[Canyon]

For original post and background info: http://forums.psychcentral.com/survi...rt-system.html

A trial date was set for last Wednesday. All of the witnesses were sent subpoenas and it seemed that everything was set. Wrong!

I didn't sleep for more than 48hrs before going to the courthouse Wednesday morning and arrived a few minutes early to check in. Once I was there for about 10 minutes, the DA took me to a conference room and told me that there might not be a trial that day because the defense attorney had just called (FROM the courthouse) and said that he needed more time to go through records.

I protested the idea of putting the trial off yet again and going through the sleepless nights and panic attacks leading up to a court date.

The DA said that they would have to go into the court room where the defense was going to ask for more time and that he would come back out in a couple of hours to let me know what was decided... but that he didn't think there would be a trial that day.

Long story short is that the defense got their way and the trial has been postponed yet again. It has been 2 1/2 years since that guy kidnapped and raped me. I guess my right to a speedy trial doesn't exist.

The DA said that this was obviously the defense attorney's way of trying to wear me down and get me to drop it. I think he is also trying to torture me.

There have been so many pretrial conferences and delays in the last 2 1/2 years. What they are doing is just cruel.

[healingme4me]

((((Canyon))))

[ThisWayOut]

I'm sorry it is such a long and drawn-out process... I hope the next time is finally it. 2.5 years is a really long time.

[Open Eyes]

I am sorry you have been struggling like this, well, for me it is 8 years and counting in my lawsuit, and yes, the opposing lawyers do play games to wear the plaintiff down. Try not to feed into that, and believe me, I do know it's hard.

However, sometimes a delay can really mean the defense is really not ready as most lawyers are handling more than one case at a time.

While I understand this is very hard on you, keep in mind that what you are doing is right and that you may very well be preventing this horrible individual from doing this to someone else. Do your best to dig down deep inside of you and pull up the power thoughts of how you are very strong and brave in spite of what you have been through.

((Supportive Hugs)))
OE

[cluelessgal]

I'm so sorry you are going through this. It sounds really agonizing.

I have immense respect for people who go through the Court system to get the assholes in jail. I hope you continue this fight till the very last end. Probably defense want to exhaust you....don't let them win.

I hope you are seeing a therapist. Moving on from it is the best healing you can get, don't rely on justice to get you that solace, that wait may be exhausting.

I hope you join some kick boxing or kung fu class. It would make you feel very powerful.

Hope you find all the support you need in this forum.

[Canyon]

Update: Today was the 2nd day of court. It has been nearly 4 years since the assault.
I took the stand today. The DA (who is on my side) questioned me for about 15 minutes. He thought the defense attorney for the guy who attacked me, would question me for roughly the same amount of time.

This man attacked me verbally for a total of more than 2 hours. He asked the same 15 or so questions multiple times but in different ways. He accused me of of wanting to have sex with this man I had never met. He would not allow me to speak, to tell the truth. He tried to steer me to his narrative.

Today was far and away more traumatic than the original crime. Far, far more. This is why there are so many rape victims out there who will never report it. This is why we have an epidemic of men taking advantage of women and girls. If I had to do it all over again, I would lie time and time again. I would NEVER tell a soul about what happened to me.

Tonight I'm in hell-- not from what happened to me the night of the rape but the beating I took today in front of an audience. At least the rape took place in a more private setting.

I'm in hell and I don't know how to go forward from here.

[Canyon]

Wow! Cold place.

((( Canyon ))) ...

Sorry you're being re-traumatized by a system that is anything but just! ... You are correct in stating that this is why most of us never come forward ... It's outrageous and atrocious how we get treated by this broken system of ours ... As far as moving forward goes, a good counselor and professionally facilitated survivors' group may prove helpful, but even with all that, it's still a long, tedious process trying to put the pieces back together again ... I still haven't found all mine, much less figured how to put them all back together again, and here I am in the 23rd year of my healing and recovery process ... One thing I do know for sure, though, is that we are pretty darn courageous and strong to keep on trying while the rest of society would prefer for us to just keep our mouths shut and pretend like nothing ever happened, and that it didn't alter our lives forever!

[Open Eyes]

I am so sorry you did not get responses right away. I am sure you needed to have some supportive feedback after what you experienced. It can look like a lot of people are reading your thread, but that can be individuals who are not actually members that can post a response to you.

