The OVA
The motto sprawled over the Office of Victims Advocate (OVA)
site for the state of Connecticut reads: “Giving voices to crime victims throughout
the state of Connecticut.”
The OVA site, which contains a picture of the state’s Victims
Advocate, Garvin Ambrose, a new arrival from Cook County in Illinois, boasts
that the office is an “independent
state agency with the charge of protecting and enforcing crime victims’ rights
throughout the state of Connecticut.”
Independent, one
might ask, of whom?
According to its
site, the OVA “receives and investigates victims’ complaints regarding their
treatment in the criminal justice process,” which may involve a host of actors
and processes including but not limited to: law enforcement agencies; victim compensation; court-based and
non-profit advocates; presiding judges and prosecutors, a fairly
complete accounting of those in the justice system who may, intentionally or
not, cause harm or distress to victims.
In addition to its principal mandate, the OVA has the
statutory authority and resources to “intervene
in court cases to advocate for a victim when their rights have been violated”… to
“make recommendations to the legislature, criminal justice professionals and
victim service providers for changes in state policies and laws to benefit
crime victims” ... and to “provide education and outreach about services
available to the public.”
The OVA is a creature of statute, which is to say it was created by the
state legislature though, as a putative independent agency, it is answerable to
Connecticut’s chief executive, Governor Dannel Malloy, who is charged with appointing
the Advocate.
Even a cursory
reading of the statute creating the office indicates that the legislature was
concerned with the independence of the OVA – “the Victim Advocate shall act
independently of any state department in the performance of the advocate's
duties” – and the office’s oversight responsibilities as they pertain to constitutional
rights of victims: The agency is charged with reviewing “the procedures
established by any state agency or other entity providing services to victims
with respect to the constitutional rights of victims,” a broad and brave
mandate to which Mr. Ambrose tipped his hat immediately after he was installed
as Connecticut’s voice for victims.
“As your newest
State Victim Advocate at the Office of the Victim Advocate (OVA), I am humbled
by the opportunity to serve the numerous individuals and families of
Connecticut and am excited about the possibilities for positive change that lie
ahead for crime victims,” Mr. Ambrose advised. “While the State of Connecticut
continues to make strides in recognizing the necessity of including crime
victims in the criminal justice and legislative arenas, it is important that
the voices of all victims be heard. To ensure this outcome, it is my intent,
and the goal of the OVA, to properly serve all those who find themselves in the
position of a crime victim.”
Ok, ok – we get it. The mandate of the office is to
represent the interests of victims as cases wend their way slowly through the
state’s Byzantine legal system. It is one of the more humane duties of the Victims
Advocate to soften the blows and buffets received by the victims of sexual
aggression, even more so when the aggressors and victims are family members.
Due
Discrimination
One would like to believe that the state’s new Victims
Advocate is able to distinguish between victims of child abuse and those
accused of child abuse. But a letter written to Judge Joan Alexander in a case
involving child abuse in Glastonbury raises some nettlesome questions.
According to court documents, George Harasz and Douglas Wirth, the parents of nine boys adopted from
three family sets, were charged with child abuse after police began an
investigation in February and removed the children from the home. Mr. Harasz
initially was charged with two counts of first-degree sexual assault,
aggravated first-degree sexual assault, fourth-degree sexual assault, two
counts of risk of injury to a minor and cruelty to persons. At the same time,
Mr. Wirth was charged with third-degree sexual assault and risk of injury to a
minor.
Mr. Ambrose’s letter to the court written April “respectfully requests that the court
consider imposing a probationary period upon both defendants as their egregious
conduct demonstrates that they are in dire need of professional guidance and
structured supervision. If the court finds their risk of injury conduct was
committed for a sexual purpose, the OAV respectfully requests the court
strongly consider placing both defendants on the sexual offender registry…”
An arranged plea
bargain that reduced all charges against both men to one felony count for each fell apart a short time ago following a stunning revelation involving a Department of Children and Families (DCF)
social worker who had attended a meeting between one of the children and a
parole officer in the course of which the child claimed that “he has scars from
being held down and raped and that those injuries were inflicted by a
weapon."
The child’s claim, crucial to the prosecution, was never presented for
consideration to the parties that arranged the plea bargain. Quite predictably,
the claim of forced rape at knifepoint threw a wrench into what otherwise would
have been a pro forma hearing affirming a plea bargain that greatly
reduced the initial charges.
The plea bargain was scuttled and the court granted the two accused a
trial after Judge Joan Alexander -- considerably incensed at the failure to
account for important evidence always available but never introduced in any of
the judicial proceedings -- said that while a trial would be risky for both the
prosecution and the defense, the case should go to trial “in the interest of
justice. The facts must be shown and must be shown publicly."
When a DCF lawyer present in court explained that the social worker had
not reported the child’s claim – as she was bound to do under Connecticut law –
because she assumed the allegation
she had heard was already part of the criminal case, Judge Alexander fairly
exploded. She called the explanation ““disingenuous" -- because the victim
had noted in the same interview that he had never told investigators about that
particular incident.
Dare We Presume
It is extremely
important, especially at the beginning of what promises to be a complex legal
proceeding, not to arrive at conclusions prematurely. In other cases of this
kind, gruesome sexual charges have not been sustained at trial. The initial
charges brought against Mr. Harasz and Mr. Wirth may have been exaggerated or
not; prosecutors sometime inflate charges in order quickly to arrive at a
settlement plea.
That caveat in
mind, there is no question that the plea bargain process in this case
irretrievably broke down under the weight of a claim that was available to all
the actors in this judicial farce. There is no question that Mr. Ambrose’s
principal duty in this instance was to fulfill his statutory obligations by
representing the interests of those children who had claimed they had been the
victims of child abuse; indeed, that is why he is called a Victims Advocate. It
is no part of Mr. Ambrose’s responsibility to facilitate a plea bargain
favorable to the accused parents of the nine children the state saw fit to
remove from their home. Mr. Harasz and Mr. Wirth have competent advocates in
attorneys Hubert Santos and Michael Dwyer.
Had Mr. Ambrose
interviewed the child who claimed he had been raped at knifepoint by the father
who had adopted him or the DCF social worker or the probation officer involved
in the interview with the child, that little nugget of information undoubtedly
would have shaped all consequent judicial actions – and Mr. Ambrose could have
spared himself the trouble of writing to the court a letter requesting a
probationary period for persons initially accused of serious sexual crimes
against the children whose interests he was by statute supposed to be
representing.
Since Mr. Ambrose
was so new to his position, it seems proper to ask whether someone above him
may have compromised the vaunted “independence” of his office by nudging him to
intervene in this case to secure a court judgment favorable to the two
defendants. In a perfect world, none of us should need to wait upon a trial
that might, in the words of Judge Alexander, show the facts and show then
publically.
But, of course, we
all know – despite the feverish attempts of world reformers to change it -- that
this sorry planet is steeped in political chicanery, ambition and the ceaseless
strife of political interests that, in Ambrose Bierce’s definition of
“politics,” masquerades as “a contest of principles.”
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