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A Utah lawmaker has abandoned a proposal targeting crime-victim advocacy after dozens of critics — including a prominent prosecutor — flooded a hearing room early Tuesday morning to denounce the measure.
The House Judiciary panel did not vote on the proposal. Instead, bill sponsor Rep. LaVar Christensen ushered the group of about 60 into a room across the hall.
"I hope you see I'm passionate," he said, "and protective of victims' rights."
But law-enforcement officials said the proposal would tip the balance in defendants' favor. They contend it would undo years of reforms that have ensured rights to protective orders and services for people who have been raped or abused by romantic partners.
Courts historically have ensured fair, speedy trials for perpetrators, said Salt Lake County District Attorney Sim Gill, but have "alienated" victims, keeping them in the dark about how the legal process works, on developments in their case and the possibility of protective orders.
Applause broke out after Gill said "defendants choose victims. Victims don't choose their defendants."
Christensen, a Draper Republican and an attorney, initially sought to reaffirm "all defendants are presumed innocent until proven guilty" and stipulated that "victim advocates are not part of a criminal prosecution."
That language would have reinforced the misconception that most allegations of rape are false, critics said. It also would undermine advocates, who sometimes testify as witnesses in criminal trials.
Christensen later whittled down the measure to reinforce that criminal defendants maintain "constitutional rights and protections."
Gill still took issue with the updated version.
The message it sends "is somehow victims are exploiting defendants," he said. "That is not the case."
Rep. Brian King, D-Salt Lake City, criticized the bill, saying it "just created a firestorm and created an inconvenience." During a break in the meeting, he urged Christensen to issue a public apology.
Lynne Smith, a victim advocate with the Tooele City police department who noted that she was speaking on her own behalf, said the measure would have put a "tailspin" on Utah's progress toward equipping police departments and courts with "somebody by [a victim's] side saying, 'You can do this, and this is what comes next.' "
Smith says she knows the value of that resource on a personal level. When she reported her own domestic violence in the '80s, law-enforcement officers considered the report a family issue and did not move to charge her abuser. Few departments had advocates at the time.
Today, she notes, the advocates don't work solely with victims of sexual violence. They are also available to people who have been assaulted or subjected to another crime.
"I'm thrilled that it was tabled," said Smith, who came to the Capitol to protest the measure.
Christensen estimates that he represents a "handful" of defendants in criminal cases each year. Some of those clients, he said, told him they felt the courts unfairly favored victims. He said he has no plans to bring the measure next year — at least not until after further consulting with Utah law enforcement.
Still, he says, he seeks to understand victims' perspectives as he encounters them in volunteer work and in church.
Christensen previously sponsored a successful measure, he said, to ensure victims have a right to have an attorney present when they give statements to police. He said Elizabeth Smart, who was kidnapped from her family's home as a child, backed the law.
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