Getting Status and Getting Even

By Bennett H. Beach

The victims' movement forces some criminals to right wrongs

Late one night in a suburban Denver parking lot, Stacey Johnson, then 19, was about to get into her car when Gary Tucker, 28, approached, saying that his pickup truck would not start. For two hours Johnson drove him around in search of jumper cables. When they returned to the lot, Tucker, without warning, stabbed Johnson seven times, inflicting wounds that hospitalized her for a month. Tucker was eventually sentenced to eight years for attempted murder, but Johnson wanted more. She filed a civil suit against him for $6 million in damages. Six jurors concluded that even this sum was not enough; they decided that Tucker owed Johnson $8 million for what he had done. "I wanted to punish him. I wanted to strike back," said Johnson last week.

Johnson's victory is one of the latest and largest in an accelerating movement by angry victims and their relatives who want a larger slice of justice. Lawmakers are backing them up. Thirty-six states have created victims' compensation programs to repay some of the medical costs and lost income. Last week the nine-member President's Task Force on Victims of Crime urged all states to undertake such programs. "We've got to raise the status of the victim," said Lois Haight Herrington, who headed the task force. The report pointed out that the prey of criminals are afterward "oppressively burdened by a system designed to protect them." Property used as evidence should be returned more promptly, said the task force, and victims should be permitted to speak when judges consider bail, postponement requests and sentences.

The new attention to victims is a comment in part on the frustrations of criminal law. Plea bargains, delays and judicial concern constitutional for suspects' rights can rescue a wrongdoer. Moreover, a criminal trial pits a defendant against soci ety; the victim is not a party. As a result, more and more victims are going to civil court in quest of damages. Says Wyoming Attorney Johnson Gerry Spence: "Such cases are as close to basic historical justice as man has ever known."

Winning is usually easy. In civil cases, the standard of proof is lower than in criminal ones. Says Yale Law Professor Joseph Bishop: "You've got to prove only that, more probably than not, the defendant murdered your deceased." In criminal doubt." court, the Drunk test is drivers have "beyond a long been targets reasonable gets of such suits.

There are several legal bases for getting damages. The victim, or his estate in the case of death, can seek compensation for pain and suffering. Surviving relatives can also sue for the financial support that they have lost. Last month a federal judge in New York approved still another approach. The case grew out of the notorious 1977 hammer killing of Yale Student Bonnie Garland by Richard Herrin, her jealous exboyfriend. The judge upheld a jury award of $30,000 to the parents against Herrin, ruling that he recklessly caused severe emotional distress. Says Bonnie's mother Joan: "Now a criminal can't 'I have no responsibility for the damage I've done to you.' "

A victory against an indigent criminal like Herrin is often largely symbolic. Says Boston Attorney F. Lee Bailey: "Violent criminal defendants are generally penniless. You seldom collect." There are exceptions. Some infamous criminals have earned nest eggs by writing, or selling the rights to, their stories. Happily, it is becoming harder for these criminals to profit from their misdeeds. Fifteen states, including New Jersey last week, have adopted so-called Son of Sam laws, named for Multiple Murderer David Berkowitz, which lock up proceeds from books and other ventures to satisfy claims by victims or their survivors. One such moneyed killer is Jack Henry Abbott, author of the prison memoir In the Belly the Beast, who stabbed an aspiring actor to death in New York City in 1981. The widow, Ricci Adan, is using New York's Son of Sam law as one basis for getting damages from Abbott.

There is another way to recover when the criminal has no money: sue a third party whose carelessness allowed the crime to occur. Last fall a Denver secretary who was sexually assaulted in her apartment won a total of $350,000 from both her attacker and the developer of the building complex. The assailant was an employee who obtained a master key through the developer's negligence. Says Virginia Lawyer Frank Carrington, a member of the President's task force: "Third party is where it's at."

Sometimes, though, the money is secondary. Three Atlanta policemen who were shot and a fourth who was beaten had little chance of recovering from the down-and-outers who injured them, but they went to court anyway. Explained their lawyer, William McKenney: "The public thinks that when they see a blue uniform they can take a punch at it, that the police officer can take it. But police officers want to be treated as human beings." Nor was money the whole point when Elliott Jones, widow of Washington Cardiologist and Author Michael Halberstam, sued her husband's killer, a millionaire burglar named Bernard Welch. Jones won a $5.7 million award, but the IRS has first claim on Welch's assets. Even if she never gets a penny, Jones found a different recompense. "It gives you a certain satisfaction," she says. "I never even had a chance to cuss the out . ' ' -- By Bennett H. Beach. Reported by David S. Jackson/Washington and Richard Woodbury/ Denver

With reporting by David S. Jackson/Washington and Richard Woodbury/ Denver This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so viewer discretion is required.