'A warrior for children': Pensacola prosecutor who specialized in justice for abused children honored
A who's who of Escambia County legal minds gathered Friday afternoon at the Gulf Coast Kid's House in Pensacola.
At least five defense lawyers, 12 current and 13 former assistant state attorneys, former State Attorney Bill Eddins and the current office holder, Ginger Bowden Madden, were in attendance.
They were all there to honor now-retired, longtime Assistant State Attorney Anne Patterson.
Patterson spent the last 16 years of her career working out of an office at the Gulf Coast Kid's House. There she helped forge a strong and lasting relationship between the Kid's House and State Attorney's Office by consistently advocating for ever more efficient prosecutions of crimes related to child abuse.
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A wing of the Gulf Coast Kid's House was named in her honor as the "Anne M. Patterson, ASA Justice Wing."
"I feel strongly that while the plaque has my name, that fact is that I share this honor with so many," Patterson said at the naming ceremony. "The people who I work here with at Kid's House, first of all; the board that I started out with in 1999 who had their vision of making a (children's advocacy center), making it work. There are so many people — who I see here today — who have been here since the beginning, making this happen. And it's a great success, and we do change lives."
The Gulf Coast Kid's House is a children's advocacy center serving over 3,000 kids per year in Escambia County by providing them with counseling for their experience with child abuse and allowing them access to legal and law enforcement professionals in a safe space.
"Anne laid the foundation for the child advocacy prosecutors who are working out here at the Kid's House now," Bowden Madden said at the small ceremony. "You trained them well, Anne. You did a tremendous job. I almost forget that they're here sometimes, because they operate so well together doing one of the most important jobs that our office can do."
Eddins noted when he was elected as the state attorney in 2005, he knew he could always depend on Patterson.
"So she convinced me that it was important to make sure that children have a safe place to go, and that they had experienced prosecutors who were dedicated to that cause to handle their cases," Eddins said.
Patterson's leadership at the Kid's House, influence at the State Attorney's Office and insistence that people who hurt children should be prosecuted with the full force of the law resulted in the State Attorney's Office dedicating multiple assistant state attorneys to become specialists solely focused on child abuse cases.
"I had no choice," Eddins said. "She was polite and professional about it, but it was very clear to me that after listening to her, it was necessary for us to take a very strong position at the children's advocacy center."
He added, "So under her leadership, the CAC expanded to the point that most of the time we had three lawyers supervised and also handling cases."
Patterson's passion for the welfare of children also led the State Attorney's Office to expand the type of cases that are handled by its specialized attorneys stationed at the Kid's House.
For example, Eddins said, Kid's House prosecutors started handling child pornography cases.
"Anne and I agreed. She felt like a specialized prosecutors needed to handle those cases because they are so technical," Eddins said, referring to the prosecution of child pornography charges. "Throughout the years, she handled child pornography cases. She's supervised lawyers that did. They are very technical and very labor intensive, and she's done an excellent job with those."
The State Attorney's Office additionally transferred what are called "traveling cases" to its specialist ASAs at the Kid's House.
According to Eddins, traveling cases are when a law enforcement agent poses online as a juvenile to identify individuals soliciting and arranging to have sex with children.
Patterson not only personally prosecuted "traveling cases" but also supervised the training of less experienced attorneys on how to try such cases.
For many years, Patterson personally prosecuted all of the local area's criminal cases involving allegations of child predators failing to register as sex offenders.
"That was such a comfort for me because we knew that all of those could be dangerous people, and there are always 15 to 20 of those cases pending at any one time," Eddins said. "She did a masterful job of prosecuting those throughout the years."
Assistant State Attorney Erin Ambrose, who took over as the supervising prosecutor stationed at the Kid's House after Patterson retired in December 2020, called Patterson a "force of nature."
"You were a warrior for children. You made differences in the lives of so many children and so many families. You impacted so many families, so many people, me included," Ambrose said.
She later added, "So, when people say 'Are you the new Anne?' The answer is 'No,' because I could never fill your shoes."
Colin Warren-Hicks can be reached at [email protected] or 850-435-8680.
This article originally appeared on Pensacola News Journal: Escambia County children's advocacy center honors former ASA