SPOTLIGHT on 2012 Winner of Trail Blazer Award:
Dutchess County District Attorney’s Office

Abused children often are too afraid, too abused, or too confused to come forth and expose their abusers. In May 2011 the Dutchess County DA’s Office under the leadership of District Attorney William Grady and with the support of Marjorie Smith, Bureau Chief for the Special Victims Unit, filed a pretrial petition that has become a major breakthrough in helping traumatized children to give testimony in criminal trials. The petition asked that a service dog, a specially trained Golden Retriever named Rosie, be allowed to comfort the child as she took the stand in the presence of the defendant, a family member, regarding a four-year period of extensive sexual abuse. While Rosie lay calmly by the child’s feet and Senior Prosecutor Kristine Hawlk handled the questioning with warmth, sensitivity and compassion, the child was able to give effective testimony leading to conviction and a maximum jail sentence. Rosie’s owners, Dale and Lu Picard, describe the courtroom work as a career change for the eleven-year-old retriever after years of working with emotionally troubled children at a residential center. Unprecedented in New York State, the collaboration between the Dutchess County District Attorney’s Office and Rosie, named for the civil rights pioneer Rosa Parks, signals the end of terror and intimidation silencing child witnesses nationwide.

www.co.dutchess.ny.us/countygov/departments/districtattorney/daindex.htm