Judith Ann Rowland

May 12, 1944 - September 27, 2020

SAN DIEGO — Judith Ann Rowland of San Diego died on September 27, 2020, of a brain hemorrhage.

Judy was born in San Diego on May 12, 1944, to Dr. Alan Rowland and Marjorie Rowland. She attended Grossmont High School in La Mesa, graduating in 1961. Her lifelong love of travel was born when she spent her senior year in high school as an American Field Service exchange student in Paris. She also attended college in Padua, Italy, as part of the University of California’s study abroad program. She graduated from the UC’S Berkeley campus in 1965.

Judy graduated from California Western School of Law in 1969, and made her career in criminal law. She was a deputy district attorney in San Diego, best known as an advocate who pioneered the use of expert testimony in sexual assault cases in the 1970s and 80s.

Judy had realized that the survivors she encountered often had emotional and behavioral damage from their experience, which she later recognized as Rape Trauma Syndrome, a form of Post-traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). Judy worked with doctors, psychotherapists, and rape crisis counselors to help sexual assault survivors during the legal process, and to advocate for admission of expert testimony on Rape Trauma Syndrome at trial. Judy wrote a book on her cases and her efforts to get this evidence accepted, titled The Ultimate Violation: Rape Trauma Syndrome – An Answer for Victims, Justice in the Courtroom (Doubleday 1985). She also co-founded a local nonprofit, the California Center on Victimology, to help crime victims through the legal process and continue advocating for the admission of Rape Trauma Syndrome evidence.

Judy is survived by her daughter, Kirsten Liermann, and her son, Justin Wied; three grandchildren: Ian Liermann, Aidan Liermann, and Katherine Barios-wied; her former husband and still a close family member, Dr. Steven Golbus; and her sister, Melanie Rowland (Randy Brook), of Twisp, Washington. Judy’s first husband, Charles Wied, predeceased her.

Donations in Judy’s memory can be made to Best Friends Animal Society in Kanab, Utah, where for many years she volunteered her services at their sanctuary (www. bestfriends.org/).

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