turn to it but it is an area that the prosecutor with a busy caseload how much could you have that are not trained to do and that can do that almost no one else can. That's where you take over to make that kind of a gap between when you get beside the mechanics of the trial. What are all these human rather human concerns that you can fill in with. Well I think one of the most important things we do is listen and try to find out what the problems the person is going through. And it isn't always the actual crime but it's the impact that crime has on the person. And.

Certainly Rape is one of the toughest of all crimes. But you may get for instance the scene there and it may seem like a fairly minor thing but when they're isolated in the locker room they may go we're going to have very serious trauma so we try to assess what that person is going through and what needs they have and there's no other agency to do that in the process. I mean that could to turn it off it can't do it if the people are not as you say not trained to do it nor do they have the time to do it and there was no such agency as yours. Imagine the profit motive in a pretty shattering thing. I mean can you imagine what this would have been what you have even gone that far with it. I doubt I mean I've had some kind of a support system. It's dealing with things that are so clear now I doubt I would have gone through that job I had and was talking to a rape victim in the courthouse hallway one day before we had become witnesses and friends and very attractive young woman who said she had known what was involved she

would never have reported the incident at all and if it happened again he would just say that's it. Never tell another soul about it. And that was just because of the trauma that she went through from the court process and the kind of examination that you had to go through in the courtroom and cross-examination from that of that nature. I think we made some real progress on that. And in large part because of that and not just in that area I mean the other side of battered women women who are victims of assault or anyone of someone who is a victim of a. Particularly violent major felony. From your own experience. What was it like in that demeaning business of the court the matter how concerned the judge might have been that fair play come for everybody if they were pretty tough arena to be in that very difficult arena and there's that we are so restricted as to how we as prosecutors in the courtroom. How we can't protect our victim from the almost girl US attack that I mean I understand the role the defense attorney has to play and yet at the same

time it is not uncommon to have a rape victim for example have paraded before her the name of every person she ever dated and some perhaps even made up the inference being drawn that there was some sort of you know you might say that while by a male and it was her she might have been wild and maybe that will be followed by not even a suggestion that that happened but it's planted in everyone's mind that that that's really why the question being asked that the second from whether you go through that period. Let me read this thing out because I was impressed by the victim's bill of rights it only takes a few seconds to read it. This is what you stand for Harriet. To be free from fear this is what the victim's bill of rights are and again this is some of the literature you don't often hear about. The victim has a right to be free from fear of threats or intimidation to be informed of available compensation for the injuries to know the status of the case against your offender to be informed of available compensation for a court appearance or to be informed of social service agencies which can help you to be assisted by criminal justice

agencies and I know your referral part of your activity is a big one you want to tell us about that. Yes I think that's really important. You see we do know this social services are available and so proud of our ROE. When a man by a girl is hooking up victim to the services they need. There are many outstanding social services in the community but very few of them have any understanding at all of the judicial system and what's happening or what's happened to the victim. So we sort of have a dual role in other words we make referrals to agents but we try to educate agents is about what happens in the criminal justice system what happens to the victim and about the actual trauma that teams go through. And we even we have even put on courses so that people in agencies will understand this and we also have run. Classes in the colleges so that those have better training so that generally that is going to be that of truth.

Cheryl Eckard you're one of your concerts. You have a language thing we have so many people of other languages I know who get into the system. Hispanics who get into the system who have a tremendous language about what you do about them. Well we we try to hook up to people who can help us. We are fortunate in that we do have bilingual that span that. We have very few other cultures coming in but if we do we have contacts that we can call up we've got this kind of person in Kenya helpless and so on and the same applies to handicapped and for that we woke up with one of the most painful programs that I've done in the last two or three years with the one where we did a complete story on Albert sitting home and the kids are in there. Youngsters who are in there who have committed no crime their only crime with a newborn have been victims of sexual assault and that kind of thing. We now have vertical prosecution. Were a child molester for example or if he's on trial and you want to explain that for that for that case then it's handled all the way through with one set of attorneys that sort of traditional ways do

