THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Tuesday, June 6, 1995 TAG: 9506060283
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B7 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY MARA STANLEY, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Medium: 54 lines
Linda R. Pitman was furious when she read about a rape conviction that was overturned because the prosecutor failed to prove that the victim, a 12-year-old girl at the time, was not married to her attacker.
``I was absolutely outraged,'' said the State Parole Board member, an outspoken victims' rights advocate and victim of a 1989 Chesapeake rape. ``Everyone looked at this and said that this is so outrageous that we have to do something.''
What resulted is a new statewide coalition of organizations with an interest in victims' rights.
Pitman gathered 18 members of 14 victims' rights groups in her office Thursday. The new organization, the Virginia Crime Victims' Rights Coalition, will try to improve the treatment of the state's crime victims, she said.
The coalition voted to support a state constitutional amendment for victims' rights and reform of the juvenile justice system. It also moved to evaluate Virginia's judicial system.
It was the case of George T. Smith Jr. that infuriated Pitman. In 1991, Smith, 23 at the time and a resident of Painter on the Eastern Shore, was baby-sitting for his girlfriend. In a handwritten confession, Smith said he saw his girlfriend's 12-year-old sister in the bathroom, grabbed her by the wrists, led her to a nearby bedroom and raped her. He was found guilty and given a five-year sentence.
In March, the Virginia Court of Appeals in Norfolk reversed Smith's rape conviction because the prosecutor did not prove ``beyond a reasonable doubt that Smith was not the victim's spouse.'' Judge James W. Benton Jr. wrote the opinion.
Smith spent about two years in jail. The conviction reversal is being appealed, but if it stands his record will be clean.
``It doesn't serve justice. The point is, things like this shouldn't happen,'' said Jane Nady Burnley, a member of the new coalition and executive director of VALOR, a Falls Church group that works to reform the criminal justice system.
When Pitman read about the ruling, originally reported in The Virginian-Pilot and The Ledger-Star, ``I faxed it all over the state. I called the attorney general's office,'' she said. ``In my rape case it was never brought up that he was not married to me.''
Pitman, who now lives in Williamsburg, was raped in her Greenbrier home in 1989 by a knife-wielding intruder. Tony Brown, 30, a waterfront laborer, was convicted of the attack in 1993. He was given two life sentences plus 20 years. It was his third rape conviction.
KEYWORDS: RAPE SEX CRIME VICTIMS' RIGHTS by CNB