Victims' Advocate Changes Sought

Hartford Courant

By Elizabeth Hamilton
Staff Writer

Two prominent congresswomen called on Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld on Tuesday to strengthen protections for advocates of sexual assault victims, a move prompted by a recent Hartford Courant story.

The letter to Rumsfeld, signed by Rep. Louise Slaughter, D-N.Y., and Rep. Carolyn Kilpatrick, D-Mich., was written in response to issues raised in a March 20 story that detailed the mistreatment of advocates who work with military personnel. At least one advocate was fired following her aggressive representation of a rape victim, while others were harassed, reassigned or ignored.

“A recent account in the Hartford Courant raises serious questions about whether the Department is capable of complying with congressional intent and utilizing victim advocates to address sexual assault in the military,” the letter to Rumsfeld says. “Without a strong victim advocate program, attacks are dismissed by command, perpetrators go unpunished and victims are denied access to essential care.”

Slaughter, co-chairwoman of the Congressional Caucus for Women’s Issues, introduced legislation last year that would provide whistleblower protections for advocates. She and Kilpatrick, a member of the Appropriations Committee, also took aim at the military’s new confidentiality policy for victims of sexual assault, saying it does not extend far enough because it does not apply to victims of domestic violence and stalking.

And, although the policy gives military personnel the right to confidentially report a sexual assault to some health care providers, clergy and advocates, the new privacy rule does not apply to spouses and other family members, contractors or civilian employees.

It also appears that some health care providers are covered by the policy while others are not, prompting Slaughter and Kilpatrick to question how traumatized victims can be expected to know the difference.

Brig. Gen. K.C. McClain, who was appointed last year to lead the Pentagon’s new Joint Task Force for Sexual Assault Prevention and Response, did not immediately respond to The Courant’s request for comment about the letter Tuesday.

McClain’s spokesman, Roger Kaplan, said in a previous interview with The Courant that the Pentagon and the task force are dedicated to changing the culture in the military that has allowed sexual assault to go unpunished while penalizing victims.

“Because of things like [the March 20 Courant] article we’re going to ensure there is a policy so that people make full use of their victim advocate,” Kaplan said, adding that female soldiers are an integral part of the military. “We can’t go to war with only 85 percent of our fighting force working properly.”

Congress allocated $1.8 million for additional victim advocate services this year. The Army announced last month it will train 1,000 sexual assault victim advocates around the globe and contract for “special assault response coordinators,” who will provide training and oversight to the advocates.

Additionally, a spokesman for the Department of Defense said Tuesday that it put $12.5 million into advocacy and shelter services for domestic violence victims in 2003 and 2004.

There are some recent signs that the problems experienced by victim advocates are more widespread than was originally thought, however.

The Miles Foundation, a Newtown, Conn., organization that advocates for victims of sexual and domestic assault in the military here and abroad, has heard from numerous advocates since the Courant story ran who were either fired, reassigned or are actively hunting for new jobs because of mistreatment by the military.

In addition, a Colorado therapist who treated rape victims at the Air Force Academy was subpoenaed by a military judge in Texas last week and threatened with arrest by federal marshals if she doesn’t comply, her attorney, Wendy Murphy, said. The therapist was ordered to turn over her records from counseling sessions with a rape victim.

Murphy, who bought her client some time when she took the case late last week, said she intends to argue the subpoena is unconstitutional because the defendant—a former Air Force Academy cadet who has been charged with raping two female cadets—has no rights to his victims’ private files.

“The strongest argument is … that even if we’re talking about the victim’s grocery receipts, the defendant has no right to snoop around in people’s private lives,” said Murphy, who teaches at the New England School of Law and has a long history of handling privacy rights cases.

“Obviously someone who has been harmed by criminal violence should never suffer anything punitive from the criminal justice system,” Murphy added. “They don’t deserve to have the system pile on. If you can’t promise someone meaningful confidentiality, they’re never going to heal.”

In another decision that might not bode well for victim advocates, Kayla Michael, a former advocate profiled in the Courant story after she was fired by U.S. military officials at the Heidelberg, Germany, Army base last August, has lost her initial appeal.

Michael maintained she was fired in retaliation for representing a woman who brought a rape complaint against an Army captain. An investigation of her case by the military in Germany recently found that claim to be “unsubstantiated.”

In a statement released five days after the publication of the Courant story, the Installation Management Agency (IMA), which oversees the U.S. Army base in Heidelberg, said Michael’s contract ended for the “convenience of the government based on reasonable and legitimate basis.”

“I am completely satisfied that everything in this case was done above board and I stand by the results of the … investigation,” said Russell Hall, regional director of the IMA in Heidelberg, in a statement e-mailed to The Courant.

Hall’s spokeswoman, Kim Walz, said Tuesday that written evidence showing Michael’s contract was initially canceled because of the rape case is a “moot point” because the final termination letter says she was fired for the convenience of the government.

“The U.S. government doesn’t need a reason to terminate a contract and the fact that it was even brought up is wrong,” Walz said, adding that Hall believes the process could have been “better synchronized” by the two contracting offices that handled Michael’s employment.