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Volume 104 • Number 34 • Thursday, February 20, 2014 • PO Box 188 • 111 E. Jenkins • Maryville, MO
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New booklet informs crime victims of their legal rights By KEVIN BIRDSELL Staff writer
The office of Nodaway County Prosecuting Attorney Robert Rice has released a booklet outlining the rights of crime victims as their cases wind their way through the court system. Titled “Crime Victims’ Rights: A Guide for Victims About the Criminal Justice System in Missouri,” the 37-page pamphlet serves as a blueprint with regard to general rights, compensation, court appearances, legal vocabulary, protective orders, sentencing and other topics. “It’s been a goal of mine to do for a while,” Rice said. “I’m real proud of it. It’s something that, I think, goes a long way to empower crime victims and their families. Not only about what their rights are, but what to expect in the criminal jus-
tice system.” This is the first booklet of this type that Rice’s office as put out, and it’s available free to anyone whose case comes through the prosecutor’s courthouse office. Rice said he put the book together because he feels that many who are victimized by criminals don’t know their rights, or even that they have rights. “When you watch one of those (television) police shows, immediately after the bad guy does something bad, we read them their rights,” Rice said. “So they know about this, that and the other. But do we go that far to help with the victims of that crime? A lot of folks have never been a part of a criminal case. For a lot of them, it’s their first go around with any sort of court process.” Once someone becomes a victim, Rice said, they be-
come part of a criminal justice process with which they may not be familiar. The booklet is intended to answer basic questions about that process and how the court system works. “When things settle down questions start coming up like, ‘What happens from here?’” Rice said. “That’s what this booklet is designed to do. It’s designed to inform people what resources are available to them, what resources are available locally and what some of their civil remedies are.” The booklet lists contact information for the local domestic violence shelter along with addresses and phone numbers for law enforcement agencies and victims’ assistance organizations, such as the Missouri Victim Assistance Network and the Missouri Office for Victims of Crime. Another portion of the
book contains a glossary of terms commonly used in court. “I’m as guilty as anybody else of using the lingo that’s prevalent in my line of work,” Rice said. “Folks don’t necessarily know what all of that means. What I wanted to do was go in and define what some of those terms are — just various commonly used terms in the criminal justice process so that someone can look it up and know what it means.” Rice said he is proud that the booklet consistently emphasizes that victims have specific rights after being harmed by a criminal act. “It takes the victim’s rights and it puts them first,” Rice said. “In my opinion, victims’ rights should come first, and they should be paramount over those of the bad guy. When you’re a victim of a crime, you should See BOOKLET, Page 6
KEVIN BIRDSELL/DAILY FORUM
Victims’ rights advocate
Nodaway County Prosecuting Attorney Robert Rice has issued a crime victims’ handbook designed to help those who have suffered at the hands of criminals exercise their rights as cases progress through the criminal justice system. The pamphlet provides a step-by-step guide to the legal process from the initial investigation by law enforcement to sentencing and ultimate parole of offenders.
TONY BROWN/DAILY FORUM
Wild, Wild West
Above: A large banner showing one of Frederick Remington’s famous paintings of 19th century U.S. Cavalry troops was on display in the Maryville Public Library this week during a lecture on Western “heroes and villains” by Larry Anderson, a retired English teacher and history buff who writes a regular column for the Daily Forum. Right: This limited edition bust of Wild Bill Hickok playing cards is owned by Anderson. Like many noted personalities of the era, Hickok was both hero and villain, depending on which stories one chooses to believe.
Library speaker says West really was ‘wild’ By TONY BROWN News editor
Larry Anderson will be the first person to tell you he doesn’t look much like a cowboy — let alone a gunfighter. With his close-cropped goatee, glasses and button-down checked shirt, he looks very much like what he is, a retired middle school English teacher. But his distinctly modern appearance doesn’t interfere with what he frankly admits is a fasci-
nation with the period of United States history often referred to as the Wild West. It’s a passion he picked up as a boy growing up in the small Worth County town of Sheridan, where an obliging neighbor used to loan him books by such classic Western writers as Zane Grey, Max Brand and Louis L’Amour. Of course, the horseback and six-gun adventures set forth in such tales as “Destry Rides Again” and “Riders of the Purple Sage”
were meant as entertainment, not history. And as Anderson grew up he became more interested in the “real” Old West rather than the imagined version found in the potboiling plots of pulp novelists. Anderson shared his insights into Western history this week during an Adult Reading Program presentation hosted by the Maryville Public Library. He told his audience that while the real Old West has been obscured by Hollywoodstyle mythmaking, one widely
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held perception carries more than a hint of truth. Life beyond the Missouri River between the end of the Civil War in 1865 and the first decade of the 20th century really was “wild.” The title of Anderson’s presentation was “Heroes and Villains of the Wild West” and consisted of a series of thumbnail sketches of some of the West’s most notorious — and heroic — true-life characters. Taken as a whole, he said, they
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were a colorful bunch, and included such pure knights of the trail as Bass Reeves, the legendary former slave and U.S. deputy marshal known for tracking down outlaws across what is now Oklahoma, then known as Indian Territory, for Isaac “Hanging Judge” Parker, who early in his career tried cases here in Nodaway County. Unlike such part-time lawmen as James Butler “Wild Bill” Hickok and Wyatt Earp, who spent See WILD WEST, Page 6
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