Zimmerman's Decision Not Groundbreaking
Dublin Core
Title
Zimmerman's Decision Not Groundbreaking
Subject
Gay rights
Discrimination
Homophobia
Description
Windsor County State's Attorney Patricia Zimmerman dropped a case that involved prosecuting a group charged with trespassing after having been denied entrance into bar because of the sexual orientation of their party.
Creator
Gutkowski, Sophia
Publisher
HIST 298, University of Mary Washington
Date
1992-04-14
Rights
The materials in this online collection are held by Special Collections, Simpson Library, University of Mary Washington and are available for educational use. For this purpose only, you may reproduce materials without prior permission on the condition that you provide attribution of the source.
Format
2 JPGs
300 DPI
Language
English
Coverage
Windsor County, Vermont
Text Item Type Metadata
Text
Hartford – When Windsor County State’s Attorney Patricia Zimmerman decided not to prosecute a high-profile unlawful trespass case last month, she said her decision was made “in deference to the privacy rights of the witnesses.”
The fact that some of the witnesses in the case were lesbians influenced her decision, she said.
Was her reasoning legitimate? Legal? Unprecedented?
Yes, yes and no, legal and police experts say.
“She is well within statutory authority to make that decision,” said Tom Torti, executive director of the Vermont Department of State’s Attorneys and Sheriffs. “The privacy rights of an individual is as legitimate a reason for not bringing a case as is any other reason.”
Two police officers interviewed for this story said they had occasionally heard privacy rights of victims and witnesses cited as reasons not to prosecute in cases that involve children or allegations of aggravated sexual assault.
State’s attorneys have a remarkable degree of latitude in deciding whether to prosecute a case, and they needn’t explain their reasons either, said professor Michael Mello of Vermont Law School in South Royalton.
The seemingly simple question of “Was the law broken?”is complicated by a number of other factors. Can the state prove its case? Does the alleged lawbreaker endanger the public safety? Given state budget cuts, is prosecution the best use of limited staff resources? What is the severity of the charge, and is prosecution worth the effort?
“Having ongoing relationships with not just the police, but the public in general are legitimate factors that oftentimes come into the charging equation,” Mello said.
“The wants and needs of the victims as well as the wants and needs of third parties, especially, in this case, of innocent witnesses,” he said, explaining that his information about this case comes from news accounts.
“At least as told by the Valley News . . . this may not have been your everyday, normal trespass case,” Mello said. “If sexual orientation was an issue or potential issue in the trial, given the general homophobic nature of U.S. culture, (non-prosecution) makes sense to me.”
Although a reluctant witness can be compelled by the court to testify, such a witness may be hostile and unhelpful, Torti said.
The unlawful trespass charge stemmed from an evening last December when Georgina Forbes of Thetford and Susan Aranoff of Randolph went to the Howard Johnson’s junction with a group of (Continued on page 5)
– DECISION friends, one of whom, a 39-year-old woman, lacked identification.
Aranoff and Forbes unsuccessfully tried to persuade the bartender to let the woman in. Hartford police – five of them – were called to settle the ensuing dispute. During the subsequent arrest, Aranoff said she was shoved savagely to the floor.
Aranoff and Forbes claim they were discriminated against by the bar because some in their party were lesbians. The bar denies it. The women further say the police acted unreasonably and violently during the arrest, accusations the police have consistently denied. Zimmerman sided with the police in her statement announcing her decision not to prosecute.
“The Hartford Police Department acted appropriately and according to protocol,” she wrote, adding that prosecution would not serve the public good. She said yesterday that she stands by her decision.
Mello analyzed Zimmerman’s decision thus: “The police are vindicated and the folks who are arrested are vindicated. At least on its face, it’s a compromise that I think had the political benefit of giving the various constituencies some of what they wanted, maybe not all. Politically, she was probably in a no-win situation.”
Only one of the police officers involved in the incident could be reached for comment. Patrlman David Hedley said he was neither frustrated by nor triumphant about the case’s outcome.
“If I were to get upset about all the cases that don’t get what I think they should get, I’d go nutty,” he said. “As soon as it’s out of my hands, I try to forget about it.
“I don’t see that there is vindication involved,” he continued. “I just see that the truth came out. The facts were investigated by an independent body and it led to everything that my department has asserted in the first place.
“I’ve been in law enforcement close to 11 years. I know the level of my conduct and am satisfied with my conduct. I don’t worry about what anybody else says, what the press says, what the victims say. I know I guided myself in a proper manner and according to our guidelines and regulations.”
But if that arresting officer wasn’t frustrated, at least one former police officer was. In a letter to the Valley News, Hartford resident Frank Dupree implied that Zimmerman was pressured by a special interest group to back down. Tom Nelson, past president of the Vermont Police Association, who read about the case in the media, said it “popped” into his mind that “political” considerations might have influenced Zimmerman’s decision.
“Most people don’t want for political groups to affect the courts’ work,” Nelson said. “The court should be looking for the truth. The issue should basically be the incident that occurred and the laws that were broken.”
But Torti dismissed the notion that politics might have played a role.
“Pat (Zimmerman) has a reputation in the state for being a very tough prosecutor. If you look at her record as a prosecutor and as a state’s attorney, clearly she hasn’t shied away from tough cases,” he said.
Aranoff, who is an attorney, said she doesn’t accept Zimmerman’s stated reason for not pursuing the case, although she was glad that the charge was dropped. Aranoff said that the lesbian witnesses are her friends and she knows they weren’t concerned about their privacy. Aranoff, who is lesbian, speculated that Zimmerman wanted to show her sensitivity to the gay community by raising the privacy rights issue because she realized that otherwise her support for the police would be interpreted as insensitivity to homosexuals.
