{"id":24975,"date":"2015-07-27T16:47:10","date_gmt":"2015-07-27T20:47:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/news\/?p=24975"},"modified":"2016-06-27T16:00:48","modified_gmt":"2016-06-27T20:00:48","slug":"after-the-tragic-loss-of-her-grandson-long-time-victim-advocate-reflects-on-changing-roles-and-restorative-justice","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/news\/2015\/after-the-tragic-loss-of-her-grandson-long-time-victim-advocate-reflects-on-changing-roles-and-restorative-justice\/","title":{"rendered":"After the tragic loss of her grandson, long-time victim advocate reflects on changing roles and restorative justice"},"content":{"rendered":"

When her 20-year-old grandson was murdered, long-time victim advocate Pamela Leonard, MA ’06 (conflict transformation<\/a>), found herself suddenly in a new role. What she learned has strengthened her zeal for criminal justice reform. To read more about Eastern Mennonite University alumni involved in law, check out the summer issue of Crossroads<\/a>, EMU’s alumni magazine.<\/em><\/p>\n

One Monday evening in November 2012, Pamela Leonard, MA \u201906 (conflict transformation), worked until dusk harvesting herbs on her farm in Lexington, North Carolina. When she got inside, a terrible message was waiting: her 20-year-old grandson had been shot by an armed robber in Atlanta. He died later that night.<\/p>\n

For the prior 20 years, Leonard had worked with defense lawyers for people facing the death penalty. Now, she suddenly found herself cast in the role of the victim. While her grandson\u2019s murder wasn\u2019t prosecuted as a death penalty case, the tragedy gave Leonard new perspective on how the criminal justice system fails victims by drawing such fierce lines between prosecution and defense.<\/p>\n

‘Confusing’ lines drawn<\/h3>\n
\"PamLeeSigPhoto_web\"<\/a>
Pamela Leonard’s grandson, Lee, was murdered by an armed robber in 2012. This experience, and the subsequent events relating to the offender’s trial and imprisonment, profoundly impacted Leonard, who had long worked as victim advocate. (JoniHeart Photography)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

There was, for example, closed-circuit video footage of her grandson\u2019s murder, which Leonard wanted to see. At first, the prosecutor refused to let her see it, for fear of giving away information critical to the case (eventually, Leonard was able to watch it). There had also been a bystander who\u2019d remained beside her dying grandson as he said his last words. Leonard\u2019s daughter, Allison Webb \u2013 the mother of the victim \u2013 wanted to send this person flowers as a token of appreciation. That also wasn\u2019t allowed, to Leonard\u2019s daughter\u2019s great distress.<\/p>\n

\u201cVictims just get so confused by things like that,\u201d says Leonard. \u201cWhen you are a victim-survivor or victim of the crime, there\u2019s a misconception that the prosecution is representing you.\u201d<\/p>\n

Instead, she says, prosecutors are representing the state. That means victims\u2019 own needs \u2013 perhaps for more detail about the crime, or a better understanding of the criminal justice process \u2013 take a back seat to the prosecutor\u2019s efforts to win a conviction. Defense lawyers, meanwhile, traditionally keep defendants under tight control, wary of revealing any information that could weaken their position in the courtroom. Victims who want to reach across these lines for whatever reason, as Leonard and her family learned, are often simply turned down.<\/p>\n

During her career in the legal system, when she lived in Atlanta, Ga., Leonard spent most of her time working on a relatively new and somewhat counterintuitive practice known as \u201cdefense-initiated victim outreach,\u201d or DIVO. Pioneered by the lawyers defending Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh in the 1990s, DIVO grew out of the restorative justice movement\u2019s focus on how crime affects relationships between offenders and victims. As the name implies, DIVO essentially involves the defense team and defendant making themselves more accessible in order to meet certain needs that victims may have.<\/p>\n

Between offender and victim: a relationship<\/h3>\n

Serious crimes like murders, DIVO advocates contend, create relationships between the offender and the victim\u2019s loved ones. By making defendants and the defense team available to the surviving victims, DIVO can help victims meet their newly created needs in unique ways, such as providing details about the circumstances of a crime that only the offender can answer.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve now lived it,\u201d says Leonard, looking back on her experience as a victim-survivor of a murder. \u201cIt expanded my understanding of why DIVO is needed, and why an overhaul of the criminal justice system is needed.\u201d<\/p>\n

