I’m not sure if I have mentioned it before on this blog but I am a prosecuting attorney. I have been doing it for about 1 year now after spending a couple of three years in civil litigation. Yesterday I got the decision on my first Superior Court case and I won. The court staff had been giving 3:1 odds on conviction but you never know until you actually hear if from the judge’s mouth.
The case was a sexual assault and the details were not pretty. Throughout the case I really wanted to win. When I got the decision, there was a short moment of feeling proud of myself involved to be sure, but since then I have been contemplating what this really means. For me, it validated that I can do this job and do it well. For society, it means that someone who seriously trespassed our laws and conventions will have to pay a debt. I want to say it gives the victim closure, but I cannot be sure. Based on her testimony in Court last week, this is obviously still very fresh in her mind and caused an almost complete breakdown when she had to relive it. To say that this will all magically go away when she finds out he was convicted is very wishful thinking.
The daughter of the accused is out a father for the foreseeable future. I don’t know what kind of father he was, and from my assessment of his character, I can’t imagine he was much of one, but he was the parent she was living with. Additionally, she will have to live with the stigma of having a rapist for a father.