“I think the state’s attorney was looking for a way out but the reason given doesn’t fly,” Aranoff said.
Zimmerman said yesterday that wile some witnesses didn’t necessarily have a problem testifying, “it’s a matter of what collateral effect that process might have.” She declined to comment on Dupree’s letter, saying he is entitled to his opinion and that it was based solely on news accounts.
The fact that some of the witnesses in the case were lesbians influenced her decision, she said.
Was her reasoning legitimate? Legal? Unprecedented?
Yes, yes and no, legal and police experts say.
“She is well within statutory authority to make that decision,” said Tom Torti, executive director of the Vermont Department of State’s Attorneys and Sheriffs. “The privacy rights of an individual is as legitimate a reason for not bringing a case as is any other reason.”
Two police officers interviewed for this story said they had occasionally heard privacy rights of victims and witnesses cited as reasons not to prosecute in cases that involve children or allegations of aggravated sexual assault.
State’s attorneys have a remarkable degree of latitude in deciding whether to prosecute a case, and they needn’t explain their reasons either, said professor Michael Mello of Vermont Law School in South Royalton.
The seemingly simple question of “Was the law broken?”is complicated by a number of other factors. Can the state prove its case? Does the alleged lawbreaker endanger the public safety? Given state budget cuts, is prosecution the best use of limited staff resources? What is the severity of the charge, and is prosecution worth the effort?
“Having ongoing relationships with not just the police, but the public in general are legitimate factors that oftentimes come into the charging equation,” Mello said.
“The wants and needs of the victims as well as the wants and needs of third parties, especially, in this case, of innocent witnesses,” he said, explaining that his information about this case comes from news accounts.
“At least as told by the Valley News . . . this may not have been your everyday, normal trespass case,” Mello said. “If sexual orientation was an issue or potential issue in the trial, given the general homophobic nature of U.S. culture, (non-prosecution) makes sense to me.”
Although a reluctant witness can be compelled by the court to testify, such a witness may be hostile and unhelpful, Torti said.
The unlawful trespass charge stemmed from an evening last December when Georgina Forbes of Thetford and Susan Aranoff of Randolph went to the Howard Johnson’s junction with a group of (Continued on page 5)
– DECISION friends, one of whom, a 39-year-old woman, lacked identification.
Aranoff and Forbes unsuccessfully tried to persuade the bartender to let the woman in. Hartford police – five of them – were called to settle the ensuing dispute. During the subsequent arrest, Aranoff said she was shoved savagely to the floor.
Aranoff and Forbes claim they were discriminated against by the bar because some in their party were lesbians. The bar denies it. The women further say the police acted unreasonably and violently during the arrest, accusations the police have consistently denied. Zimmerman sided with the police in her statement announcing her decision not to prosecute.
“The Hartford Police Department acted appropriately and according to protocol,” she wrote, adding that prosecution would not serve the public good. She said yesterday that she stands by her decision.
Mello analyzed Zimmerman’s decision thus: “The police are vindicated and the folks who are arrested are vindicated. At least on its face, it’s a compromise that I think had the political benefit of giving the various constituencies some of what they wanted, maybe not all. Politically, she was probably in a no-win situation.”
Only one of the police officers involved in the incident could be reached for comment. Patrlman David Hedley said he was neither frustrated by nor triumphant about the case’s outcome.
“If I were to get upset about all the cases that don’t get what I think they should get, I’d go nutty,” he said. “As soon as it’s out of my hands, I try to forget about it.
“I don’t see that there is vindication involved,” he continued. “I just see that the truth came out. The facts were investigated by an independent body and it led to everything that my department has asserted in the first place.
“I’ve been in law enforcement close to 11 years. I know the level of my conduct and am satisfied with my conduct. I don’t worry about what anybody else says, what the press says, what the victims say. I know I guided myself in a proper manner and according to our guidelines and regulations.”
But if that arresting officer wasn’t frustrated, at least one former police officer was. In a letter to the Valley News, Hartford resident Frank Dupree implied that Zimmerman was pressured by a special interest group to back down. Tom Nelson, past president of the Vermont Police Association, who read about the case in the media, said it “popped” into his mind that “political” considerations might have influenced Zimmerman’s decision.
“Most people don’t want for political groups to affect the courts’ work,” Nelson said. “The court should be looking for the truth. The issue should basically be the incident that occurred and the laws that were broken.”
But Torti dismissed the notion that politics might have played a role.
“Pat (Zimmerman) has a reputation in the state for being a very tough prosecutor. If you look at her record as a prosecutor and as a state’s attorney, clearly she hasn’t shied away from tough cases,” he said.
Aranoff, who is an attorney, said she doesn’t accept Zimmerman’s stated reason for not pursuing the case, although she was glad that the charge was dropped. Aranoff said that the lesbian witnesses are her friends and she knows they weren’t concerned about their privacy. Aranoff, who is lesbian, speculated that Zimmerman wanted to show her sensitivity to the gay community by raising the privacy rights issue because she realized that otherwise her support for the police would be interpreted as insensitivity to homosexuals.
“I think the state’s attorney was looking for a way out but the reason given doesn’t fly,” Aranoff said.
Zimmerman said yesterday that wile some witnesses didn’t necessarily have a problem testifying, “it’s a matter of what collateral effect that process might have.” She declined to comment on Dupree’s letter, saying he is entitled to his opinion and that it was based solely on news accounts.
Original Format
Newspaper
Student Editor of the Digital Item
Williams, Megan
Files
Citation
Gutkowski, Sophia , “Zimmerman's Decision Not Groundbreaking,” HIST299, accessed July 12, 2026, https://hist299.umwhistory.org/items/show/141.