You are being SO BRAVE to fight back and go to trial and sit on that stand. A defense attorney for the accused has to fight for their client and unfortunately as you have personally experienced, that includes the defense attorney doing what you experienced.
The Justice system is cold that way. With rape, part of the defense attorney's effort is to blame the victim and try to present what took place as being consenual or something that never took place.

It's just brutal and you are correct can cause additional trauma to an already traumatized victim.

Please remember that your goal is to make sure this individual who hurt you doesn't get a chance to hurt anyone else. You are not only fighting for yourself, but others.

I respect you for being so strong and fighting back, as this part is very, very hard on a victim and you are right, that is why so many women simply don't fight back and why individuals who rape continue to do so.

[Unrigged64072835]

Sorry to hear that you're going through this.

[Canyon]

Pfrog, Open Eyes, Fharraige,
Thanks for your responses. Sorry I didn't respond sooner. Have been in a bad way the last couple of days.

Unfortunately, he was found not guilty. To say the least, I haven't handled this well. Intellectually I know that the jury wasn't saying that they didn't believe me, just that they couldn't say guilty beyond any doubt. Emotionally I feel like they convicted me as a sl#% who either asked for it or initiated it.

I was told that the chances of winning would be a long shot, as most rape cases are. I was also told that even if we lost I would be empowered to be able to tell what happened with him forced to sit there. Right now, I'm not feeling it. Right now I feel worse.

The defense attorney had the gall to say that because I wasn't bruised, had broken bones or my clothes weren't destroyed, then it must have been consensual (since there was no doubt that sexual contact occurred).

The fact that defense attorney's are allowed to hire private investigators to hound you for years while waiting for trial, and then allowed to emotionally destroy victims in front of an audience is why so many women will never report-- or if they do, they will not follow it all the way to a trial.

This just creates more victims and more perpetrators because they have better chances to get away with it than they do of getting convicted.

[MtnTime2896]

I'm so sorry Canyon. I wish this thread wasn't so common with survivors who take the situation to trial. My thoughts are with you, though I wish I had more to say that could help; I'm at a loss I'm afraid.

[Canyon]

Originally Posted by Só leigheas

I'm so sorry Canyon. I wish this thread wasn't so common with survivors who take the situation to trial. My thoughts are with you, though I wish I had more to say that could help; I'm at a loss I'm afraid.

I'm sorry if I made you afraid. I hope you don't find yourself in the situation of going through the system as well.

I will say one thing I have learned: if the perpetrator has a public defender, which means he doesn't have the means for an expensive private attorney and private investigator, then the chances for a conviction go way up. I know that's kind of a sad state of affairs if someone is wrongfully accused and poor but it is the way of the world.

I found myself on the opposite side of that equation by being a person of low means/social stature as well as not being from the area, and going up against someone who was born and raised here and with enough money to hire a high price attorney and a couple of investigators to follow and hound me.

If you are going through this and would like to bounce anything off of me then feel free. If nothing else, this has been an educational experience for me and eventually I want to become some sort of advocate for those going through the system. I would've loved to have had someone who had gone through this as a victim that could have prepared me better.

[MtnTime2896]

Thanks Canyon. What happened with me took place too long ago. Statute of limitations in my state dictates that you can't prosecute someone for that crime if it took place over ten years ago. I think they might have recently changed it to no limit. Regardless, I wouldn't do it. I don't want to go through that, especially since he has access to one of the best defense attorney's in the state (who's also friends with my dad). It'd just be a mess. I can't even say or type the word in affiliation with myself, let alone take someone to court for it.

[Canyon]

Sorry to hear that. I hope you are at least able to have some distance from the person. Sounds like a horrible situation. I'm sorry.

[MtnTime2896]

Originally Posted by Canyon

Sorry to hear that. I hope you are at least able to have some distance from the person. Sounds like a horrible situation. I'm sorry.

It's okay. I hope that somewhere down the line you can have something profound take place that allows you to get through this.

[nicoleflynn]

It is shocking that in this day and age when so much information is out there about rape/assault, that the professionals are still back in the dark ages. You might want to write a letter to the criminal......called restorative justice...that says....this is what you did, this is how it made me feel. The letter is for you; I think it is empowering. you can send it to him, or keep it. Congratulations on doing this hard thing and I am so sorry, those who were supposed to help you, did not. xoxo

[Canyon]

Nicoleflynn, Thanks.

