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Event illustrates rape victims’ struggles in criminal justice system
by
Anne Look
April 15, 2008
Anne Look / Medill
Attorney Kaethe Morris Hoffer gives testimony Monday at the Crime Victims' Rights Roundtable event, sponsored by Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan.
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Illinois Attorney General Justice Project Against Sexual HarmRoundtable gives voice to Illinois crime victims
Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan hosted the first of five Crime Victims’ Rights Roundtable events in Chicago Monday to kick off 2008 National Crime Victims’ Rights Week.
Keynote speaker Douglas Beloof, executive director of the National Crime Victim Law Institute, addressed the state of crime victims’ rights and their enforcement in Illinois and in the U.S.
Victims and their advocates were invited to offer oral and written testimony about their experiences in the criminal justice system to a panel of Illinois police officers, prosecutors and service providers. The Attorney General’s Office plans to make these testimonies available to the public.
Inciting applause and whistles from the room, the testimony of Stephanie Swartz, a YWCA sexual- assault advocate, highlighted the need for broader recognition of crime victims’ rights in Illinois.
“Victims are constantly being put in the position to defend themselves, whether to the police, the judge or the public, all because they reported a crime,” Swartz said. “The offender, more times than not, is never required to answer at all. In my experience, we treat our alleged criminals like we hope to treat our victims and victims as criminals.”
A second roundtable was held Tuesday afternoon in Springfield, and three more events are being planned for May and June.
New advocacy group seeks to make rapists pay
The Justice Project Against Sexual Harm (Justice PASH) opened its doors in February with a unique mission: to make rapists pay. Literally.
Working out of the downtown Evanston office of attorney Kaethe Morris Hoffer, the group’s executive director, Justice PASH offers sexual-assault victims advocacy in support of criminal prosecutions and free legal representation in civil litigation.
“Very few victims have attorneys to represent them in the criminal justice system. It’s very needed,” said Lyn Schollett, General Counsel for the Illinois Coalition Against Sexual Assault (ICASA). “It’s definitely groundbreaking.”
Sexual-assault victims can bring civil suits against perpetrators for damages caused by the assault under the Illinois Gender Violence Act (2004), which defines sexual assault as a form of sex discrimination. Regardless of whether the perpetrator was arrested, prosecuted or convicted in the criminal justice system, the victim can recover damages from the perpetrator in civil court.
“There is a tremendous amount of overlap for rape victims between their needs in civil court and their needs in criminal court,” Schollet said. “Ideally, victims should have both options.”
Factoring in expenses such as medical care, mental-health services and lost job productivity, ICASA estimates the cost to the victim for each sexual assault to be $110,000. Almost two thirds of sexual- assault victims know their attacker, according to Justice Department.
“It’s making the perpetrators pay,” said Samir Goswami, Director of Policy and Outreach for the project, of the civil suits. “We know who the perpetrators are in the majority of cases.”
In pioneering civil litigation in sexual-assault cases and proving its money-making potential, the group hopes to influence more lawyers to take on these cases. They are not only conducting formal presentations at law firms but also offering unpaid summer internships for law students.
“One of our core goals is to train a generation of attorneys,” Goswami said.
Hoffer and Goswami were co-authors and lead advocates for the Gender Violence Act (2004) and the Predator Accountability Act (2006) respectively, which allows victims of the sex trade to hold pimps, johns and other abusers accountable for damage caused through prostitution and sex trafficking.
Justice PASH is the next step in moving this legislation towards implementation, Goswami said.
Through continued policy work, Justice PASH aims to federalize the two acts as well as improve their implementation in Illinois. To address low prosecution and conviction rates in sexual assault cases, it plans to perform a study following 30 cases from the emergency room, where many cases are first reported, to the end of the legal process “to see at what step things broke down,” Goswami said.
“Rape crisis centers are doing an excellent job with individual advocacy,” said Goswami. “There’s a need for an organization to put it all together on a systemic level.”
After he sexually assaulted her in July 2007, he told her he had hepatitis. She filed a complaint and he was arrested 24 hours later. The State’s Attorney charged him with a misdemeanor of reckless conduct instead of a felony of forcible rape, however, telling her he reasoned the hepatitis disclosure was behind her accusation of rape.
Her case was then shuffled between different Cook County prosecutors and misdemeanor courts – she and her advocate struggled to track the progress of the case – until it was dismissed in February.
“They basically shooed me out of the courtroom,” she said of a time when she missed a hearing after being given the wrong time. “They said my appearance was not necessary but I wanted to be there every step of the way to see this man be put away.”
Ultimately, she said “I was under the impression that I was basically being forced to dismiss my case.”
“I don’t know any of my rights at all,” she said in a voice thick with tears.
The victim told her story before a panel of Illinois police officers, prosecutors and victim advocates Monday afternoon at the Crime Victims’ Rights Roundtable Event hosted by the Illinois Attorney General’s Office.
Kicking off National Crime Victims’ Rights Week, the event was the first of five round-table discussions this spring in which crime victims and their advocates can present oral or written testimony about their experiences within the criminal-justice system.
Sixty percent of sexual assaults are not reported, according to the Rape, Abuse and Incest National Network. Of those attacks reported, there is a 16.3 percent chance the rapist will see the inside of a jail cell. The likelihood drops to six percent after factoring in unreported rapes.
The group’s web site therefore estimates that in 15 out of 16 sexual assaults, perpetrators walk free.
Kaethe Morris Hoffer, an attorney whose firm is dedicated to civil litigation for sexual-assault victims, offered testimony at the roundtable about the increasing number of forcible rapes that she sees charged as misdemeanor crimes instead of felonies.
“There is a massive lack in transparency in the standards by which prosecutors’ offices determine whether or not to charge an individual crime, specifically with regard to sexual assault,” Hoffer said.
Hoffer founded the Justice Project Against Sexual Harm this year with fellow advocates Samir Goswami and Jennifer Choi to assist victims seeking criminal prosecutions. The group aims to hold perpetrators and institutions accountable via civil litigation that would compensate victims for medical expenses, counseling costs and lost productivity.
“Getting assistance should be the standard not the exception,” said Goswami, Director of Policy and Outreach for the project. “The State’s Attorney advocating for victims should be the standard not the exception.”
The majority of the testimonies at the Chicago session were related to sexual assault and the insensitivity and legal barriers victims encounter when attempting to report and prosecute these crimes.
Lyn Schollett, General Counsel for the Illinois Coalition Against Sexual Assault, attributed this in part to the involvement of sexual-assault advocates in the event’s organization but also found it indicative of the unique plight of victims of those crimes.
“Unfortunately what I think that kind of representation tells us is that rape victims still struggle mightily for representation in the criminal justice system,” Schollett said. “It’s still an uphill battle.”
