County chases comfort canine

Trial dog to ease witnesses’ jitters

Molly, a courthouse dog, is shown at a conference in Seattle in October. Faulkner County is trying to get a dog like Molly to provide companionship and support for crime victims.
Molly, a courthouse dog, is shown at a conference in Seattle in October. Faulkner County is trying to get a dog like Molly to provide companionship and support for crime victims.

CONWAY -- Molly is so gentle and relaxed that she falls asleep and snores -- loudly -- when she's in court.

Molly is a black Labrador retriever. And it's her job to provide the companionship and support that crime victims, especially children, sometimes need in court.

Molly's home is in Washington state, but the Faulkner County prosecuting attorney's office hopes to get a similar dog and become the first court system in Arkansas with a dog under a program sponsored by the Bellevue, Wash.-based Courthouse Dogs Foundation.

The nonprofit organization helps counties navigate their way through the lengthy process of obtaining a dog from an organization that trains the animals and their future handlers -- in this case, the California-based Canine Companions for Independence. When and if approved, Faulkner County will get the dog from Canine Companions at no cost.

Along with each dog -- either a Labrador or a golden retriever -- comes a $1 million insurance policy, said Susan Bradshaw, director of victim services for the 20th Judicial Circuit, which includes Faulkner, Van Buren and Searcy counties. The dog would be used mostly in Faulkner County but also some in the other two counties, she said.

"The aim of the program is to make the legal system more humane, and it takes the dogs to do that. It's ironic, isn't it?" said Ellen O'Neill-Stephens, a former prosecutor who founded the Courthouse Dogs Foundation.

The application and training process can take up to 2½ years, Bradshaw said. Faulkner County applied roughly seven months ago.

"They say, 'Consider it like adopting a toddler.' They've scheduled our in-person interview in June," Bradshaw said.

Assuming the process goes well, Faulkner County officials eventually will attend a two-week training academy and at that time perhaps be paired with a specific dog, she said.

Once a dog retires, it stays with its primary handler -- Bradshaw, in this case.

The dog will have a backup handler for those times when Bradshaw is sick or on vacation. But once it arrives in Conway, it will make its home with her after it gets off work each night and on weekends. At work, it will stay in a kennel unless it's busy helping a crime victim in court or in another official setting -- such as when authorities are interviewing a victim.

The dogs give comfort through their mere presence. Victims can pet the animal; cling to it for support; allow the dog to lay its head on them; or just use the dog as a humble, nonjudgmental listener as they tell investigators of their ordeals, answer questions and testify during a trial.

In court, victims already are under the additional stress of speaking about sometimes horrible crimes before jurors, a judge, attorneys and the defendant, Bradshaw and Prosecuting Attorney Cody Hiland said.

Knowing the dog will be present, "maybe [children] will look forward to ... meeting with us instead of dreading" such meetings, Bradshaw said.

Such dogs become friends, "almost like a security blanket" for victims, she added.

A dog's companionship allows an otherwise frightened child to say to himself, "'They're here to support me, to keep me safe,'" Bradshaw said.

Each dog is trained to stay in the witness box in a spot where jurors usually can't see the animal during testimony, she said. It's trained to behave in court: That means no barking, no chasing and no sniffing about the room.

"[The dogs] live to work. They want to do their job and do it well" but love to play when they get home, Bradshaw said.

The program costs the county nothing other than the dog's upkeep, she and Hiland said.

"The great thing about this program is that dogs don't judge, and kids understand that," Hiland said. "It injects something positive into the most harrowing painful experience they will experience with the exception of the actual attack.

"If this program can make our children just a little more comfortable, then we're going to pursue it until we get it established or are prohibited by the courts," Hiland said.

O'Neill-Stephens said some defense attorneys have objected to the dogs' assistance of witnesses in court.

Those attorneys "feel like that witness is [viewed by jurors as] more credible or more likable or really more likely a victim because they have this dog," O'Neill-Stephens said.

There have been a few cases addressing the issue, she said.

"All of them have found that, under certain circumstances, it is appropriate for the dog to be there," O'Neill-Stephens said. She also noted that the dog and the witness enter the courtroom when the jury is away. During that time, the dog is situated in the witness box.

After jurors return to the courtroom, "the judge tells them there's a dog there but doesn't show it to them. It's important to tell" them, though, because "a lot of these dogs fall asleep" and might start snoring, she said. "Once a dog flipped its tail out" where jurors could see it.

She said judges instruct jurors not to let the dog's presence affect their deliberations "one way or the other."

State Desk on 01/02/2015

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