But until the passage of the restorative-justice bill this year, there was no process in Colorado's adult justice system to allow such meetings. Evans testified in support of the bill. Among the opponents who showed up that day was Denver District Attorney Mitch Morrissey. It was "very challenging" and uncomfortable, Evans says, to find herself on the opposite side of the fence from the man who put her son's killers away.
Evans hopes to be able to sit down and talk to Johnson soon. But it's not clear when that might actually happen; the Department of Corrections has a list of hundreds of victims who want to meet their offenders and no funds to pay for the costs of the meetings, including transportation and facilitators. In order to get the bill passed, Representative Lee and other sponsors agreed to cut its fiscal impacts to the bone.
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Joe Cannata began aiding crime victims after he wasn't allowed to speak when the killer of his daughter Lynn was sentenced.
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Nancy Lewis is the executive director of COVA, the most influential victim advocacy group in the state.
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"I pulled a rabbit out of a hat," Lee says. "It was all in the spirit of compromise, with no money attached."
Lee says he's working with the DOC to get the pilot program going. He has dozens of restorative-justice facilitators who've agreed to provide services for free and says prison officials have been "very forthcoming" in their concerns. "I don't know if there's institutional opposition to restorative justice," he says. "There is a lack of understanding. People are afraid of the unknown."
Many victim groups have welcomed the arrival of such a program, even if the funding is meager. "It's not a program for everybody, but it should be there for people who need it," Cannata says. "It has to be a controlled environment, or it will damage both parties. If it helps victims move on, that would be a good thing. And if it influences offenders so that they never commit another crime, so much the better."
Evans plans to start a restorative-justice initiative of her own, working with victims to "get their needs met in a timely manner." But right now she's struggling, like a lot of nonprofit activists, to collect just a few drops from the vast streams of grant money that flow toward the major victim interest groups in the state. "I have spoken with COVA, and they've kind of shooed me away," she says. "They're not really interested in restorative justice."
Her gang-prevention program lost its offices a few months ago after pilot funding ran out. "We're looking for funds for a building now. A lot of minority nonprofits have their credibility questioned, but we've been very active in the Arapahoe County community for years. We do need a building, though, to be effective."
Lewis says COVA welcomes the growing diversity of the victim movement. "I'm encouraged by the Howard Mortons and the Joe Cannatas," she says. "There has been more grassroots victim legislation than with any other cause. Not all of it has been good. But then you have people who serve a population that hasn't been served and bring to light issues we weren't paying attention to."
Evans has thought for years about what she would say if she ever sat down with Raymond Johnson or Paul Littlejohn to discuss the terrible thing they did that extinguished one life and altered so many others. She knows the words. But she's still finding her voice.
