Trial delays present challenges for assault victims

As the year CLEVELAND — ends with a suspension of jury trials in Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Court, advocatesworry that survivors of sexual assault whose cases impacted by the delay could be left feeling ignored.

Cleveland Rape CrisisCenter Chief Advocacy Officer Teresa Stafford and Alisa Alfaro, who becameanadvocate herself after Cleveland Heights policepostedapolice report identifying her as a victim of sexual assault on its website, called on the courts to do everything possible to keep casesmoving forward.

“I have a severe fear with these processes not going forward in a timely fashion that more and more survivors are going to disengage fromthe criminal justice system,” Stafford said. “When we have that long process and survivors are just at a point where they say, ‘I’m done, I’m over this,’ it leads to a place where we don’t have accountability.”

The court halted jury trials inMarch at the pandemic’s onset. Judges have held bench trials, took plea deals and sentenced defendants during the pandemic, but the court did not hold a jury trial until it lifted the pause in September. Thecourt held a handful of trials eachweek until Nov. 6, when the state began experiencing a surge ofCOVID-19cases, andjudges again voted to halt jury trials.

The court is scheduled to resume holding trials early next year.

The center, which provides counseling and other services for victims of sexual trauma, says the delay impactedmore than 100sexual assault cases, including one case scheduled to go to trial in March, and has now been pending for more than two years.

Cuyahoga County CommonPleasCourtAdministrative Judge Brendan Sheehan said that the court’s judges met with the defense lawyers and the county prosecutor and public defender’s offices on Dec. 11 to urge them to think creatively to resolve as many cases as possible without the deadline of a trial date.

“We feel bad for the victims. We feel bad for everybody in this process,” Sheehan said. “On the same token, we’re telling families in our community that they can’t gather for Thanksgiving or holidays because of social distancing. It’s not that the justice system is ignoring victims or ignoring defendants. It’s a real balancing act.”

Delaying the healing process

Alfaro’s attacker, her 62-year-old neighbor Charles Cross, pleaded guilty the day he was set to go to trial in 2017 and received 16 years in prison. As the day approached, she knew plea talks were on the table but grew anxiouswhen the jury pool assembled withnodeal.

It wasn’t just that testifying in front of her rapist was frightening or that the jury could not believe her. She also didn’t want to wait another five days for the case to end, she said. It had been sevenmonthssince she came forward to police, and she had been through several uncomfortable interviews with detectives and prosecutors. Shewas ready to put the first leg of her journey toward healing behind her.

Alfaro said she worries about victims now who are having their chances to take those first steps delayed.

“Prosecution is a huge part of the healing process. Once you hear that word, ‘guilty,’ whether it’s a jury or a plea, you think, ‘somebody believedme,’” she said. “For the survivors and fighters and victims right now, they’re stuck on that first step. They’re in limbo with the court system. It’s hanging over their heads every day.”

Stafford said that the court’s expansion of virtual hearings cut down on victims’ need to come into court and be in the same room as their attacker to watch proceedings or give victim-impact statements.

She called on the court to find more ways to make it easier for victims to beam into the courtroom.

Communication is key

Stafford said she has also heard fromthe center’s clients that they feel that communication from criminal justice partners, including police departments, prosecutor offices and court staff across the four counties that the center serves, has dropped off.

Thatmay be a natural side effect of the stall in jury trials leading to fewer developments in court and a piling up of cases. Stafford said that, especially in sexual assault cases, keeping an open line of communication with victims is pivotal because their testimony is the critical evidence.