20 Years of Explaining, Hand-Holding

As a court reporter for a newspaper you get used to thinking of crime victims as statistics. Autopsy details become routine, weapons used in killings such as guns and knives are just pieces of courtroom evidence.

The argument goes that you have to become immune. Otherwise, you’d go nuts thinking about what it’s really all about.

But in my 10 years covering trials for this paper, there was one thing I never got used to. I never learned how to take in stride the pain--gut-wrenching, tearful, chest-searing pain--of the families of murder victims, or victims who survived to make it to court.

Which is why it was always of some relief to see the one person who showed up in court who always made it seem a bit more bearable for these people. That was the representative from the Victim Witness Program. Now called Victim Assistance Programs, it’s a private group adopted by the Orange County courts to help victims deal with a crime’s aftermath as a case progresses. Or, as state Supreme Court Chief Justice Ronald M. George said Friday, the Victim Assistance people “put a human face on the judicial system for the victim.”

George was guest speaker at a luncheon at the Doubletree Hotel in Orange County to commemorate the 20th anniversary of the Victim Assistance Programs. Last year the chief justice took time to tour the courts in all 58 California counties. Friday he said Orange County’s victim witness program was a model for other counties to follow.

In too many instances, he said, “Victims are tangential to, or even forgotten in, the criminal justice process.”

In Orange County, the Victim Assistance representative might be a staff member or a volunteer. Some are crime victims who were so impressed with the help they got that they came back to help other victims.

Sometimes their help is requested by a judge or a prosecutor. Sometimes they are even called by the police to the crime scene. On occasion, some crime victims have their own reasons for not wanting to be bothered. My experience is most victims gladly reach out to them.

Help that these volunteers or staffers provide can be as simple as making victims understand how the system works. I’ve seen them sit in an empty courtroom with a victim and carefully explain where everybody involved will sit. At other times, I’ve seen families so badly shaken as they await a verdict that they form a human chain of clasped hands. And the Victim Assistance person will be right in the middle.

But there was a time, 20 years ago to be exact, that this county not only lacked such help, but that courtroom conditions for victims were atrocious. Alan Slater, executive officer for Superior Court, described conditions back then at Juvenile Court in Orange:

“We had just one room where victims, witnesses and perpetrators were all crowded together. We had people complaining of intimidation. It was just awful.”

Ed Merrilees, formerly a supervisor in the district attorney’s office, complained to Harriet Bemus of Newport Beach. She’s well known for volunteer work, and agreed to try to do something about it.

What she did was found the program I’m writing about today. She snagged a federal grant that she says was supposed to go to the sheriff’s office but no one knew it. She took her grant, and good friend Helen Long, to see a judge.

The judge bellowed into the phone to Slater: “What am I supposed to do with these federals?” Meaning the two women with their federal grant.

What Slater did was see to it they got the cooperation they needed.

“I learned early not to stand in Harriet’s way,” he said.

When Barbara J. Phillips, now the director, joined the program in 1980, she says it had seven staff members and five volunteers. Today it has a staff of 90 and more than 100 volunteers covering areas such as gang victims, child dependency services, and domestic violence.

The main award winner at Friday’s luncheon was Maggie Corbin, 52, of Tustin, who is in charge of its juvenile services. A very surprised Corbin had to leave even before her friends could congratulate her. She was due in court.

I tracked her down later in a courtroom where a juvenile defendant was being sentenced for a sexual assault. Corbin was assigned to one of the victims.

“We can’t guarantee any results in court for the victims,” Corbin said. “All we can do is answer their questions, and empathize.”

Corbin was presented her award by Bemus, who is now retired. Later on, Bemus told me that what her group does is “empower these victims to help themselves.”

She asked me if I had ever been a crime victim. No.

“Well, you ought to be,” she shot back. “Then you’d have an idea what it is they go through.

Jerry Hicks’ column appears Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday. Readers may reach Hicks by calling the Times Orange County Edition at (714) 966-7823 or by fax to (714) 966-7711, or e-mail to jerry.hicks@latimes.com