Failure to Protect

History: A man was convicted of molesting a mentally challenged 8 year old child. The court sentenced the man to probation. A Civil Protection Order (CPO) was granted; however the offender violated the CPO numerous times by walking up to the fence of the child’s backyard, shaking the fence and making crude comments and gestures while the child was playing. In addition, he would park in front of the child’s home monitoring the family’s comings and goings again taking every opportunity to intimidate the child and mother. The victim’s mother had contacted the sheriff’s office numerous times to report the violations and law enforcement refused to take any action. They told the mother that she must hire an attorney to enforce the CPO.

Violations: Sheriff’s Office –Right to Protection and Right to be treated with Fairness, Dignity & Respect under the Ohio Constitution

Status: The Justice League contacted the sheriff’s office and the offender was arrested, charged, and probation revoked. The Justice League recommended the sheriff’s office adopt victims’ rights policies and procedures and provide victims rights training to officers. The case will remain open until recommendations are completed.

Failure to Protect -and- Failure to Treat Victim with Fairness, Dignity, or Respect

History: 23 year old rape victim from a rural southeastern Ohio Appalachian community. Alleged offenders recently released from prison for cocaine trafficking, assault, assault of an officer, and domestic violence. Alleged offenders are well known by law enforcement officials for intimidating and threatening victims/witnesses in previous criminal activity. This case was reported to The Justice League (TJL) by the Director of a rape crisis center. The Director reported to TJL that prior to interviewing the victim or defendants the detective assigned to the case stated that the victim was lying. While interviewing the victim, the detective yelled at the victim, said that the defendants said the act was consensual, and accused the victim of lying. The detective then told the victim that she needed to take a lie detector test. A CVSA was administered which demonstrated that she was telling the truth yet the detective still told victim and advocates that he believed the victim was lying. The detective then sent the results of the test to outside sources for review and the 3^rd review indicated the victim was not truthful. The detective then contacted the victim and again accused her of lying. The detective, not in charge of the property room, personally disposed of the rape kit and medical evidence within 6 weeks of the incident, severely limiting victim’s access to criminal & civil justice. The victim was told by alleged offenders that if she did not say the act was consensual then they were going to put her in intensive care by beating her with a baseball bat.  Not receiving any assistance from law enforcement and fearing for her life, the victim left a message at the sheriff’s office stating the act was consensual. Law enforcement did not conduct a follow-up investigation with the victim to determine why she had recanted or to determine if her safety was at risk. Instead, law enforcement immediately charged the victim with obstruction of official business the next day.

Actions: The Justice League arranged one meeting which included the following individuals; the Chief Deputy from the sheriff’s office, detective involved in victims’ rights complaint, county prosecutor, prosecutor based victims advocate, victim, victims public defender, and city attorney. The Justice League stated the basis of the complaint. When the detective was asked if he indeed stated the victim was lying prior to interviewing any involved parties his response was “yes”. When asked how he came to this conclusion he stated, “There have been numerous false reports of rape over the past year and I am just sick of it.”  When The Justice League asked the detective how many false reports of rape over the past year the prosecutor interjected and said, “Dan you don’t have to answer that.”  When asked why the prosecutor said, “He couldn’t possibly know exactly how many at this time.” Our response was, “That’s okay I  realize you can’t provide exact figures just tell me approximately how many false reports you’ve had.” The prosecutor interjected again and said, “Dan you don’t have to answer.” We then made a public records request to the sheriff’s office and prosecutor’s office asking for the number of rapes and other sex offenses reported to the sheriff’s office, number of cases indicted as rape, number of cases indicted as other forms of sex offenses, number of rape convictions, and number of other sex offense convictions for the past year. The detective went on to say that he was a 14 year veteran in the sexual assault unit and the victim didn’t present herself as a rape victim. When asked to describe what he meant by this the detective stated, “She said that she washed off in the bathroom after the rape and she did not report in a timely matter.” The Justice League informed the detective that it was not uncommon for victims to want to cleanse themselves after a sexual assault and that we had read the police report which indicated the victim had reported the rape within 10 hours of the incident. The Justice League asked the detective why he thought that was not a timely report and the prosecutor interjected, “That’s merely a matter of opinion.” The Justice League’s response was “No, it is not merely a matter of opinion. The statute of limitations on rape is 20 years.” When asked if he threw away the rape kit the detective responded, “yes”.

Violations: Failure to Inform Victim of Her Rights 2930.04; Failure to Protect & to be Treated with Fairness, Dignity, & Respect pursuant to the Ohio Constitution; Improperly Disposing of Evidence; Improper Administration of CVSA (lie detector test)

Status: The sheriff’s office and city attorney have dropped the charges against the victim, re-opened the case, and has agreed to work with The Justice League in establishing victims rights policies and procedures. They also agreed to have their officers receive training in sexual assault awareness, evidence based prosecution, and victim backlash in the criminal justice system, as well they are correcting their policies on retention and disposing of evidence. The case will remain open until all recommendations are completed.

Denied Right to Speedy Trial -and- Right to be Present

History: A case involving a 10 year old child rape victim was postponed 18 times primarily by defense and a couple times by the state over a three year period. The emotional strain of preparing for the trial every couple months over the three year period only to be met with more continuances diminished the impact of counseling services and had taken its toll on the child and parents. At 10 years old she was a sociable active straight A student; now 13 she was struggling to maintain C & D grades, dropped out of all sports activities, missed a considerable amount of school, and had become withdrawn and isolated. The child’s parents were denied the right to be present during proceedings and victims objections to the numerous continuances were never presented by the prosecutor to the court as statutorily required. The case had just been continued again for three months later and the parents, feeling there was no end in sight and wanting for their child to begin her healing and recovery, were considering requesting the charges be dropped.

Violations: Prosecutor’s Office - Victims Right to Object to Substantial Delay in Prosecution Ohio Revised Code 2930.08; Victim’s/Parents Right to be Present at Trial Ohio Revised Code 2930.09

Status: The Justice League met with the elected prosecutor and informed of speedy trial and right to be present violations. The prosecutor contacted the judge and the trial date was set within 2 weeks. The prosecutor also honored the parent’s right to be present. The Justice League is working with the prosecutor on developing victims’ rights policies and procedures & training to ensure that the violations do not continue and that prosecutors present victims objections to substantial delay to court as required by law so that we can ensure victims cases do not unnecessarily drag on for 3 years. Case will remain open until victims’ rights policies and procedures have been adopted and prosecutors have received victims’ rights training.