Eunice's Story

(Read Pre-trial News Article)

It could be argued that the only thing our penal system punishes is weakness, be it mental or financial. Few cases support this argument as convincingly as that of Eunice Baker.

Eunice Baker is a 24-year-old woman with a mental disability. Her IQ has been repeatedly measured at around 70. Needless to say, Eunice was teased and bullied in school. This same primal cruelty--the same tendency children have to attack those who are different and weaker--has resulted in her being sentenced to 15-years-to-life in prison for the murder of a child who, in fact, died because of a tragic accident. Eunice was picked as a scapegoat by the people around her for the simple reason that she was the one least able to defend herself.

This is a story about poverty. Few if any of those who testified against Eunice have much money or education. When people are poor they suffer, and when people suffer they often become cruel. What is most disturbing about this case, however, is that the criminal justice system allowed itself to become an instrument of this cruelty. Police, prosecutors, the media, and ultimately twelve jurors were all too ready to believe the worst about Eunice in spite of overwhelming evidence in support of her innocence. Once the finger of blame was pointed, no one stopped to question whether, perhaps, Eunice's mental handicap had impaired her ability to defend herself. Instead, just like the "friends" of Eunice who first pointed the finger of blame at her, police and prosecutors took advantage of Eunice's disability to "win" a conviction and lock her behind bars, while the media took the opportunity to portray a grisly but highly improbable story so as to sell a lot of papers and get good ratings.

In the early morning hours of June 29, 1999, Eunice Baker was baby-sitting three-year-old Charlotte Kurtz in the home of Charlotte's guardians. At some point that night, a short circuit in the wires leading to the thermostat caused the furnace to begin running continuously. The temperature in Charlotte's room rose to nearly 130 degrees Fahrenheit.

These facts are not in dispute. The technician who eventually discovered the short in the wiring had been hired by the prosecution. The temperature reading of 130 degrees was measured by a police officer.

At about 2:00 AM, when Charlotte's guardians returned home they found Charlotte in her room unconscious. An hour later, doctors at a nearby hospital pronounced her dead of hyperthermia, or excessive heat.

At about 10:00 AM, after a sleepless night and several hours of interrogation, Eunice Baker signed a statement confessing to the premeditated murder of Charlotte Kurtz. According to this statement, Eunice had been planning on killing Charlotte for "the last two days" and had "turned up the thermostat at about 9:00 PM," because she "thought that if [she] could get [Charlotte's] body temperature up high enough [she] could kill her." The statement also added that Eunice "wanted [Charlotte] to die because [she] couldn't stand her."

It doesn't take a genius to see that this "confession" directly contradicts the facts of the case and makes no sense whatsoever. Aside from the obvious fact that thermostats cannot be set to 130 degrees (the thermostat in question had a top setting of 88 degrees) and the equally obvious fact that Eunice could not have planned to murder Charlotte by turning up the thermostat --unless you believe that the short circuit happened purely by coincidence on the same day Eunice had been "planning" this "murder"--what possible motive could a baby-sitter have for killing a child, even if she "couldn't stand her"? Wouldn't it have been simpler to get another job?

Since Eunice's interrogation was conducted without the benefit of a tape recorder, we can only speculate as to how this bizarre and twisted story ended up on a piece of paper with Eunice's signature on it. Eunice later recalled that the interrogating officer had repeatedly called her a liar when she'd protested her innocence, had refused to call a lawyer when she'd asked for one, and had repeatedly yelled at her. Once Eunice had signed the confession and been informed that she was under arrest for murder, a police officer asked Eunice if he could throw out some left-over French fries she had been eating. Later on, at a preliminary hearing, the officer recalled Eunice replying that she would "finish them at home."

Clearly, the police coerced a mentally disabled woman into confessing to a crime she did not commit. The question remains: Why? Where did the police get the idea that Eunice deliberately murdered a three-year-old child?

The answer to this question becomes clear when you take into account the fact that Eunice was the last of eight witnesses interrogated on the morning of Charlotte's death. Among these witnesses were Charlotte's guardians, the landlord who owned the home with the faulty thermostat wiring, and several other "friends" and neighbors of Eunice. (Eunice had lived only a few doors away from the home of Charlotte's guardians where she had been babysitting.)

