ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Sunday, June 2, 1996 TAG: 9606030010
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B-8 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: CHARLOTTESVILLE
SOURCE: Associated Press
In the seven years since she was raped at knifepoint in her home, Linda Pitman has learned a lot about how crime victims are treated in Virginia.
A four-year ordeal in the criminal justice system made a victims' rights advocate of Pitman, leading to her appointment to the Virginia Parole Board and her support for a constitutional amendment that will be on the Nov. 5 ballot.
The amendment and a new state law are designed to give victims better notification of court dates and criminal release dates, the right to be heard before sentencing and the right to restitution and to confer with prosecutors.
The language of the proposed ballot question will read: ``Shall the Constitution of Virginia be amended to provide that the victims of crime shall be treated with fairness, dignity and respect in the criminal justice process and that the General Assembly may define, by law, the rights of victims of crime?''
The General Assembly approved the amendment in 1995 and this year, making this November's referendum the final step to include victims' rights in the constitution. No organized opposition has surfaced.
Pitman, 42, said the amendment will make victims feel whole and human again. Until victims' rights are spelled out in the constitution, she said, victims may feel as she did - ``like you are not important. You are just a number, or a piece of evidence.''
When Pitman showed up at a Chesapeake Circuit Court hearing to determine whether evidence of the defendant's rapes of other women should be suppressed, ``the judge asked why I was there,'' she said. ``I felt like I wasn't wanted, I wasn't important enough to be there.''
She said the criminal who raped her had rights that were respected by the court, but she did not feel that she was treated like a person with rights at times as she dealt with police, prosecutors and judges.
By the time she wrote a victim-impact statement to a judge four years after her April 1989 rape, her words described how painful it was dealing with the criminal justice system, she said.
``I was absolutely appalled that my life was turned upside-down and nobody seemed to care,'' said Pitman, who has talked openly about the nature of the crime since becoming a victims' rights activist.
Pitman said the proposed amendment is a welcome change for victims that will ``go a long way in the healing process. I think it's going to go a long way in the reporting of crime.''
She said victims will be more likely to report crimes if they know they will be treated fairly and with respect in the criminal justice system by police, lawyers, prosecutors and judges.
But J. Lloyd Snook III, a Charlottesville defense lawyer who has represented a number of defendants on death row, predicted that passage of the amendment would have little impact in most cases.
Crime victims ``already have all of those rights anyway,'' Snook said. ``Basically, it will put the commonwealth's attorneys on the spot and give victims what most commonwealth's attorneys already give them.''
Attorney Jim Gilmore is the chief proponent of the amendment.
``It will make for good election-year fodder,'' Snook said.
Gilmore said that as commonwealth's attorney in Henrico County, he found victims of crimes often ``were very frustrated people. Their feelings, their damages, all of these were ignored.''
Gilmore started a victim-witness program in Henrico and worked to establish similar programs around the state after he was elected attorney general in 1993. The 1995 victims' rights law will fund victim-witness assistance programs beginning July1.
``For a minimal financial commitment, a lot of good is done for those who come in contact with the judicial system,'' Gilmore said.
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