It was the kind of headline that grabs a reader’s attention:
“Rapist gets 90-day jail sentence.”
The story it topped described District Court Judge William Herringer’s sentencing in October of Bryan Bunion, 26, who pleaded guilty to raping a woman in September 2013 after she lost consciousness at a party in Durango.
Readers’ reactions were swift and cutting.
On The Durango Herald’s website, Fritz Shry wrote, “forget the rapist. The judge needs some prison time.”
Pam Young wrote, “90 days and the offender needs therapy? Men are such slow learners – including lawyers and judges. Rape is not a one-night fling. RAPE is an event that scars a woman for life. Maybe when your daughters – or your wife – has the experience, you’ll get it.”Herringer declined to comment about the sentence.
Securing stiff prison sentences against rapists is difficult in today’s criminal justice system. Victims are often hesitant to come forward, fearful that defense attorneys will accuse them of lying, promiscuity or substance abuse. Cases often rise or fall on physical evidence alone. But as often, the evidence is only as good as the police collecting it or the hospital nurses doing the rape examinations. And in Durango, some say Mercy Regional Medical Center could be doing far more for victims of sexual assault.
At an emotional level, Durango’s prosecutors – who have as much responsibility for sentencing under plea agreements as judges – understand the public’s clamoring for tougher justice.
Assistant District Attorney Christian Champagne said plea deals like the ones he reached this year with Bunion and Joseph Toledo – an accomplice to sexual assault who was sentenced to 18 months probation after pleading guilty to tampering with evidence – are hugely frustrating exercises in learning to accept what’s legally realistic.
Sex assaults are commonplace – one in four Colorado women and one in 17 Colorado men will be sexually assaulted in their lifetimes, according to the National Center on Domestic and Sexual Violence.
Based on Justice Department data, analysts with the Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network calculate that:
Out of every 100 rapes in America, just 46 are reported to police; Of the 46 that are reported, just 12 reports result in an arrest; Of those 12 arrests, just nine cases will be prosecuted; Of the nine rape prosecutions, just five will result in a felony conviction.
This means that for every 100 rapes that are committed, just “three rapists will ever serve a day in prison,” according to RAINN.
Advocates at Sexual Assault Services Organization said one route to tougher sentencing in local rape cases would be to hire more Sexual Assault Nurse Examiners – nurses who specialize in treating sexual assault victims and collecting evidence.
“If you’re talking about someone who was just assaulted, a vaginal exam is super-intimidating. SANE nurses treat victims respectfully, and also know to scrape skin cells from under her fingernails,” said .
Studies show there is a strong correlation between SANE nurse examinations and successful prosecution outcomes:
Relative to rape kits performed by non-SANE trained nurses and doctors, SANE nurse examiners gather more evidence, especially DNA evidence; victims who have SANE examinations are more likely to press charges; and prosecutions that relied on evidence collected by SANE nurses resulted in more convictions and lengthier sentences.
Today, Durango’s decade-old SANE program is faltering and desperately underfunded, said Ali Anderson, a nurse and independent contractor who coordinates the program out of Mercy Regional Medical Center.
“Right now, we lack the financial resources to make this actually work,” she said.
Anderson’s entire salary is paid by a $13,000 federal grant through the Violence Against Women Act, a federal law enacted in 1994. She said she has repeatedly asked Mercy for more money for the SANE program. It’s not uncommon for hospitals to help pay for SANE programs.
Mercy’s Emergency Department Director Paul Gibson said so far, Anderson’s requests have been denied.
He said Mercy, a nonprofit, is constantly barraged with requests for money.
“There has to be money available to contribute. SANE is a non-revenue producing part of the ER department. So the budget that I have is basically all expenses going out,” he said.
He said the hospital does pay Mercy nurses who become SANE-qualified for the hours they work on behalf of the SANE program.
“Last year, we did a couple of SANE exams, and our contribution to the program was $26,000 or $27,000,” he said.
He said this year, the hospital had done twice as many SANE exams – in part because of Anderson’s work in educating local men and women about the importance of SANE exams.
“We’re on target to spend $45,000 in salaries for the program,” he said.
Right now, there are five to six SANE nurses on Mercy’s staff, Gibson said. The goal, he added, would be to have nine or 10 so that there could be 24-hour SANE coverage.
Until that goal is met, victims are literally left waiting. Anderson said when she isn’t on call, “that’s when patients wait five, six, even seven hours to get the SANE exam,” she said.
Assistant District Attorney Champagne said while SANE examinations are critical to evidence collection, “hospitals are really reluctant to fund or participate in sexual assault programs – here and across the country. Hospital administrators’ attitude is, ‘We’re happy to let you run a SANE program – so long as it doesn’t cost us anything.’”
He said having a 24-hour SANE program at Mercy, the region’s major hospital, is “a critical public-health issue. SANE examinations are more than just a tool for law enforcement. Why doesn’t the hospital have, or seek out, funding? There’s so much grant money out there for this. Mercy’s reluctance to make this a priority just seems kind of odd.”
Demko said Mercy’s unwillingness to financially support the SANE program “doesn’t make any sense to me. Other hospitals have full-time SANE coordinators. Centura actually supports having a SANE coordinator.”
Mercy’s spokesman David Bruzzese said Anderson is scheduled to appear at December’s meeting of Mercy’s community benefit committee, which allocates money to various programs.
“We recognize this is an important issue,” he said. “Hopefully with (Anderson’s) feedback, we’ll be able to support this program’s already growing needs.”
Plea agreements play role in strength of sentences
When sexual assault charges end in light sentences, judges are often the target of public outrage. Judges do have absolute discretion over sentencing when trials take place, said 6th Judicial District Attorney Todd Risberg.
But Risberg said when it comes to plea agreements like the kind that prosecutors reached in the cases of Bryan Bunion, who was convicted of raping a woman at a party in 2013, and Joseph Toledo, who was an accomplice to sexual assault, judges’ sentencing powers are highly circumscribed.
District Court Judge William Herringer had the power to reject outright the Bunion and Toledo plea agreements, Risberg said, which would have forced the DA’s office and defense attorneys back to the negotiating table.
But once Herringer approved the Toledo and Bunion plea agreements, sentences of little, if any, jail time were all but guaranteed according to the deals the two men struck with prosecutors, Risberg said.
