How a defense attorney and prosecutor worked together to get justice with a human touch

 A woman who has been in custody for a case from 2011 was finally held accountable but it was one of those cases where the humanity behind the resolution often goes unreported.

Elan Firpo who prosecuted the case for the People and Virginia Doolittle's attorney, Kathleen Bryson, told Judge John Feeney that they had arrived at a resolution in the case. Initially, Kaleb Cockrum from Conflict Counsel represented Doolittle. Ms. Bryson took over her case on January 14, 2013 .

Ms. Firpo said that before resolution, she contacted the victim's girlfriend and family. She explained the evidence in the case supported the disposition of the case . The sentencing will occur on August 11 at 2 p.m. in Courtroom 1. Ms. Firpo requested that sentencing be continued to that date so that representatives on behalf of the victim or the girlfriend can be present and if they wish, Ms. Firpo told them they could address the Court.

Doolittle was initially charged with murder.  On 7/14/14, she plead to a lesser charge of voluntary manslaughter for 6 years with a 1 year added for the special allegation of the use of deadly weapon; in this case a knife.

Doolittle will not get probation. She will have to serve the jail time and Judge Feeney informed her that she has to serve at least 85% of that time, and the good time credits cannot be applied to reduce jail time. I asked Ms. Bryson about this and she clarified , "She will have to serve the remaining time in prison.  She has already served almost 3 years in jail.  She will get credit for that time and receive additional credits at 15% because voluntary manslaughter is a strike, and therefore, 85% of the sentence must be served.

Ms. Firpo told me factors that influenced her decision were that  Ms. Doolittle had been custody since 2011 without the case moving forward and that Ms. Bryson provided a lot of information to her and worked very hard on behalf of Ms. Doolittle to show mitigating circumstances.

Ms. Bryson also spoke with me. "I thanked Elan and told her that she did the right thing in Virginia Doolittle's case," said Ms. Bryson. "I appreciated that she kept an open mind and carefully considered the evidence. I especially brought her the psych evaluation by Dr Soper. I came on the case late, as it was previously Kaleb Cockrum's case, but I worked very hard to get Elan as much information as possible to help resolve the case.  The largest obstacle I faced was that Ms. Doolittle would not open up to either her counsel or to Dr. Soper.  Understandably, she has a huge distrust of men.  So, I went with Dr. Soper when he met with her. This proved to be invaluable as she finally began to open up."

"Ms. Doolittle had no real criminal record, served her country in the Army and was honorably discharged. She suffers from both PTSD and DisAssociative Disorder. She had been molested from the ages of 6 to 17 by her uncle and then was raped in the military."

"She loved her brother, Frank, very much.  On the night of the incident her brother was very drunk (BAC .24%) and his probation reports showed that when he drinks he tends to act very aggressively.  She was trying to leave the house that they shared.  In order to open the lock on her bedroom, she needed a knife. Virginia did not get along with Frank's girlfriend and they argued about it a lot.  Frank stepped in to stand up for his girlfriend and ended up with one stab wound that was unfortunately fatal. Virginia never meant to harm Frank. The case is a tragedy."