Fight still ahead for survivors
Friday, April 28th, 2006
By Chris Fitzsimon
By Mark Brumley — Staff Writer, The Courier-Tribune
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RAMSEUR — Victims’ rights have come a long way in 15 years, but citizens have to fight to protect that progress, guest speaker Chet Hodgin told people Thursday at Randolph County’s Third Annual Crime Victims’ Remembrance Program.
Hodgin — the father of two sons murdered in unrelated crimes lest than two years apart — told audience members that the defense attorney for the man accused of killing his oldest son, Keith, tried to have him thrown out of an Asheville courtroom during the trial in 1992.
The lawyer told the judge that he was concerned that Hodgin’s presence would sway the jury.
“Well, duh, why did he think I was there?” said Hodgin of Jamestown. “The judge was sensible enough to deny the request.”
About 65 people attended the service at Jordan United Methodist Church in downtown Ramseur. Hosted by the Randolph County Sheriff’s Office, Asheboro Jaycees, Liberty Jaycees and the Family Crisis Center, the event was part of National Crime Victim’s Rights Week, April 23-29.
The theme of this year’s national event has been “Victims’ Rights: Strength In Unity.” The purpose is to bring together crime victims and survivors and those who serve them to promote victims’ rights and services, and to educate communities about the devastating impact of crime on victims, neighborhoods, schools and the nation as a whole.
Thirty-three states now have victims’ rights, said Hodgin, who helped get North Carolina’s law passed in 1998. Those rights require authorities to keep victims or their survivors informed about their cases, gives them a voice in court to tell how crimes have impacted them and entitles them to restitution.
In those early days, Hodgin said, state lawmakers didn’t seem to want to have anything to do with crime victims and survivors. He said he believed it was because they were influenced by trial attorneys, who fought against the constitutional amendment that established the state’s crime victims’ bill of rights. He said nine out of 10 voters supported the amendment when it was placed on the ballot. (more…)
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