There is no public record of what these witnesses told police that night; but judging what they told the media in the coming days, it was cruel, baseless slander. One "friend" told The Press & Sun Bulletin, a Binghamton newspaper, that "[Eunice] did not like baby-sitting for Charlotte" and "yelled and swore at her all the time." A neighbor reported how Eunice had "showed no remorse" at the time of her arrest: "She acted like she didn't care. No tears in her eyes whatsoever." A childhood acquaintance of Eunice's recalled how, when Eunice was a child,"[she had] once visited her childhood home but [had been] barred from ever returning because she poked and threw stones at the family pets."

It is difficult to imagine people saying such things unless there was some truth to them; but the fact is, Eunice never mistreated Charlotte. Over the course of the coming trial, several witnesses testified that Charlotte loved Eunice, and that Eunice was incapable of mistreating Charlotte or any other child. Even Charlotte's guardian admitted, under oath, that she had never seen Eunice raise her voice to Charlotte or mistreat her in any way.

Why, then, did these people say such horrible things about Eunice to the media and, presumably, to the police? The short answer is that they were looking for somebody to blame. If we pause and honestly try to consider the guilt, despair, anger, and helplessness felt by people living on one of the poorer blocks of an economically depressed town like Owego, New York, it becomes easier to imagine such people venting their emotions over Charlotte's death by demonizing a mentally handicapped woman such as Eunice.

Perhaps the most vigorous of Eunice's slanderers was a man who the media eventually came to describe as "Eunice's former boyfriend," or "Eunice's ex-lover." Eunice's mother, Debby Brown, describes him in different terms. According to Debby, this "boyfriend" was a merely a man living in the same apartment house as Eunice who had once coerced Eunice into exposing her breasts to him, leaving her confused and frightened. This was the extent of their relationship. Considering the fact that Eunice had only left home for the first time six months prior to her arrest, it hardly seems likely that she'd had enough time to develop a much more meaningful relationship.

Whether it was because he was embarrassed at being romantically associated with a retarded girl, or whether it was for some other reason, it was "Eunice's former boyfriend" who made the ugliest and nastiest public comments about Eunice. During the trial, he took the witness stand and explained that he had crumpled up a picture of Eunice he'd had in his possession because he, "couldn't stand looking at it. If I had to go to the bathroom, I would probably have used it for toilet paper," he quipped to the chuckles of "Charlotte's supporters."

Outside the courtroom this "former boyfriend" told reporters that he believed: "Eunice should stay in prison for life away from society.... The stuff the defense attorney was spewing out made me want to vomit--that she's a poor, little innocent girl. Yeah, right."

But perhaps most damaging to Eunice, was what this "former boyfriend" told newspapers shortly after Charlottes's death and what he presumably told police the morning of Charlotte's death. On July 5th, a week after Charlotte's death, an article in The Press & Sun quoted this "former boyfriend" as saying: "[Eunice] always complained about [her job]. When she heard she was scheduled to baby-sit on the Fourth of July she threw a fit. She didn't want to do it. She said she wanted to go see fireworks.... She said she was going to do something about it."

More than one person told the newspaper how Eunice had complained about the long hours and low pay she was receiving for baby-sitting Charlotte. Considering that Eunice's starting salary for baby-sitting had been two dollars per day, it seems reasonable for her to have complained. What is not reasonable is to infer that Eunice's dissatisfaction with her job could have motivated her to murder a three-year-old child. Yet this is precisely what the media inferred and led others to infer. The two-line headline above the article quoting "Eunice's former boyfriend" read: "Suspect disliked caring for little girl, friends say. Owego woman upset she had to work July 4, they say." The first sentence of the article read: "Eunice Baker told several friends and neighbors that she did not want to baby-sit for 3-year-old Charlotte Kurtz this Fourth of July and that she was 'going to do something about it.'"

Propagated by the media, the idea that Eunice deliberately murdered Charlotte spread like a virus. As Eunice was led away by police after a July 2nd preliminary felony hearing at Owego Town Court, she was greeted with screams of, "Murderer!" "Baby killer!" and "Die, bitch, die!" Whatever love or compassion people felt towards Charlotte was converted into hatred of Eunice.

"I hope she rots in hell," Charlotte's mother told reporters. Charlotte's grandmother had similar sentiments: "I believe in the Bible: An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth." (Apparently she was unfamiliar with the New Testament.)

