Seeing It Through : Prosecutors to Be Assigned for Duration of Case to Give Abuse Victims Support

Deputy Dist. Atty. Lydia Bodin still gets passionate when she talks about prosecuting an insurance salesman who slit his wife’s throat in front of the couple’s children last fall. She was on the case from the beginning and stayed with it until May, when the man was sentenced to life in prison.

Bodin received calls virtually every day during the trial from the wife, who almost died of her wounds. The woman would describe her nightmares and ask for support and information. When the jury sentenced her husband to prison, she asked Bodin for reassurance that he was really there. Had the case been turned over to another attorney at any point in the process, “I think (the victim) would have gone over the edge,” Bodin said.

Other victims of domestic abuse will now get similar support and attention thanks to a new domestic violence unit headed by Bodin that opened last month.

The unit’s four specially trained lawyers will prosecute several hundred cases a year, and also will serve as a model for the district attorney’s other offices throughout Los Angeles County, providing them with training and support in trials. Altogether, the offices will handle at least 1,500 felony prosecutions of domestic violence a year. Each case will have one lawyer assigned to handle the proceedings from beginning to end.

Before the unit was created, domestic violence victims usually had different attorneys for the various stages of the judicial process--filing, preliminary hearings and prosecution. Although that was efficient for the district attorney’s office, victims--98% of whom in California are women--could slip though the cracks of “a faceless judicial bureaucracy” without regular contact with a single attorney, Bodin said.

“Victims (used to) end up sitting in courtrooms with prosecutors who had just been handed this case five minutes beforehand,” said Carol Arnett, coordinator of the Los Angeles County Domestic Violence Council, an organization that educates victims of domestic violence and the people who counsel them.

Had the unit existed previously, Arnett said, she would have used it several times a week. Now that it does, a victim’s attorney can get to know a victim and better understand the danger her batterer presents, Arnett said.

Bodin, 39, began prosecuting cases for the district attorney’s office six years ago. Realizing that she did not know much about the domestic violence cases she got, she started reading every journal and study she could find.

When Dist. Atty. Gil Garcetti decided to start the unit as part of the sex crimes and child abuse division, Bodin was selected to head it because of her expertise and commitment, said Chief Assistant Dist. Atty. Sandy Buttitta. “She just knows the subject matter inside and out.”

Bodin’s knowledge may help others involved in prosecuting domestic violence cases, as well as people who work with victims. On Saturday she led a panel of experts that spoke to lawyers, police and social services professionals about psychological and legal aspects of domestic violence.

One of Bodin’s strengths is “her ability to become attached to her clients yet keep a balance and not become a zealot,” Buttitta said.

In April, the district attorney’s office began studying policy issues involved in setting up the office. Bodin and Garcetti exchanged ideas and information, finally deciding to use a model of “vertical prosecution” that sex crime prosecutors have used for over two years.

The new office, which comes at minimal cost to the county because the unit’s staff was shifted from other departments, will handle only felonies--cases in which the man uses a knife or gun on his victim, or batters her several times. The city attorney will continue to deal with most domestic violence misdemeanor crimes.

“It was an idea that was ready to happen,” Bodin said, adding that the unit has received about 100 cases--four of which are homicides--since opening its doors at the Hall of Records in mid-September.

Three times a week she starts work at 6 a.m. “It’s a time that the phones aren’t ringing,” she said. “Sometimes I need to sit and think a trial through.”

In a typical day, she goes to court, talks to police and victims, investigates cases and offers support to the attorneys who report to her. “It’s real easy for lawyers here to start feeling victimized, too” because of heavy case loads and the troubling issues involved, she said.

“Sometimes the hardest job we have is convincing (victims) they are worth it and that we should prosecute for them,” Bodin said.

Some women have grown up in a culture of domestic violence and others are afraid to leave the abuser, who may be their sole source of support, Bodin said.

The ability to promise clients that one lawyer will see the entire case through is crucial to allaying women’s fears about the process.

“We can’t just say (to clients), ‘The prosecution’s over. Bye!’ ” she said. “It’s not just a question of being a lawyer, it’s a question of being a human being.”