Update 5:30 p.m. | An earlier version of this post misidentified the former Boulder County District Attorney.
Republican Senate candidate Ken Buck addresses a small crowd during a rally in Littleton on Tuesday. A rape victim whom Ken Buck assisted has come forward to praise his efforts. (Barry Gutierrez, The Associated Press)
Heating up the blogosphere this week has been a story about an alleged victim of date rape who faults Weld County District Attorney Ken Buck for not prosecuting her case.
Critics of Buck, the Republican Senate candidate, are trying to make the argument that Buck’s decision as a prosecutor to not try the case and his comments to the accuser demonstrate he is insensitive to women.
I disagree, but I do think it is legitimate to question Buck’s actions as prosecutor.
So the record should also include another case — albeit a rape committed by a stranger, and not a date rape, which can be more difficult to try — which portrays Buck in a far more sympathetic light.
Further, the accuser in that case, which Buck’s office successfully prosecuted, is angry about how Buck is being treated by critics and has come forward to say so.
“(Buck) is very, very compassionate and understanding about these issues, and that’s why it’s so hard to see these harsh comments being made, because I know how he sees these cases,” Kimberly Corban tells me, adding that she plans to vote for him.
“As someone who fought for me, fought for my family, and as someone I’ve watched fight for other victims, I am excited to know that he is running and I know he will be a strong advocate as a senator,” Corban says.
Also, Corban, 25 and now pursuing a criminal justice Master’s degree, which she began because of the attack, says she doesn’t believe that comments Buck made to the accuser in the 2005 are insensitive. Rather, Corban says, they are the comments that must be discussed in rape cases.
“I’m looking at it as someone who is informing a victim of what a jury may see,” Corban says. “I was informed of the same things. I was made aware of what the defenses are that a jury may consider. If they had not had confidence with my case, I would not have drug myself and my family and friends through this.”
On May 12, 2006, Kimberly Corban, then a University of Northern Colorado senior, was raped. Bravely fighting through her trauma, she worked aggressively with prosecutors, and in August 2007, a jury convicted Ronnie Pieors of sexual assault and he was sentenced to 24 years to life in prison.
The lead prosecutor in the case wasn’t Buck, but Deputy District Attorney Michael Rourke, working with Rob Miller.
As district attorney, Buck’s role isn’t to try cases, but to oversee them. Yet he did play a role in the conviction.
Corban describes her attack and her decision to fight and advocate for victims in a 2007 story by Denver Post reporter by Monte Whaley.
The story has been used by other rape counselors to help victims and would-be victims deal with attacks.
(FYI. For those interested in Buck’s position on prosecuting rapes, a colleague here at The Post stumbled across the story in our archives, but it also is easily findable on the Internet.)
At the time of the conviction, Buck told Whaley that Corban should be viewed as “a role model for all the victims out there.”
Many rape cases, even ones as clear-cut as Corban’s, are complicated to prosecute, Buck said, often because of the intricate science involved in gathering evidence.
Corban’s push to get all rape victims to come forward can only help the effort to bring assailants to light. “She stood up for herself, and justice was done,” Buck said.
Buck and Corban tell me that the district attorney met with Corban early in the case, and kept informed in the case throughout the pre-trial strategy sessions and prosecution.
Buck also met with police about the case and, of course, chose the pair of deputy district attorneys who argued the case in court.
Buck has kept in contact with Corban, who now supports his Senate bid, as the two sometimes work together on university campus panels to discuss rape prevention and rape victim awareness.
In deciding to go public, Corban also consulted Buck about her decision.
“She talked to me about it,” Buck says. “She decided the way she was going to deal with this rape in a positive way is to be an advocate for others. It’s sort of her therapy.”
Asked about the trauma of the victim stand, Buck said: “(Corban) is incredibly strong young lady. She is a very strong person.”
Since I had him on the line, I went ahead and asked about charges he is insensitive to women in rape cases.
His answer is worth consideration.
Buck sent the 2005 date-rape case to Mary Lacy, then the Boulder County district attorney who is well known as an aggressive prosecutor of sex crimes.
Her office advised the 2005 date-rape case wasn’t winnable.
But that effort bore some useful fruit. Buck worked with Lacy’s office to establish a so-called Sexual Assault Review Team to help develop expertise in both working with victims and winning cases.
The Weld County District Attorney’s office also developed a Sexual Assault Nurse Examiner Program, which helps train police and emergency room doctors and nurses to deal with rape victims.
The program seeks to make sure that police responding to rape victims know how to get them to medical staff quickly and removed from the general ER population. And staff members are better prepared to both handle the victim with sensitivity, but also to better prepare evidence for trial.