With public opinion solidly against Eunice, and Charlotte's family openly calling for vengeance, District Attorney Gerald Keene had little trouble winning a conviction. Given Keene's zealous prosecution, the jury seemed to have little trouble ignoring the lengthy testimony given by heating technicians about the short-circuit in the wiring. As all good prosecutors know, facts are irrelevant in the face of powerful emotion. Rather than trying to explain to the jury how Charlotte's death could have been a murder in spite of the short-circuit, he urged the jury to imagine the suffering Charlotte endured on the night she died.

With an authority figure telling them that Eunice was responsible for causing this suffering and urging them to punish her, is it any wonder the jurors decided to lock her behind bars for fifteen years?

Eunice's Story copied in 2005 from now defunct URL http://eunicebaker.20m.com/eunicestory.html

Random Harvest Weekly, Feb 9, 2000

Owego Murder Trial
Raises Tough Questions

BY KENNETH GUTIERREZ

At 2:45 AM on Tuesday, June 29, 1999 three-year-old Charlotte Kurtz was pronounced dead of hyperthermia. An hour earlier Donna Hollenbeck, Charlotte's legal guardian, had returned home to discover Charlotte in her room unconscious. Her skin was hot. Her eyes were glazed. The temperature was stiflingly hot, the door was closed, the furnace was on, and the baby-sitter, Eunice Baker, was sitting in the living room watching TV, the volume blaring.

Donna called 911. As word spread a crowd gathered. People were shouting. A neighbor tried to perform CPR. An ambulance arrived. emergency medical technicians took over the CPR and rushed Charlotte to the hospital. The police arrived.

Throughout the commotion Eunice reportedly didn't say much. The only statement witnesses reported her making at the time was, "I feel so stupid."

At about 4:00 AM, after consulting with superiors, Patrolman Jeffrey Waslyn of the Owego Police Department asked Eunice and seven other witnesses to report to the police station to make statements. Since the station was close by, Officer Waslyn drove ahead and the witnesses walked to the station unescorted. One at a time, the witnesses were asked inside to be questioned. Eunice went last.

At 7:30 AM, Investigator Michael Myers, a thirteen-year veteran of the New York State Police, arrived at the station, read Eunice her Miranda rights, and began his interrogation. Over the course of the interrogation, (which was conducted without the benefit of a tape recorder) Officer Myers produced four pages of handwritten notes and two typewritten statements signed by Eunice.

In the first statement Eunice denied any wrongdoing. She said she had known "the thermostat was causing the heat to blow up out of the register," but that she hadn't touched the thermostat because she "didn't want to make it warmer." She had tried to cool the room by opening Charlotte's window, but could only open it "a little bit." She had been "getting worried" when she put Charlotte to bed "because [Charlotte] was crying and saying, 'It's hot, it's hot;'" but she hadn't thought of calling anybody about the furnace being on because "she knew the landlord was at work." She had thought about turning on the fan in Charlotte's room, but had reconsidered, fearing "she might tip it over or put her fingers in the fan blade."

In the second statement however, Eunice's story changed dramatically. Eunice now claimed she had dressed Charlotte in "a pull-up and a long T-shirt " and "turned up the thermostat at about 9 PM." Additional assertions from the second statement include: "I thought that if I could get her body temperature up high enough I could kill her," and "I wanted her to die because I couldn't stand her."

At 9:58 AM, Eunice was informed that she was under arrest for the murder of Charlotte Kurtz. There is reason to doubt that Eunice fully understood the implications of her situation. Moments later, when an officer asked whether he could throw out some McDonald's French fries she'd been eating, Eunice replied, "No, I'm going to finish them at home." Three days later Eunice's bail was set at $200,000. She still hasn't been home.

The early morning hours of June 29th marked the end of one sad story and the beginning of another. It was the end of the Charlotte Kurtz, a three-year old who had lived in no less than nine different homes in her short, painful life. However, as I was to learn in a series of interviews, it was also the beginning of an ordeal for Eunice Baker and her family, an ordeal that is continuing this week in the Tioga County Courthouse as the murder trial of Eunice Baker enters its second week.

Eunice's mother, Debby Brown, first learned of Eunice's arrest when a friend of the family called to express her condolences. (Eunice, it seems, had neglected to take advantage of her right to a phone call.) The friend had heard about Eunice on TV. Debby immediately went to the Owego Police Department. She was allowed a ten minute visit with her daughter. Eunice proclaimed her innocence; but as far as Debby was concerned it was unnecessary. She was already certain Eunice was not capable of what she'd been accused. Debby later recalled: "I asked Eunice, 'Why didn't you make a telephone call?' and she said, 'Because I didn't know I could.' Then I said, 'Why didn't you tell them you wanted a lawyer?' and she said, 'I did.' They just kept after her, kept questioning her anyway."