have. A lawyer performing different functions than large offices and it is. Economically that's the best way for your dollar defense Them point. But as far as being well trained to do the job the best way they can and to be as sensitive as we can be to the victim. We think it's necessary to have one lawyer assigned to one case and follow that case all the way through and then they have children or in the case of children of either abused children or sexually molested children. We treat them in a vertical prosecution also and as well as rape cases. Do you treat Do you give victim witness services to children in different way or do you have different specialists who provide these are with her well who are really have out of you what we have in all these juveniles. So we pick up the children when they first get into the court system. And it may be they may come under the pendant or it may be you know now the condom trial but we then followed them up to and that's a pretty court or into the criminal justice system and the muni courts and we

have people who are helping go along with them with the toll possible. And so we have the person who's made the contact with the child and goes right through the system because they may become a witness you see in the criminal case although they start off in that then. That kind of ability I think that's an excellent thing about the about the the ones who are the least able to defend themselves in the whole process of the youngsters who are in the midst of this. I wanted that if you had to give some advice to other women who maybe in this case who are very hesitant about coming for. Battered women. Or women who are victims of rape who are hesitant to get into that ordeal over the long term how long the criminal. Case might last two months three months. What would be it. Could you give it a lie than any actual trial or from this from the other side on the Internet to the crime to the disposition of all if we do if we accomplish that within the nine months and a year we've done pretty well so that a long time I want another word rather than

wrong long term with the with the prosecuting term with that long hold. Well I met a guy after they've got him and the whole process starts and they go the preliminary and all of that and once they're in jail there is no inducement for the defendant to get the trial. I mean that he's outside. And so that way we get just delay after delay after delay. Of course a lot of the delay the more difficult it is because people start to lose your witnesses and they want to wipe a blank out this intern in their lives and why put it behind them. Well I think that took a long time and that's a tough case in that for that particular the tough case to have to fight. What would you say to women if you if you had a chance to have a soapbox. We would give you Cheryl to talk to other women who may have that same decision you had to make. The reason I went to the police and file the third testify against this man was because I felt. Someone has found him. And if there is because the percentages

of women that don't report rapes and all those other crimes is extremely high. And when if ever did report it and did what borough. I'm not think of that. But you could at least now make it a rule. I'd say more say than I can because I feel for this guy that raped me in prison for 10 years I saved a lot of their own. So your advice to other women would be to go through it even though there's something that someone can witness we're going to give a hotline number in just a moment so anyone left in the program we want to get your pencil out. I'm going to give a hotline number. And it does work but hey tell us about The Hotline. Very very quickly here that they complied here to witness. 7 1 4 9 5 7 2 7 3 7 and that twenty four hours a day and that means if you feel you've been a victim of a crime. Or you can help with the victim of the witness in the crime that's the number and there's got to be a time somewhere we

say we can't pass the buck to someone else to have the guts. To come forward and do whatever little part we can to make this system work. Tell us about what happens when they get the call. How much are we doing on. When we get a Holy. It sounds and I mean generally and then call it screen them put through two accounts. Depending on the type of crime it's the rate that goes through toss it to a unit and if it's any other kind of crime to account available at that counter the same way as the vertical prosecution to try to keep the same count related we try to the as much as possible however volunteers can only come in and but we have other volunteers who will but I'm VERY them turn even to the extent of escorting them. The thing with them always and I think a 10 month old no no no no not at all we have people that we've been talking to ever since we started three or four years that the system but they still call.

I'm told the Orange County had one of the better programs of all of these Something like 40 50 you have to be one of the better when the third and deserves support deserve more help from us in the media to. Maybe have that old thank you. Keep up the good work I'm very. Glad to have all the in a last word of advice you have until. I just want the people to report it. That said that there's a preventive quality when you win when you put people you stop doing it again. All right. Thank you very much Bill. Blubbered created. By time ago went up and I want to help. Thank all of you for being here and to focus on a very important program the one that makes one feel a little bit better place in which to live. Please join me next week when I'll be talking about a remarkable group of people who are called the stopgap people. I'm Jim Cooper thanks for being with us.