|
|
New links to recent articles about the foundation written by Chao Xiong of the Star Tibune and Ruben Rosario of the Pioneer Press
 Benny's mom finds her wayBy Mara H. Gottfried mgottfried@pioneerpress.com Article Last Updated: 03/29/2008 11:11:24 PM CDT "I have laughter and joy in my life again because of Sofie," says Maggie Doran, of St. Paul, who works as a personal-care attendant for Sofie Wright, 5, of Vadnais Heights. Sofie has Rett's syndrome, a neurodevelopmental disorder. Sofie and Doran seem to have a special connection, says Liz Wright, Sofie's mother. "She never stopped being a mom, but working with Sofie has helped lighten her heart." (Richard Marshall, Pioneer Press) Whenever Maggie Doran is near the University of Minnesota, she can't help but imagine her son as a student there. Ben Doran would be 20 now and attending college, Maggie Doran believes, if his life hadn't been snuffed out in St. Paul five years ago. It was March 31, 2003, when 15-year-old Ben — Doran's only child — was walking home from a pickup basketball game in St. Paul's North End and two men chased him down in a case of mistaken identity. The men, who were gang members, beat Ben so savagely he lapsed into a coma. He died a few days later. The men were convicted of murder and are in prison. Ben's murder outraged and united the community, and nearly 2,000 people attended his funeral. It galvanized Maggie Doran and a family friend, Rome Hanson, to start the Ben Doran Foundation. After five years, the foundation and Doran are finding footing, though the years have been hard. "Five years and I'm just starting to be able to have several days where I'm not just weeping profusely," Doran said recently. "You're tired all the time because underneath it all you're sad all the time, even though that sadness isn't right here." Shortly after Ben died, Doran and Hanson started the foundation with a focus on arts and science, but it has taken on varied projects, including lobbying and working with other victims' families. Before Ben was killed, Doran, a single mother, had been an administrative assistant in Minneapolis. After his death, she didn't go back to work because she couldn't concentrate. About a year ago, Doran found new work that has given her new hope. She's a personal-care attendant for a 5-year-old Vadnais Heights girl who has Rett's syndrome, a neurodevelopmental disorder. The little girl, Sofie Wright, can't walk or talk and is tube fed, Doran said. "I take her innocence and the pure delight of her looking at something and smiling," Doran said. "It puts you in a place where you're like, 'How can I be in a place where I'm totally defeated?' " Sofie and Doran seem to have a special connection, said Liz Wright, Sofie's mother. "She never stopped being a mom, but working with Sofie has helped lighten her heart," said Wright, who has known Doran since childhood. "It's given her a purpose beyond her grief and the foundation." The foundation has been good for Doran, too. She said it's kept her "in the problem-solving piece of my mind." "Ben's foundation also allows me to grieve; it honors my grief," she said. "It's very cathartic to work on the issues." In their work, Doran and Hanson discovered there were lots of resources for victims' families in the Twin Cities, but a need existed in Greater Minnesota. They've been working with cities and counties outside the metro area to create a network for victims' families. Locally, the Ben Doran Foundation has partnered with Citizens for a Safer Minnesota and is acting as the group's victim-advocate referral service. "It's really helpful to some of the mothers I've met to talk with Maggie," said Sue Fust, executive director of Citizens for a Safer Minnesota. "Maggie is so good at helping them know they're not alone." The Ben Doran Foundation also has been active at the state Capitol. "We're not going to fix society, but we're going to continue to say, 'Hey wait a minute, what about the victims?' " Hanson said. Doran and Hanson worked with Rep. John Lesch, DFL-St. Paul, to create Benny's Law, which enhances penalties for gang members convicted of a crime against a child. Doran and Hanson have run other ideas past Lesch about improving public safety for kids, he said. "I see a lot of groups come around looking for support or funding, and oftentimes, they're short-lived efforts," Lesch said. "Rome and Maggie have been pounding the pavement for years, and their commitment only grows. That really impresses me." Doran and Hanson also are proud of the work they did to get Gov. Tim Pawlenty to designate Sept. 25 as a Day of Remembrance for murder victims in Minnesota. Earlier this year, the foundation received a $10,000 grant from the U.S. Department of Justice. They've bought a computer and hired a professional to redesign their Web site and still have money left over. Because it's an organizational grant, the money can't be used for fundraising or lobbying. In addition, Doran and Hanson have been working with St. Paul officials to get a peace garden for homicide victims built in the city. They're still working out a location and other details, but they envision a labyrinth with native grasses and homicide victims' names etched in stone. Doran and Hanson have tried to incorporate Ben's interests into the foundation. Because of the teen's love for music, Hanson gave conga lessons for two months last year to students at Murray Junior High School, which Ben had attended. Ben was a Como Park High School sophomore when he was killed. He liked academics, sports, nature, music and tinkering with mechanical things, Doran said. "He was at that age where you try lots of things to see if you're good at it and if it's something you want to do," she said. Doran said she thinks about her son often. "Part of me just doesn't want to let go of Benny," she said. "Obviously, he'll always be with me in my heart." Mara H. Gottfried can be reached at 651-228-5262. For more information about the Ben Doran Foundation, go to www.bendoranfoundation.org. Court Appearance Opens Old Wounds A 2004 U.S. Supreme Court decision
that allows some criminal sentences to be revisited and possibly reduced has some crime victims and their families reliving
