Crime Victims Begin Pressing for Financial Restitution

Eight years ago, Kathy Tennihan was beaten so severely her eyes swelled shut. For months afterward she crawled because she was too terrified to stand.

Today her attacker is free after serving 6 1/2 years for assault and battery with intent to murder.

But Tennihan, 46, still pays with mental anguish she says prevents her from even working full time, and she believes her attacker ought to be paying too.

She is pushing for a state law to make financial restitution a mandatory part of punishment for violent crimes.

At least two other states have laws requiring attackers to make recovery payments to their victims. And the new federal crime bill requires sex offenders and child molesters to compensate their victims for all losses, including the cost of psychological therapy.

Tennihan and others say victims often need money--not just apologies or stiff sentences for criminals--to recover.

Judges and victims’ advocates say mandatory financial restitution can be unconstitutional and tricky to enforce. But they also say it could help eliminate the disparity between the criminals who serve their time and forget and the victims who bear scars for the rest of their lives.

“Lots of times victims feel left out of the criminal process,” said Marshall Dayan, a Durham, N.C., lawyer who has been court-appointed defender in dozens of capital cases. “It seems to me that there’s a place in the system for making the direct victims of crime a part of it. That place, to me, is having the offender make restitution directly to the victim.”

Judges in Washington and Utah are required to order restitution, said John Stein, deputy director for the National Organization for Victim Assistance.

Thirty-five states have less comprehensive laws.

In all states, victims and their families can turn to victim compensation funds to be reimbursed for lost wages, medical bills and funeral costs.

Restitution advocates say such funds can be inadequate because of restrictions on payments and on what crimes are covered. Some states, for example, do not provide compensation for sexual assault, unless there was demonstrable bodily harm.

Richard Pompelio, a lawyer from Sparta, N.J., said he knows the flaws in the system personally and professionally. His son was murdered in 1989, and since then Pompelio has pushed for greater compensation for crime victims and their families.

New Jersey, like most states, caps compensation at $25,000. Pompelio says that cannot pay for the years of psychological therapy many of his clients have needed after being sexually assaulted.

Pompelio, who runs the New Jersey Crime Victim’s Law Center, said criminals should be made to pay as long as their victims suffer--in some cases, forever.

Victims can turn to civil courts for restitution, a tactic Boulder County District Court Judge Richard McClean recommends in Colorado.

But Kathy Tennihan knows civil courts provide no guarantee.

She filed a civil suit against her attacker and was awarded $100,000, but to date she has netted only about $20,000.

“He’s out there and getting his life back together, but I’m still stuck,” she said.