Please give to The Capital Times Kids Fund.
Woman who was beaten says DA's office mishandled her case
In the early morning hours of Jan. 1, Shadayra Kilfoy-Flores picked herself up off the floor of her apartment. Unable to see out of her right eye, she watched as her attacker, Christopher Burns, grabbed her cell phone and took it with him as he left her apartment. She stumbled down the hallway for help.
You wouldn't know it to look at Kilfoy-Flores now, but she spent the remainder of that night in the hospital, where doctors determined she had suffered five fractures to her face that required her jaw to be wired shut for eight weeks, and the bone and tissue around her right eye to be reconstructed with metal plates. The emergency room doctor called it a "blowout" fracture, meaning that her eye was not moving correctly because of nerve damage.
The next day, Burns, a man she had been dating for about three months, returned her cell phone to one of her friends. He then called her to find out if she was going to press charges. She did.
Now, with sentencing for Burns set for Nov. 11 by Dane County Circuit Court Judge Patrick Fiedler, Kilfoy-Flores says the potential punishment no longer fits the crimes she endured earlier this year. She blames the Dane County District Attorney's Office. She said although she was at the courthouse an hour prior to the start of Burns' pretrial hearing, she never spoke with the assistant district attorney who had been reassigned to her case and didn't even know who to look for. It wasn't until she found a familiar face to explain what was going on that Kilfoy-Flores learned that Burns had a plea deal, which she says violates her rights as a victim.
She is angry about the potential sentence, too. The plea deal dropped the maximum number of years Burns could serve in prison from just over 11 years to 18 months. Last week, Kilfoy-Flores attempted to resolve the issue through an informal complaint process that involved a meeting with Dane County District Attorney Brian Blanchard, members of his staff, and Jennifer Rhodes, the victims services specialist with the Wisconsin Department of Justice.
Blanchard maintained that some miscommunication between his staff is to blame for Kilfoy-Flores not being told of the plea, but he said no legal errors were made by his office in prosecuting the case. Not satisfied with that explanation, Kilfoy-Flores is in the process of filing a formal complaint with the Crime Victims Rights Board, an independent agency with staff support from the Department of Justice. She said an understaffed district attorney's office coupled with the fact that the attack was a minority-on-minority crime -- she is Hispanic and her attacker is African-American -- led to her case not receiving adequate attention.
"When I learned this plea deal had happened, I felt victimized again," the 33-year-old Madison native said in an interview. "It was like the whole court process had culminated, and I was left out of the loop. That was the time I needed an advocate, I needed to have been consulted -- but I had no one."
So far this year, the Crime Victims Rights Board has received no formal complaints against the Dane County District Attorney's Office, said Julie Braun of the Department of Justice, who provides staff support to the board. Kilfoy-Flores' complaint would be the first. By law, complaints to the Crime Victims Rights Board are confidential unless the board makes a finding of probable cause.
Braun added that 31 complaints from across the state have been heard by the board over the past 10 years. She said a vast majority of those complaints are resolved by the Department of Justice's Victim Resource Center during the informal complaint process and are not referred to the board.
That did not happen in Kilfoy-Flores' case. She refuses to believe her case was properly handled, citing sections of state statute 971.095. The statute reads, in part:
"...the district attorney shall, as soon as practicable, offer all of the victims in the case who have requested the opportunity an opportunity to confer with the district attorney concerning the prosecution of the case and the possible outcomes of the prosecution, including potential plea agreements and sentencing recommendations."
It also says: "... if a person is charged with committing a crime and the charge against the person is subsequently dismissed, the district attorney shall make a reasonable attempt to inform all of the victims of the crime with which the person was charged that the charge has been dismissed."
"It is my understanding that she was not made aware of that particular plea agreement," Blanchard said. "But it is also my understanding that she didn't have to be, by law."
Blanchard said Kilfoy-Flores was made aware at the beginning of the process of all possible scenarios, including potential plea bargains, which fulfills his office's legal obligations.
As is often the case in legal matters, the law is not black and white. Kilfoy-Flores reads the same statute and says she should have been told of the plea bargain specifics prior to, not after, the hearing in August.
Blanchard conceded that miscommunication between members of his office did occur in this case when former Assistant District Attorney Lynn Opelt, who was handling Kilfoy-Flores' case, retired in July. The case was then reassigned to Assistant District Attorney Chris Genda.
Blanchard said that while he would never use the office's staffing shortage as an excuse for how victims are treated, he said miscommunication between his staff and victims could happen less frequently if attorneys had more time to spend with each case file. According to the state Department of Administration, the Dane County District Attorney's Office is in need of 11 more attorneys.
"We do our best not to put the staffing problems of our office on the shoulders of the victims," Blanchard said. "But victims are effectively competing with each other for the attention of too few attorneys."
The change in attorneys also meant a new approach to the case.
While Opelt felt there was sufficient evidence to charge Burns with two felonies -- burglary, which carries a maximum prison time of 10 years, and substantial battery, which brings a maximum 18 months -- Genda didn't prosecute Burns for both. She offered a plea deal that dismissed the burglary charge in exchange for Burns pleading guilty to substantial battery. He accepted.
In jail since the end of March, it is likely that the amount of time Burns will have spent there prior to his sentencing in November could be deducted from his prison sentence. So the 18 months could be effectively reduced to less than a year.
"The new attorney decided that burglary was not a charge that could prevail at a trial," Blanchard said of Genda. "And I agree with her."
In order to get a burglary conviction, Blanchard said the prosecution would have to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Burns entered Kilfoy-Flores' apartment with the intent to steal or to commit another felony. Proving that intent would have been difficult, Blanchard said.
But there is evidence to the contrary, too.
During a preliminary hearing for Burns on April 10, Kilfoy-Flores testified on the details of the attack. According to the hearing transcript, Burns, while screaming he wanted to kill Kilfoy-Flores, kicked the door to her apartment open. Once inside, he grabbed her by the neck, cutting off her airway for up to 30 seconds. He threw her across the dining room table, then onto the floor, where he punched her repeatedly in the face during an attack that lasted between six and seven minutes.
After hearing the testimony, Dane County Circuit Court Judge Juan Colas said: "There is ample probable cause for a number of felonies based on the testimony and the evidence that's been presented," according to a transcript of the hearing.
The case then moved into arraignment, with Opelt entering the felony burglary charge against Burns. Burns stood mute to the charges, a move that automatically results in the court entering a not guilty plea on a defendant's behalf. This move also forces the prosecution to prove guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.
"He broke my door in and planned to kill me," Kilfoy-Flores said. "He bashed my skull in and now is having his freedom handed to him on a platter."
But Kilfoy-Flores said she harbors no ill will against the members of the District Attorney's Office, referring to them as "good people." Yet, she refuses to roll over and play the victim by not publicly objecting to the sentence Burns could receive in less than a month, she said.
Most importantly, she wants her 10-year-old daughter -- who was by her side while her eye was as swollen as a golf ball and when she was only able to drink liquids through a straw -- to know that people can't get away with hurting other people. Her daughter has to know, she said, that the system can do better in protecting its citizens.
"At this point in the game, I need members of the community to feel my rage," she said. "I need the community's support. I need members of the community to voice their objections."
Michelle Stocker/Capital Times
2 total imagesview them here
Shadayra Kilfoy-Flores suffered five fractures to her face after a Jan. 1 attack. Her jaw was wired shut for eight weeks, and the bone and tissue around her right eye had to be reconstructed with metal plates.