I will say that the assistant DA that worked my case was super nice and comforting. He was just way out matched. There were so many things he didn't prepare me for.

In the end, I think he is just young and still believes that truth and the law will prevail no matter what. He was going up against a much more experienced attorney with more resources at his disposal and a smaller case load.

Other than that, I can't say anything negative about the ADA or the victim's advocate. They are awesome people.

[Open Eyes]

(((Canyon))),

I am so sorry to hear that you were not successful in your effort to get justice. You are correct in that the opposing attorney/attornies can be brutal and they do look into the history of a victim to see if there is anything they can use against the victim. Even when they are deposing the victim, they can act nice and kind, however, they are not there to be nice but instead are looking for anything the victim says that they can turn against the victim.

I have experienced this battle myself, while I was not raped physically, I often wished that was the case because the individuals that I was fighting were so negligent especially when they saw I was not home or late at night when I had gone to bed, that everything I loved and worked so hard for was destroyed. My case was drawn out over a nine year period. The attorney I had was declining into dementia and because he was so well known and highly respected, I could not get another attorney to take over my case, it had to get so blatently bad before I finally found an attorney that saw it and also had heard how badly my attorney was failing mentally. Last I heard this attorney had 11 malpractice lawsuits filed against him. Even the opposing attorney saw he was failing but just considered it a plus for her to win her case. The bottom line with attorneys is only about winning their case, even when they know their client is guilty.

After nine years the day came for a pretrial meeting. I had to get up and drive in to court in a horrible snow storm while my neighbors got to stay home and be safe. It was so bad that just after we finally got to the court house the highway had to be shut down because of so many accidents. As we were driving on roads that were much too dangerous to drive on for all those miles, I could not believe that court was not cancelled. Everything else was cancelled, but not court, unbelievable.

I wound up sitting and waiting while my attorney and the opposing attorney met with the judge separately and together. First, they had to state their case so the judge could decide if there was enough to even go to trail. Then, the effort was to try to come to a settlement to avoid the long process and expense of having a trial. Finally my attorney came out to talk to me. She told me the amount offered for a settlement and it was not very much not even ten percent of the value of what I had lost or the expenses incured to me for all the veterinary care I had to have to deal with so many injured horses and ponies. My attorney told me she would go forward to trail, but she told me that trial would go on for many days, even a couple of weeks and that it would get very expensive for me, and that my neighbor would be there constantly and that I would be hit really hard by the opposing attorney. She told me if I lost that I would have to pay for the expense of the opposing side, including whatever expert witnesses that had to pay, one of which was a veteranarian that never even examined or saw any of my horses or ponies. She told me it could end up costing me over $40,000 and that I could lose which would only empower my negligent neighbors. She told me that if I chose to settle, even though the amount was so low that at least I would walk away with something, at least that something would represent there was enough there to show my neighbor did something wrong.

It SO HARD to make that choice because there was not even enough to pay off the enormous debt that I had been left with for so many years, that ruined my credit not to mention the destruction to the ponies and horses and the years I had put into building up what I had that was my own business that was badly damaged. I also suffer from PTSD and there was no way I could talk about that in court, and if the opposing side happened to find out about me suffering from that, which I knew they could have found out, they would use that against me in very cruel ways. If I had the money to take the risk, I would have fought it out in trail tbh. After all those years, including how my neighbor continued to be intrusive and disrespectful, I wanted my time in court to tell my story. While consciously I understood what my attorney was telling me, there was a very strong part of me that suffered a huge let down.

Canyon, I know first hand how horrible it can be. I also know how completely flat it feels to walk away with feeling such a loss in spite of how very much it took to fight the battle. I walked away understanding "why" so many chose not to fight, even learned a very hard truth about how people you thought of as friends or good professionals can decide to not step up in your defense because not only do they not want to get involved, but they also don't want to face having their histories looked into. It's extremely sobering to see how much people are not willing to CARE. That people would choose to run away from "truth" rather than fighting for it. It dramatically changed how I feel about people. That it doesn't matter how nice of a person someone is, that people that you think you can "trust and respect" can let you down SO BADLY. And then they not longer want to be your vet or someone you had years of doing business with and had established a good relationship with, doesn't matter. It is shocking how many people can let someone down. At least my attorney was kind enough to sit and talk to me about that unfortunate "reality" that hit me so hard.

