Support Group Hopes to Advance the Cause of Crime Victims’ Rights

At first, explained Sidney Davis, when his son was murdered, there was only one kind of person he could talk to--someone who had lost a child. Then, said the 62-year-old engineer, “even that wasn’t enough. I had to find someone whose child was murdered.”

Today, while the horror of his son’s death at the hands of two house burglars is still fresh, Davis, like dozens of others who gathered in Irvine this weekend for a victims’ rights conference, is going beyond sharing his personal tragedy.

At the first regional conference of the Sunny Von Bulow National Victim Advocacy Center, which ends today, crime victims, their families and victim support groups from California and 15 other states are learning how to lobby for legislative change on behalf of victims and how to become a political force in their local communities.

Started last year by Alexander von Auersperg, the 27-year-old son of Martha (Sunny) von Bulow, who lies comatose in a New York hospital, the center serves as a national resource data bank to provide information to some 4,000 advocacy groups on victims’ rights and legislation.

“All victims or their families are is a witness to a proceeding,” said Von Auersperg, adding, “They are not informed, not allowed to speak unless asked to speak and may not be allowed in the courtroom.”

Feelings of Being Powerless

Von Auersperg, who is a vice president at E. F. Hutton & Co. in New York, said he decided to start the advocacy center in his mother’s name after he and his sister, Ala Kneissl, felt like powerless bystanders during the second trial of their stepfather, Claus von Bulow. The two were barred from the Providence, R.I., courtroom except when they were testifying. Von Bulow was acquitted of charges that he attempted to murder his wife.

“I’m not saying prosecutors aren’t good attorneys,” Von Auersperg said. “But a victim or victim’s family relies on the state--the prosecutor--and they have their own goals and motivations, which aren’t always in tune with what the victims of crime perceive as justice.

Speaking about the advocacy center, he added, “We want to pull the energies of everyone together and promote the common cause of rights for criminal victims.”

On Saturday, the second day of the conference at the Irvine Marriott Hotel, those who attended were given tips on how to deal with the media, how to organize candlelight vigils, how to be a court monitor on the lookout for judges who rule too leniently and how to speak in public forums about victims’ rights.

“Offer a menu of topics to the organization that has invited you to speak,” advised Anne Seymour, the Fort Worth advocacy center’s public affairs director.

Added Sherry Price of the center’s New York office: “Don’t use the word sodomy (when speaking) in church.” Price, a rape victim, also told the audience not to be afraid to speak up and ask for honorariums. “I do,” Price said, adding, “After all, nothing worse can happen in my life than what happened. Nothing can intimidate me.” In a more perfect world, Price said, her wish list for crime victims and their families would include increased police sensitivity, prosecutors letting victims in on how the process works, allowing the victim to be more involved in the plea-bargaining process that often allows a criminal to receive an easier sentence and notifying the victim when the perpetrator is being paroled.

“One of the worst things that can happen to a crime victim is that their perpetrator is out on parole and shows up on your doorstep,” Price said. All that victims want, added Sidney Davis, the man whose son was murdered, is to be treated with the same respect as the murderer. That, he said, would be a big step forward.

“Not only have you been a victim--and that’s irreparable, your child is dead--you feel that everyone else is against you also,” Davis said. “In other words, just as a silly example, the criminal goes to court and wears a nice suit to replace his previous clothing. And yet if the parent shows a few tears, she might be thrown from the courtroom for influencing the jury.”

Davis said the conference gives victims’ groups an awareness and sophistication they otherwise lack.

“We have a chapter of Parents of Murdered Children in Long Island, but no speakers bureau, or PR (public relations) or fund raising. We are not organization people. All we are is victims.”

Added another conference attendee, Lee Bertha Pickett-Allen: “After you have told your story over and over again, you need someplace to get involved so that you can try and help to change some of the laws.”

Pickett-Allen, whose teen-age son Earnest was innocently gunned down in the cross-fire of warring street gangs in South-Central Los Angeles in 1984, observed, “Most people, even if they have had a tragedy in their lives, are not always aware of other people and how much power we are trying to obtain to balance the scales of justice.”