Walt Brown

We, as prosecutors, handle a number of sexual assault cases and many of them involve children.

We had a trial back in August, which was the last jury trial I had.

The trial involved an 11-year-old (female) child who was sexually assaulted by a 36-year-old man.

Seeing that child, what she had to go through, the experience made an impact.

The entire process took a lot out of her — the rape kit examination, testifying at the preliminary hearing, and testifying at the grand jury hearing.

Anytime we had a meeting in our office, the child would become upset and cry and the mother was there to reassure and comfort her.

But when you’re in court at a preliminary hearing or a grand jury in front of 12 jurors, defense lawyer and the accused, they are up there by themselves.

As a prosecutor, we were able to get a conviction and that man is doing a significant amount of time in the penitentiary for his crime.

I was able to see that was able to give that child and her mother some closure, but she’s going to be scarred forever.

I wish there was some better way to do that without having them go through all that.

If elected, I’m going to see a lot of that in youth court — not only dealing with children who are offenders and committing crimes, but also children who are abused and neglected.

I hope that we can provide those kids some measure of closure, whether it be through counseling or taking them out of some abusive home life or situation and placing them somewhere they can be cared for.

There’s a lot of great programs that Judge Hudson and his staff have put in place, most of which are grant funded and aren’t directly taking tax dollars from Adams County.

Those grants are in danger every year of being eliminated, so hopefully we can keep all those programs going.