You are now going through that flat disappointed feeling. But, the important thing in this mess you have been through is that you have proven to be a person that has value in "self" to stand up and fight back. I RESPECT that and of everything I have been through and learned the past nine years of fighting my own battle and everything I have learned from my experience, I can say to you that you are a brave strong person. You fought the fight, and even though you did not get the justice you clearly deserved, you still fought the fight and stood up for yourself. And this individual that did not happen to be found guilty at least got to see that a victim will fight back. There are two things that individual has experienced, a victim that will fight back, that he gets trapped in the legal process too, and that now there is an awareness about him in that he may be a bad person, and the one thing he can't change is the "doubt" that he may be a rapist, that is a sentence in itself. So you HAVE taken power away from him in your effort to stand up and fight back.

[Canyon]

Open Eyes

I can relate to your frustration. Lawyers see a weakness and they exploit it. They want to make it as uncomfortable, inconvenient, and costly to you personally as possible. Their hope is that you will give up and drop the case. They still get paid and don't run the risk of losing a case.

It's horrible that an attorney with so many malpractice charges was still allowed to practice. So many professions wouldn't allow so many bad marks on a person's record. I hate you had to deal with that.

I hope that things are going to start looking up for you. BTW, do you still have horses? I love them so much.

[Open Eyes]

Yes I have a few ponies left, but of the ones I used for lessons, two died and one is a cripple with a fractured pelvis, damaged hip joint an scarred ligaments down one leg. And my Arabian that I rode myself was also hurt somewhere in his hind end. My daughter's show horse had suspensory damage and he could no longer show and jump, he was worth a lot of money, he has been free leased to a therapudic riding center where a lot of handicapped children ride him as well as he is in a program for war vets with PTSD as a therapy horse.

[Canyon]

Wow, so sorry to hear that. What you're doing with the therapeutic riding center is awesome though. I have thought about going to such a center.

I really feel for you and what you have been through with your animals. I love them and can't stand anyone who hurts defenseless animals.

[Open Eyes]

If I was able to show pictures of all of them and what I lost I think animal lovers would be upset. It was extremely hard for me to deal with all these animals I loved being in pain and my not having enough money, not even on credit cards to have the veterinary care I needed. People don't realize how expensive it can get so quickly with veterinarians and that they insist on being given a credit card before they will tend to the animal. It can easily go into the thousands, which it did for me.

My neighbor's insurance company fought me in the case so it did not cost my neighbors. Insurance companies don't care, they are interested in doing whatever they need to in order to not pay. I still have to live next to these people. We can't afford to move and I have ponies that still need care and people don't want free animals that need special care. It's not their fault that someone's negligence hurt them and crippled them.

I fought back, but nine years was way too long. I found it to be inhumane and my life became about that for way too long. How my case was different from yours is that mine was a civil suit and the lawyer I was trapped with for 5 years who was mentally declining had been well known and any lawyer that would agree to take on my case would have to negotiate with him if the case came to a settlement. So, given that he was so well known and whatever was earned would have to be negotiated, I could not find any lawyer that would help me until I finally found one woman lawyer who knew he was declining and when she looked at my case she could see he was failing to do his job. He was with a big firm too, and the firm dismantled, the firm saw he was a liability and that he should have stopped practicing but he was insisting on still practicing. So, they dismantled in order to protect themselves from being liable. Everyone around him knew and just did not say anything, so his clients, including me just suffered the consequences. When someone is declining into dementia, they start by self denial and they can dress and look and act the part but their ability to actually "do" tasks is deteriorating. My file was a mess, my file had things from other cases in it. He never contacted the witnesses that were important to my case right away, he lied to me that he was handling that. I never got to finish being deposed, he would schedule dates with the opposing attorney and not tell me and forget them. It was important to talk to people right away, people do not remember 7 years after, they just don't, not unless something affects them personally.

I did not sue for malpractice, I don't have more years in me to fight yet another long battle.

[Canyon]

Open Eyes, So sorry I'm just getting back to this. Haven't been doing the best and have been laying low.

I'm an animal lover and reading this makes me so angry. You are correct about animal care providers (vets) being quite unbending about having payment up front.

I don't blame you for not proceeding with malpractice. Being involved in court battles are so draining, even more so when they drag on and are especially divisive.

Huge hugs to you