In a 2006 article in The Champion<\/em>, the publication of the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, Leonard wrote that, from a victim\u2019s perspective, the criminal justice system \u201ccan be overwhelming, frustrating, depersonalizing and, from their perspective, very slow, especially in death penalty proceedings.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe primary benefit to victims who choose to work with a defense-initiated victim outreach specialist is empowerment, which means having a clearer realization of what matters to her or him and why those goals are important,\u201d she continued.<\/p>\n

Leonard emphasizes that DIVO has to be a process entirely driven by victims\u2019, not defendants\u2019, needs. \u201cThe defense isn\u2019t entitled access to the victims, [but] victims should be entitled to access to the defense,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

DIVO advocates for ‘simple human decency’<\/h3>\n

DIVO advocates also point out that an openness to relationships with victims can benefit a defendant in the courtroom \u2013 a key point when trying to sell defense attorneys on the concept. A relationship with victims can increase the likelihood of a plea deal or serve as a mitigating factor during sentencing. Finally, Leonard makes a moral case for rethinking the traditional, walled-off nature of prosecution versus defense.<\/p>\n

\u201cEven if no material benefit results from reaching out to victims, simple human decency calls for defense attorneys to relate to victims with respect and compassion,\u201d she wrote, in The Champion<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Leonard, an editor of the essay collection, Restorative Justice and Social Work<\/em>, believes that DIVO is beginning to catch hold. For more than a decade, she and her colleagues in the field have done an enormous amount of outreach, educating judges, prosecutors and defense attorneys about the benefits of the approach. Federal public defenders now routinely incorporate DIVO, as appropriate, in capital cases.<\/p>\n

Restoring the land, healing from loss<\/h3>\n

The trial of the man who killed Leonard\u2019s grandson ended in a plea deal, for which he\u2019s now serving a long prison sentence. Eventually, Leonard\u2019s family was able to meet the man\u2019s mother \u2013 a step that was an important part of their healing process.<\/p>\n

Her experience at EMU\u2019s Center for Justice and Peacebuilding<\/a> (CJP) also played a major role in helping Leonard cope with the loss of her grandson. She says studying restorative justice with professor Howard Zehr<\/a> and taking CJP\u2019s Strategies for Trauma Awareness and Resilience<\/a>, or STAR, training were particularly valuable, helping her \u201cnavigate the criminal justice system without demonizing the young man\u201d who killed her grandson.<\/p>\n

\"Exif_JPEG_PICTURE\"<\/a>
Pamela Leonard grows organic herbs with her husband on Gentle Harmony Farm in Lexington, North Carolina.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Several years before she became a victim herself, Leonard had already begun to step away from the emotionally draining world of capital cases. In 2008, she and her husband bought a farm in North Carolina where they now grow organic medicinal herbs.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was time for me to move on,\u201d she says. \u201cDIVO is very life-affirming [work], but it comes at a price.\u201d<\/p>\n

Before she arrived, the place \u2013 which they named Gentle Harmony Farm \u2013 had been conventionally farmed in corns and soybeans. Conventional agriculture and conventional criminal justice in this day and age aren\u2019t as different as they might first seem, Leonard says. Both exact a heavy toll on their surroundings. Both could use some rethinking. As an organic farmer, she feels like she\u2019s still fundamentally chipping away at the same sort of transformative work she\u2019d done in the justice system.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe want to leave this land in better condition than when we got here,\u201d Leonard says. \u201cThere\u2019s not an institution in this country that doesn\u2019t need restorative justice.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When her 20-year-old grandson was murdered, long-time victim advocate Pamela Leonard, MA ’06 (conflict transformation), found herself suddenly in a new role. What she learned has strengthened her zeal for ... read more about After the tragic loss of her grandson, long-time victim advocate reflects on changing roles and restorative justice<\/span><\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":24977,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[266,12503,12537],"tags":[5974,6232],"feature":[],"class_list":["post-24975","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-alumni","category-cjp","category-star","tag-howard-zehr","tag-restorative-justice"],"yoast_head":"\nAfter the tragic loss of her grandson, long-time victim advocate reflects on changing roles and restorative justice - EMU News<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/news\/2015\/after-the-tragic-loss-of-her-grandson-long-time-victim-advocate-reflects-on-changing-roles-and-restorative-justice\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"After the tragic loss of her grandson, long-time victim advocate reflects on changing roles and restorative justice - EMU News\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"When her 20-year-old grandson was murdered, long-time victim advocate Pamela Leonard, MA ’06 (conflict transformation), found herself suddenly in a new role. 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