old traumas.Written by Paul Gustafson, Star Tribune, Published October 29, 2006 It's been a rough 3½ years for Maggie Doran since two gang members murdered her only child, 15-year-old Ben, as he walked home from playing basketball at a St. Paul recreation center. "I'm finally able to have moments where I have a very good memory and a chuckle about my son," Doran said last week. "But there's no getting over [his death]. You just adjust to the trauma, somehow." Doran is braced for a flood of bad memories today when one of her son's killers, Robert E. Cindrich, returns to court for jury selection in his resentencing trial. Prosecutors hope to prevent Cindrich from having his 30-year prison sentence reduced to 17½ years. It could happen because of a 2004 U.S. Supreme Court ruling that defendants such as Cindrich can't receive longer sentences than called for by state guidelines unless a jury, rather than a judge, finds aggravating factors. The Doran murder case is one of hundreds of especially violent crimes that Minnesota prosecutors have had to revisit in the past two years because the sentences were based on the findings by judges that there were aggravating factors. In most cases, prosecutors have negotiated pleas that shave a year or less off the original sentences, said Phil Prokopowicz, chief deputy in the Dakota County attorney's office. Defendants have accepted those minimal reductions rather than demand that their case return to the courtroom because they feared that a jury could make findings that result in even stiffer sentences, he said. The cases affected by the Supreme Court ruling typically involve crimes more heinous than most -- crimes not likely to make the defendants sympathetic in the eyes of jurors. In Dakota County, four cases have been taken to juries for resentencing, and, each time, jurors approved the penalties that prosecutors sought, Dakota County Attorney Jim Backstrom said. "Most of [the cases] continue to be resolved through negotiations, and in some cases we have accepted a little less [prison] time," he said. "But ... we're not afraid to take these cases to a jury for resentencing." Ramsey County Attorney Susan Gaertner said her office has dealt with 17 cases in which enhanced sentences were called into question by the 2004 decision. So far, six resentencing trials have been held in Ramsey County. In Hennepin County, about 10 resentencing trials have been held so far, said Paul Scoggin, head of the county attorney's violent crimes division. Not The 'Catastrophe' Feared When the Supreme Court made its 5-4 ruling, some feared that thousands of similar felony sentences could be rolled back, that courts would be swamped with resentencing trials and that sentencing guideline systems could be wrecked in several states. Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, writing as part of the court minority, warned that "over 20 years of sentencing reforms are all but lost, and tens of thousands of criminal judgments are in jeopardy." But those predictions have not come true in Minnesota, prosecutors say. "This has not been the catastrophe we thought it might become," Gaertner said. The impact of the court's ruling was minimized when the state sentencing guidelines commission widened the range of prison terms that judges can impose, University of Minnesota law Prof. Richard Frase said. In the past, longer sentences required a finding of aggravated circumstances. Today, longer sentences fall into the guidelines' normal range and can be handed down by judges without the need for a resentencing jury, Frase said. Legislators also quickly passed new laws enabling juries to consider tougher sentences. Adjustments Small Consolation Those adjustments are small consolation to crime victims and their families whose emotional wounds often are reopened by resentencing trials, prosecutors acknowledge. The Doran murder is a prime example, Gaertner said. "For that family to have to go back and [relive] a crime that was so heinous ... it clearly must seem like a catastrophe," she said. Ben Doran was attacked on the evening of March 31, 2003, by Cindrich and Chawtell L. Nestell, both then 23. Cindrich was angry about a recent fight with a girlfriend's brother, and he and Nestell savagely kicked and beat Doran, who died four days later. In August 2003, Cindrich and Nestell pleaded guilty to murder, sparing the Doran family the anxiety of a trial. The killers each faced 17½-year sentences under Minnesota guidelines. Instead, Ramsey County District Judge Gregg Johnson imposed 30-year sentences. Johnson justified the stiffer sentences by citing factors such as Ben's youth and size, the cruelty of the attack and the devastating effect his murder had on his family and the North End community. Now prosecutors this week will use sometimes stark and gruesome evidence and testimony to convince a Ramsey County resentencing jury that Doran's murder was heinous enough to sustain Cindrich's 30-year sentence. Cindrich cannot get a higher sentence in a retrial because his original plea bargain guaranteed him a sentence of no more than 30 years. (Unlike Cindrich, Nestell has not appealed his sentence.) "It doesn't make sense to me that [Cindrich] gets all these rights," Maggie Doran said, "even the right to question the heinousness of chasing down an innocent child and beating him to death." One way she is dealing with her pain is by lobbying Minnesota officials through the Ben Doran Foundation, created in her son's memory, to join other states in using test cases to challenge the 2004 high court decision. Rome Hanson, a friend of Doran's who helps her with the foundation's lobbying, recalled what a woman in a violent-crime survivors' group told him recently. "She said, 'That's why they call it the criminal justice system, not the victim justice system. The criminal gets all the justice,' " Hanson said. Maggie Doran is angry about this trial, and she dreads it. "Bennie had tears all over his face when he was killed," she said. "I know he was crying for his life." Paul Gustafson • 651-298-1545 pgustafson@startribune.com ©2006 Star Tribune. All rights reserved. http://www.startribune.com/467/story/774682.html
|