Debby's ten-minute meeting with Eunice took place on a Wednesday. Visiting hours at the Tioga County Jail were not until Saturday. In the meantime, Debby's only source of information as to what had happened would be the media.

The media was not kind to Eunice. The first murder trial to be held in the Village of Owego in a decade, Eunice's case received a considerable amount of media attention and incited a great deal of passion. The day after Eunice's arrest, the front page of The Press & Sun Bulletin, a Binghamton newspaper, carried an ugly and sensational portrait of Charlotte's death and Eunice's role in it. "Neighbors say thermostat was set at 95 degrees," read one headline. "Suspect disliked caring for little girl: Owego woman upset she had to work July 4, they say," read the headline on the next day. Two days later, after a July 2nd preliminary felony hearing at Owego Town Court, the headline read: "EMT recalls: 'She just radiated heat,'" meaning, of course, the body of three-year-old Charlotte Kurtz.

The Press & Sun had based their headlines on interviews with Charlotte's guardians and Eunice's friends and neighbors. According to one neighbor, Eunice had said she did not want to babysit for Charlotte on the coming Fourth of July and "was going to do something about it." According to a friend, "[Eunice] did not like babysitting for Charlotte" and "yelled and swore at her all the time." Another friend reported how Eunice had "showed no remorse" at the time of her arrest: "She acted like she didn't care. No tears in her eyes whatsoever." A childhood acquaintance of Eunice's recalled how, "[Eunice had] once visited her childhood home but was barred from ever returning because she poked and threw stones at the family pets."

Clearly the majority of Eunice acquaintances in Owego, the reporter for the Press and Sun, and (in all likelihood) the vast majority of people who read these articles all believed what the Owego Police Department was claiming: that Eunice Baker had deliberately dressed Charlotte Kurtz in extra clothes, turned up the thermostat as high as it would go, and locked Charlotte in her room so that she would swelter to death. This would explain why, as Eunice was led away by police after a July 2nd preliminary felony hearing at Owego Town Court, she was greeted with screams of, "Murderer!" "Baby killer!" and "Die, bitch, die!"

One can only imagine Debby's state of mind as she followed the coverage of Eunice's arrest. Debby herself has a hard time remembering it. She's "blocked most of it out." She does, however, remember thinking, "it was nasty." She also remembers being angry.

The first people Debby turned to upon learning of Eunice's arrest were Sandra and David Verity (Debby's brother and his wife). Like Debby, their faith in Eunice's innocence has been absolute and unwavering. As Sandra unequivocally put it: "There's no way she could have done this. All these people are pointing their fingers, but they don't know who they're pointing at. They haven't even met her."

Sandra and David are angry too. David's so mad he's afraid he's "going to punch someone out." They're angry at a criminal justice system capable of imprisoning a girl for being unable to cope with what they believe was a tragic accident. They're angry with some of the so-called friends of Eunice who had been quoted by the Binghamton media. (David later said they were "a bad crowd" and that some of those quoted had taken advantage of Eunice both financially and sexually. ) But the brunt of their anger is directed at the media for "trying and convicting her" before she had even appeared in court. "They're not looking for the truth. They're not looking for facts. They're looking for a story to sell papers," David said of the media (present company excluded). Sandra agreed: "It's been a real eye-opener. Before, when I used to read [about a crime in] the paper I'd say, 'Oh, what a terrible person.' Now I read it and say, 'Well, maybe ...'"

Sandra began making phone calls on Eunice's behalf as soon as she learned of the arrest. As she recalled: "The first person I called was the District Attorney, not realizing you're not supposed to do that. He said, 'What are you talking to me for?' and I said, 'Well, have you met my niece?' and he said, 'No,' and I said, 'Well, I'd like you to do that. I'd like you to give me your opinion of her cognitive ability.'"

