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Prosecutor hopefuls trade barbs over treatment of crime victims

Albemarle Commonwealth's Attorney Jim Camblos and challenger Denise Lunsford sparred Wednesday over the challenger's charges that Camblos' office has treated crime victims rudely in some cases and gone to court unprepared in others.

Lunsford told a county audience of three dozen voters that if she is elected county prosecutor Nov. 6, she would make sure the office staff is trained in how to treat crime victims and that assistants never go to court unprepared.

The challenger said she had heard from victims of property crimes and sexual assaults "who feel like they not only were not treated with dignity and respect but they were treated rudely and indifferently."

"I find that inexcusable, especially for sexual-assault victims," Lunsford told the crowd at a two-hour forum in Albemarle's Northside Library sponsored by the Senior Statesmen of Virginia.

"The other thing that I would do is make sure each member of the staff is fully prepared before walking into court on any case," said Lunsford, a defense lawyer who said she has seen assistant prosecutors go to court without reading documents or interviewing witnesses, including police officers, until they huddled in hallways just prior to the hearing.

Camblos, who has served as county prosecutor the past 16 years, denied the rude treatment allegation and said thousands of people come through his office every year and "some of them don't like what they are told."

After the forum, which included candidates for sheriff and clerk of circuit court, Camblos explained, "There are people who leave our office who are very, very angry. … It goes with the territory. They think there needs to be a prosecution. They are not getting it. They are angry."

Camblos added, "They think they were treated rudely. I think I've got a great staff. I don't think my staff asks inappropriate questions, and I don't think they are rude to people."

"I've got a very good staff of four attorneys," he said. "I would stack them up against any commonwealth's attorney's office in the state."

Lunsford detailed two cases involving sexual assaults at the University of Virginia, one in which a victim dropped her case and the second, a rape victim, "was asked entirely inappropriate questions ... regarding what happened during the event and some other things."

Camblos said he knew which two cases Lunsford referred to and insisted that after police investigated them "there's absolutely no way those cases were going to go forward."

"It doesn't excuse the fact the people were not treated with dignity and respect, that the people were treated rudely, asked entirely inappropriate questions," Lunsford said. "The office has to be prepared to handle these things sensitively."

Camblos responded, "I think we've handled them properly. I think we've handled them professionally. I think we've handled them with dignity."

Also at Wednesday's forum, sheriff candidates J.E. "Chip" Harding and Larry Claytor outlined more than 30 years each in local law enforcement experience and discussed differing expectations for the sheriff's office.

Harding, a Charlottesville police captain, said he wants to expand the office volunteer reserve unit and create a program in which non-violent offenders gain contracts to clean up area roads, all at no extra cost to taxpayers.

Claytor, an Albemarle police officer and former deputy sheriff, said Harding would continue the use of a few deputies for duties outside the normal scope of the office, costing taxpayers for their salaries, training and benefits.

Three candidates for clerk of circuit court discussed their expectations for the clerk's office and two of them, independent Alan Van Clief and Democrat Debra Shipp, said they would make the office a smoke-free zone, a suggestion first brought up by Van Clief.

Republican nominee John Dawson, who said he wants to run the office as a $700,000-a-year business, made no mention of smoking in the clerk's office, where veteran Clerk Shelby J. Marshall is a smoker.

Van Clief, a former employee of the White House law library, said a smoke-free environment is essential to the preservation of important records, one of them a signed document in which Thomas Jefferson freed a son of his slave Sally Hemings.