The New Mexico Victim’s Rights Project will be providing a Continuing Legal Education (CLE) course for New Mexico attorneys. For more information email us at info@victimsrightsnm.org. We plan to provide this course on a regular basis, and the next course will be on April 12, 2024. This course will cover New Mexico Constitutional and Statutory Rights of crime victims in the criminal justice system.
I am the mother of two children who at ages 4 and 7 had to testify in front of their father at his trial. He was convicted of raping my daughter and sentenced to 36 years imprisonment.
I am sharing our story with you in hopes that you will understand why New Mexico needs Child Testimony Reform.
It was my son’s 5th birthday when my daughter, then age 2 ½ disclosed to me that her father was touching her private parts. Though I grappled with how to wrap my head around what she had disclosed, I listened to her. I believed her. I took action. I reported it to the police.
At the Safe House exam and interview, the nurse told me the kids would have to testify and our lives would be turned upside down.
In my conversations with prosecutors and law enforcement, they told me that between 75-90 % of child sexual abuse cases fall apart and can’t be prosecuted because the young victims are too traumatized to testify in open court.
I am the mother of two children who at ages 4 and 7 had to testify in front of their father at his trial. He was convicted of raping my daughter and sentenced to 36 years imprisonment.
I am sharing our story with you in hopes that you will understand why New Mexico needs Child Testimony Reform.
It was my son’s 5th birthday when my daughter, then age 2 ½ disclosed to me that her father was touching her private parts. Though I grappled with how to wrap my head around what she had disclosed, I listened to her. I believed her. I took action. I reported it to the police.
Our quest for justice was long and sometimes discouraging. When the case was turned over to the District Attorney’s Office, I was told many times that “charges are coming,” but then I waited, and waited.
Meanwhile, my ex-husband (and children’s father) was stalking us. He possessed guns and made no secret of his plans to kill me and kidnap the children.
After a year of inaction by the District Attorney’s Office, I felt I needed to petition the New Mexico Attorney General’s Office to plead with them to take my daughter’s case. They agreed to prosecute him however, they made it clear that both children would be expected to testify in open court.
In New Mexico a child victim of sexual abuse is expected to walk into a room full of strangers, sit in the witness chair, swear to tell the truth, and set aside that this was their father whom they loved and yet had hurt them and threatened their lives if they told anyone.
I had naively assumed that the justice system was like I had seen on “Law & Order,” where the child would testify either through a closed circuit TV or in the Judge’s chambers. Prosecutors told me that if the kids couldn’t testify, there would be no case. I didn’t feel like I had a choice. Our safety and our lives were in danger.
There was no way for me to know the full impact of what I was committing them to do.
My son, who is now 8 years-old wants to change the law to help other kids not have to go through the same hell he and his sister withstood.
We are working with NM legislators to introduce Child Testimony Reform and asking our Supreme Court to change the rules that would allow protections for these young victims.
The child welfare index isn’t just a number, it’s a symbol of how a state values and treats its children. New Mexico does not rate well on the child welfare index. Let the way child victims are treated by the New Mexico criminal justices system be a strong indicator that New Mexico must improve how it protects child victim witnesses.
The brutal and sad truth is, this is how many perpetrators are able to silence their victims, because they know they will not be able to testify, and the abuse continues.
New Mexico needs to provide protections to the most vulnerable victims of in our criminal justice system. New Mexico can do better. New Mexico must do better. Support Child Testimony Reform.
A New Mexico women and her children are still wrestling with the psychological effects of a state judicial process that often requires sexually abused children to testify against their accuser in open court — even if the culprit is a parent. And she’s determined to change that for future crime victims.
Strong advocates for victims of violent crime are needed now more than ever to ensure victims are treated with courtesy, dignity and respect and are not railroaded and simply “processed” through an uncaring, overworked and sometimes hostile criminal justice system. Read the entire story as it originally appeared on THE MARSHALL PROJECT
Ariz. Tests Nonlawyer Advice For Domestic Violence Victims
By Emma Cueto | February
For many survivors of domestic violence, trying to leave an abusive situation presents an array of legal issues, from protective orders to custody battles to housing assistance to divorce, but affordable legal help can be hard to come by.
The state of Arizona is hoping to fill that need with a pilot program that will create a new type of legal adviser: the licensed legal advocate.
As part of a program developed by students and professors at the University of Arizona, the Arizona Supreme Court has agreed to sign off on the new licensed legal advocate program, which will run for one year, allowing advocates who go through the LLA training to give legal advice to domestic violence survivors.
“The domestic violence space makes a lot of sense for a first test case, partly because those survivors really sit as the center of the justice gap,” said Stacy Butler, the head of the University of Arizona’s Innovation for Justice Program, which spearheaded the development of the program.
In the United States, the only people who are typically allowed to provide legal advice are attorneys. While others can give people legal information, they are not allowed to suggest a course of action or provide guidance for a particular case or legal matter. In general, this is meant to protect the public from being led astray by people who are not qualified to weigh in on legal matters.
However, when trying to address the justice gap in the U.S., where the need for legal services greatly outpaces the legal help most people are able to access, some have argued that states should open the door for other legal professionals, such as paralegals, to provide advice in specific circumstances.
Arizona is not the first state to experiment with allowing nonlawyers to play a larger role in helping others navigate the legal system. In 2019, researchers at Georgetown identified 15 states that currently have “navigator” programs, in which authorized nonlawyer personnel provide assistance at the courthouse to people representing themselves.
Other states have tried different models, including Washington, which in 2012 created a limited license legal technician certification that allows nonlawyers to advise on family law matters.
In Arizona, Butler and her team — which included Jeffrey Willis, then-president of the Arizona State Bar, and Karen Adam, a retired family law judge — decided to look specifically at the legal needs of domestic violence survivors and how best to help them navigate the system.
Students in the Innovation for Justice Program started by mapping out the way the legal system is meant to work to serve domestic violence victims, and then worked with Emerge Center Against Domestic Abuse in Tucson to determine how it often works in practice.
The next step for those students was collaborating with Emerge and others in the legal community to develop ways to address the roadblocks survivors typically face. They zeroed in on the lay legal advocates already working at Emerge, who are able to give information, but not advice.
“That line is tricky,” Butler said. “There were a lot of examples [where] they know what that survivor should do in that situation because they have navigated that situation with many survivors before, but they are worried about applying their own judgment.”
For instance, Butler said, advocates were wary of telling clients how to fill out certain forms for the court, even if they knew the type of information the court looks for. Advocates often erred on the side of providing less information in order to avoid crossing a line, Butler said.
Under the new pilot program scheduled to start this fall, lay legal advocates with Emerge will be able to undergo training to become licensed legal advocates, able to provide legal advice at specified points in the process.
These LLAs will be allowed to advise Emerge clients during their initial intake, guide them through the process of filling out forms, help them prepare for court, and sit next to them during court proceedings to give advice.
The students and stakeholders also considered other ideas, such as allowing LLAs to speak on victims’ behalf during hearings, but eventually settled on a more modest role.
“We dialed it back … because there was some concern about the amount of training you need to be an in-court advocate,” Butler said.
Right now, the Arizona Supreme Court, which regulates the practice of law in the state, has agreed to allow LLAs to operate solely through Emerge for a one-year pilot program so that researchers can study its impact.
Though they will not be allowed to represent clients or advocate in court, Butler said they expect LLAs will be able to make a big impact. She also hopes that the LLA model will form a template that can be used for other legal needs and in other states.
“I hope the pilot will be successful and this will be a permanent service offered in the state, and in other states,” Butler said.