You may already have a guess as to what Sandra was referring. Although she graduated from Spencer-Van Etten High School, Eunice Baker is borderline mentally retarded. To quote a copy of Eunice's school records which Debby and Sandra assembled and distributed to the media: "An evaluation completed during June of 1983 revealed a Stanford Binet IQ of 70." Seventy is the cut off number. People with IQs below 70 are officially deemed retarded. Another evaluation stated: "Several indications of brain damage have been found." Along with the school records were some awkward and poignantly childish pictures drawn by Eunice. Later I was to learn she had drawn them in jail.

Sandra's next call was to the public defender that had been assigned to Eunice. As Sandra recalled, "the first words out of his mouth were, 'Your niece is in big trouble. She signed three statements!'"

Again Sandra asked, "Well, have you met my niece? There's no way she could have mentally put something like that together." He hadn't met Eunice but he promised he would. When Sandra next spoke to Debby, she told her: "We can't have this guy defend her. He already told me she's guilty!"

Later that day, when a friend of the family recommended Ithaca attorney Scott Miller, Debby didn't hesitate. She retained his services and began taking the necessary steps to cash in the pension she had earned by working for thirteen years as a custodian for Hadco, a manufacturer of printed circuit boards.

Scott Miller's first legal move was to request the scheduling of a suppression, or Huntley, hearing. The hearing would determine whether Eunice's confession should be admitted as evidence or suppressed on the grounds that she had not been properly advised of her Miranda rights. In this case, Miller would be claiming that Eunice had simply not understood them.

The suppression hearing was scheduled for December 10th, over five months after Eunice's arrest. During that time, Debby, Sandra, and David continued to visit Eunice in jail regularly. In November expert witnesses for both the defense and the prosecution met with Eunice to ask her questions and measure her IQ. In November, I also met with Eunice.

When I spoke to Eunice, I couldn't ask her how she felt about Charlotte. I couldn't ask her whether she really put the extra clothes on her. I couldn't ask her anything directly pertaining to her case. There is a surveillance camera in the room, and Eunice's family had asked me not to discuss such details for fear our conversations were being recorded. They were worried that Eunice might inadvertently say something which, taken out of context, would adversely affect her case.

Instead we talked about how she was feeling. She missed her Pekinese, Mai Ling, and her pet guinea pigs. She had received the Star Wars coloring books her uncle David had sent her and was enjoying them very much. For the most part she was being well treated, though once while watching Court TV, one of her fellow inmates had suggested that she "go turn up the thermostat." On the other hand, one of the COs "makes her laugh and laugh." Even so, she's eager to go home. As we leave David promises her a Grand Slam breakfast at Denny's the day she gets out.

"You know they give her a cavity search every time I visit her," David remarks as we leave the jail. "I can't imagine what that does to her. Especially after having been sexually abused [by her step-father] as a child."

The suppression hearing began, as scheduled, on Friday, December 10th in the Tioga County Court with Judge Vincent A. Squeglia presiding and Tioga County District Attorney Gerald Keene representing the people. Debby, Sandra, and Michele (Eunice's sister) were in attendance. Michele, who also once babysat for Charlotte Kurtz and who is also learning disabled was expecting a baby. That morning her doctor had informed her that she had dilated one centimeter.

The first witness called was Owego Patrolman Jeffrey Waslyn. Under the questioning of Diane Galbraith, a colleague of Scott Miller, Waslyn testified that he had read Eunice her Miranda rights the night she was arrested. Galbraith went on to question him about the manner in which he had read her the rights and the exact length of time it had taken him to read them.

The second witness called was state police Investigator Michael Myers. It was Investigator Myers who had typed the confessions Eunice had signed. Under the questioning of District Attorney Keene, Myers testified that he too had read Eunice her Miranda rights. He had also given her a written copy of the rights for her to read and sign, thereby acknowledging that she had understood them. He further testified that he had in no way restrained, threatened, or physically intimidated Eunice throughout the course of his interrogation.

In her cross-examination, Galbraith questioned Myers about the exact manner in which he had conducted his interrogation. She asked if there had been any windows in the interrogation room. (There hadn't.) She asked him if his gun had been visible to Eunice as he questioned her. (It had.) Most significantly, however, she asked if he had noticed any indication that Eunice Baker was learning disabled. (He hadn't.)

When Investigator Myers testified that he hadn't noticed Eunice's disability, Sandra Verity gasped audibly in apparent disbelief.

The first day of the suppression hearing ended with Investigator Myers testimony. The hearing reconvened on Monday. Again, Debby and Michele were in attendance.

