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 Justice
delayed
A victim's anguish and anxiety are often placed on the back burner
By Jan Ackerman
Post-Gazette Staff Writer
Jane Hartman and Betsy Gamrat know the drill at the Allegheny County Courthouse as well
as anyone.
They are victim advocates for the Center for Victims of Violent Crime, a nonprofit
organization that helps people build the ''courage'' they need to get through a trial.
Hartman and Gamrat accompany victims to court. Many are family members of people who have
been murdered.
Often, their clients arrive promptly at 8:30 a.m. or 9 a.m., only to spend hours -- if not
the whole day -- standing around, seething about the apparent inefficiencies of the
justice system.
''We have had people lose their jobs,'' Gamrat said. ''They take time off work for a trial
that doesn't happen. They have to find child care and arrange for transportation.
''Some live out of town. I had one client who walked from Rankin to the courthouse, only
to find that the case had been postponed.
''How many times can we build them up and then tell them they have to go home (because of
another postponement)?''
What do Gamrat and Hartman tell victims who are angry, frustrated and disappointed with
the pace of the system?
''I'm sorry' is big on my list,'' said Gamrat.
She has a pending homicide case that already has been postponed five times.
Some judges limit the number of postponements, but others don't. Judge Raymond A. Novak,
for example, allows only one postponement for each side.
In addition, Gamrat said, five attempts to try the defendants have ended in mistrials.
Recently, Hartman shepherded a young assault victim and nine witnesses through the
process.
They arrived in court promptly at 8:30 a.m. Because all cases that day were scheduled for
8:30, it wasn't until 3:30 p.m. that the assault victim and his witnesses were notified
that their case was ready to start.
A mental health professional who works frequently in criminal court echoed their
experiences.
Waiting ''is the rule rather than the exception,'' said the worker, who asked not to be
identified because of the likelihood of future court appearances.
''When I was first brought into the system, I was sort of amazed. You were told to be here
at 8:30. The judge would come out at 10 and hear other cases. Then he would break for an
hour and a half for lunch. Then he would hear other cases, and then you were told to be
back the next day.
''When you think of all the wages that are in the room waiting, it adds up to quite a bit.
Our time is valuable, too,'' she said.
David S. Cercone, administrative judge of the Criminal Division, acknowledged that the
system may appear to be inefficient, but he argues that it is not.
Cercone said victims and witnesses are expected to report at 8:30 a.m. so they can talk to
prosecutors or defense attorneys.
Cercone said that when he first became a judge in 1986, he took the bench at 8:30 or 9
a.m., but soon found that to be ''counterproductive.'' He said that by rushing cases to
trial, he didn't give the parties enough time to negotiate plea agreements.
''By forcing them to trial, we are cutting off our noses to spite our faces,'' Cercone
said.
From the judges' point of view, the system makes sense.
But the delays and postponements are unnerving to crime victims and families that already
are anxious and frightened.
''It was systematically killing us off,'' said Amy Mokricky, a Mt. Lebanon businesswoman
whose sister, Susan Jill Creighton, was murdered in June 1994.
Mokricky said her family endured a series of false starts while waiting for a Carnegie
man, Jake Wesley, to be tried. He ultimately was sentenced to death after his trial
concluded in 1996.
''We had four postponements,'' including once when a defense attorney said he was
unprepared for trial, Mokricky said. ''We found out about one on the morning of trial.''
Mokricky said another sister, Nancy Creighton of St. John's, Newfoundland, lost her job
because she traveled to Allegheny County so many times for court hearings that were not
held.
By the time Wesley was scheduled to be sentenced in March 1996, Creighton couldn't afford
to come back again.
She sent a videotape so Judge Lawrence J. O'Toole would know how she felt, Mokricky said.
Debbie McManus, a supervisor at the Center for Victims of Violent Crime, said that
although postponements and delays were devastating to victims, no one seems to have found
a better way to run the court with its large volume of cases.
''It is a system where all the players try to do the best they can,'' she said. ''I don't
think there is an easy solution. Everyone is playing their part.''
Staff writer Jon Schmitz contributed to this report.
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