All across the country, crime victims are routinely left out of the criminal justice process. From being denied their right to speak at hearings to not receiving notification when their offender is released from prison, victims of crime are too often re-victimized by the very system meant to protect them. Marsy’s Law would set right this issue, giving victims a platform to finally be seen by the criminal justice system. Victims of crime have waited long enough. It’s time for Marsy’s Law.

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Below is the request I received about Marsy's Law

Good morning Van. I want to thank you for taking the time yesterday to speak with me about Marsy’s Law and how I became involved with it. Thank you for allowing me to send information to you for your web page to help promote this. I will try to keep this brief for the page and also let you know that if you want to hear the story more in depth, you can go to YouTube and search Batting the Breeze, Marsy’s Law for a 12 minute edited version or a 52 minute uncut version of our story.

This starts back in 1994 on Friday July 8^th. My dad went to a grocery store called Foodland on 13^th Street in Ashland, Kentucky to cash a paycheck and by cigarettes before returning to work and paying his employee and going home for the day. As he was leaving the store, he was abducted at gunpoint after being pistol whipped from behind and taken to an abandoned industrial park, tied to a tree and murdered.

His killer was a complete stranger who wanted to steal his vehicle. His killer was captured on July 19^th (dad’s 50^th birthday). Roy Pearce is the man’s name and he sit quietly in a Michigan jail cell until August the 7^th before he confessed and drew a map to find Dad’s body still tied to a tree on August 9^th 33 days after the abduction.

He made this confession to escape capital punishment. As a result, he was sentenced to 25 years to life. Fast forward to November 9^th 2020, and we have a parole hearing by conference call. We were allowed 4 lines to speak with members of the parole board and all lines were full. People from Kentucky, Tennessee, Ohio, and Arizona were calling to make sure this animal never breathed air as a free man again.

The parole hearings in Kentucky have 4 possible outcomes, 1. Set free 2. 5 year deferment 3. 10 year deferment. 4. A serve out. A serve out means that the inmate serves out the entirety of their sentence and never comes up for parole again. The victim’s and their families never have to deal with the criminal again. We were able to get a serve out. Great news! We are done! Not so fast.

On May 21^st of 2021, I see an email at work that was sent about 20 minutes after clocked out on the 20^th with and urgent CALL ME THE FIRST CHANCE YOU GET! The subject line stated ROY PEARCE and the email was from Melissa Lambert of the Boyd County Kentucky Commonwealth Attorney’s Office. By the time the office opened up I had already found out what was going on.

On April the 1^st the Chairperson of the Parole Board issued a directive stating that no inmate gets a serve out on their first parole hearing and made it retroactive. 44 murderers who were supposed to locked away for ever were now going to be given a new opportunity for a chance at freedom. The state was going to rip open old wounds that had finally been closed, some for 18 years. The basis for doing this was the chairperson’s lie about a judges ruling when the criminals sued the state over serve outs claiming that the sentence was given by the parole board and not a judge or jury. In fact the judge’s ruling was actually the exact opposite. I was absolutely in shock!

I, with the help of Thomas McNeely, and Melissa Lambert got to work contacting every prosecutor in the state of Kentucky, the victims’ family members, state representatives, the Attorney general, and the Governor’s office, and started an online petition to try to stop this. From our efforts, and efforts of Attorney General Daniel Cameron, prosecutors David Dalton, and Jackie Steel, and other victims’ family members, a law suit was filed on our behalf against the state for violating our constitutional rights under Marsy’s Law. Marsy’s Law was passed and voted in by the citizens as part of the state constitution guaranteeing constitutional protections for crime victims and their families. We were able to stop the new parole hearings only because Marsy’s Law was part of the state constitution.

In Tennessee, we have a great crime victims bill of rights in our constitution that says that victims have a right to confer with prosecutors, to be at all proceedings where the defendant has a right to be there, free from harassment, intimidation, and abuse throughout the criminal justice system, to be heard at all critical stages of the criminal justice process as defined by the General Assembly, to be informed of all proceedings and of the release, transfer, and escape of the accused or convicted person, to a speedy trial or disposition and prompt and final conclusion of the case after the conviction or sentence, to restitution from the offender, and to know about each of these rights. My hat is off to the legislators who crafted this back in the 90’s. Only problem is, there is no enforcement mechanism in this. Marsy’s Law actually gives these rights the teeth of enforcement.

During the time I was introduced to Marsy’s Law and the success it had in Kentucky, the bill had been defeated in the Criminal Justice Sub Committee. Since then, I’ve worked with Rep Lowell Russell and Rep Monty Fritz, Police Chief Don White, Suzanna McKinney, various other officials and other victims’ rights advocates to help get the bill out of subcommittee. Through cooperation between the folks at Marsy’s Law TN and our elected officials, the bill has passed completely out of the house with zero no votes and is set to be taken up by the senate next year. If it passes in the senate, it will be placed on the ballot in 26 for a vote by the citizenry to make it part of the Tennessee State Constitution. This will help ensure that the criminal justice system process doesn’t victimize the victims again.

Thank you

David E. Toney