Day two began with the testimony of Dr. Thomas Lazzaro, the forensic psychologist Scott Miller had hired to testify as an expert witness on Eunice's behalf. Under questioning by Scott Miller, Dr. Lazzaro discussed the findings of his interview with Eunice and the results of the intelligence test he had administered to her. Eunice had scored a 78 on the WAIS III IQ test. From this he concluded that, while technically not retarded, Eunice was certainly "learning disabled" as well as "extremely deficient in short-term memory and judgment in everyday situations."

Lazzaro added that Baker's mental infirmities are severe enough to make her "highly susceptible to coercion," and went on to say, "She is easily influenced by people in authority. She desires to give the answer she thinks the questioner wants." He referred to this phenomenon as "yea-saying."

Though unfamiliar with the expression "yea-saying," Debby had once described Eunice to me in almost identical terms: "You have to understand, when Eunice is being accused of something, especially something that she hasn't done, she becomes very silent. Then she'll look at the person that's accusing her and study them to find out the way she should respond. You know, 'Should I respond this way? Should I say yes? Should I say no?' This is Eunice. When she grew up she was this way. There were times where some of my other children did things and I'd say to Eunice, 'You did this?' and she'd say, 'Yes.' Then later I'd find out that Eunice had confessed to something she had not even done."

As Dr. Lazzaro related how Eunice had been sexually molested when she was seven years old and how her school records confirmed his opinion that the right side of Eunice's brain was damaged, Debby wept openly. These are not the kind of things one enjoys hearing about their child. Furthermore, much of what Dr. Lazzaro said was new to her. The first time she had ever heard of Eunice's brain damage was when she had requested copies of Eunice's school records as part of Eunice's defense. Eunice's school had neglected to inform her.

Another important point in Lazzaro's testimony was his opinion that the fact Eunice had only had ninety minutes of sleep in the twenty-four hours prior to her interrogation would have greatly exacerbated her tendency to yea-say and greatly diminished her capacity to understand what was happening to her. Finally, Lazzaro concluded ("with a certainty approaching one hundred percent") that Eunice "was not able to understand her Miranda rights."

Needless to say, the DA's expert witness, Dr. Sanford Drob, Director of psychological assessment services at Bellevue Hospital, believed otherwise. Though Drob acknowledged that Eunice was learning disabled and that it was a "reasonable inference that there might be damage to the right side of [Eunice's] brain," he also pointed out that her reading skills were almost normal and that her vocabulary was good. "It was clear she had a reasonable understanding of what each of the words in the rights meant," Drob said.

Eunice's suppression hearing ended with Dr. Drob's testimony. On Thursday, January 13 Judge Squeglia ruled that the statements Eunice had made to police would be allowed as evidence in her murder trial. In his statement, Judge Squeglia cited several cases in which retarded people had been found capable of understanding their Miranda rights. Apparently, this kind of thing goes on all the time.

Eunice's murder trial began on January 31. In their opening arguments, both DA Gerald Keene and Scott Miller referred to a fact that had not been previously mentioned in the media. An inspector hired by the prosecution had actually found a short in the wiring controlling the furnace. Miller asserted that this would prove Eunice's innocence. Keene merely stated that this was a fact which would remain unexplained.

Eunice's trial is continuing this week at the Owego County Courthouse and is expected to last another two weeks. If convicted, Eunice faces the possibility of life imprisonment. She would be incarcerated with the general prison population, as there are currently no special provisions for the mentally handicapped in our penal system. But Scott Miller is guardedly optimistic regarding the outcome. "Things are looking a lot better than I thought they would at this point. I think her chances are pretty good; but you can never be sure what a jury is going to do."

Eunice's family is also hoping for the best, though at times, they also fear the worst. As David Verity put it: "If Eunice is convicted, what little faith I have left will be gone. This just can't happen. It's not going to happen."

Debby Brown is also hopeful, and has also grown increasingly concerned with protecting the rights of the poor and handicapped within the criminal justice system: "We pray that the truth will be known and that Eunice will be found not guilty; but, as a community of people, we also need to seriously look at this situation because there are many people who don't have the money or, even because of their disabilities, are going to be at risk of being incarcerated for crimes they have not done. And there just doesn't seem to be anything out there to protect the people's rights." Debby and Sandra have begun lobbying for a branch of O.A.R. (Offender Aid and Restoration) to be allowed into Tioga County.