Patricia Gifford

(Apr. 13, 1938-Apr. 8, 2018). The daughter of Jessie Mabel Martin and George Thomas Gifford, Patricia Jane Gifford graduated high school in Athens, Georgia, and went on to earn an A.B. degree from the College of William and Mary in Virginia in 1960. Gifford taught elementary students at the Army Dependent Schools in Neubrucke, Germany, and in the Metropolitan School District of Washington Township in Indianapolis. She attended law school at night and received her J.D. degree in 1968 from what is now Indiana University Robert H. McKinney School of Law in Indianapolis.

Following graduation, she joined the law firm of Runnels and Rademacher as an associate. Six months later, she moved to the Indiana Attorney General’s office where she began as a deputy attorney, from 1969 to 1970, then rose to the assistant attorney general, from 1970 to 1972.

In 1972, Gifford joined the Marion County Prosecutor’s Office. While there, Indianapolis newspaper reporter Margaret Moore Post told Marion County prosecutor Noble Pearcy the office needed to assign only women attorneys to prosecute rape cases. Pearcy offered the position to Gifford and Susan Porter, who was a new attorney. Together the two women formed the Marion County Rape Task Force where they prosecuted exclusively rape cases. Gifford and Porter became the only prosecutors with whom the victims worked. They were among the first women in the United States assigned to prosecute only sex offense cases.

The pair compiled an impressive record, losing only four cases of the cases they took to trial. Prior to the task force taking over, rape cases were handled like any other felony which meant the female victims were having to tell and retell their stories to a different prosecutor at each court appearance.

Gifford and Porter lost their positions on the task force when Pearcy was voted out of office in 1974. Gifford stayed in public service, becoming a referee for the Marion County Juvenile Court in 1975 and in 1978 successfully running for the Marion County Superior Court. She took her seat on the bench on January 1, 1979. She was the sixth woman in Indiana to be a trial judge and remained on the bench of the Superior Court until she retired in 2008.

In 1992, Gifford presided over Michael G. Tyson Case. By the time the rape case of the professional boxer came to trial, Gifford was a fixture on the court and had a reputation for stern but fair decisions. She had helped draft the Indiana statute which prohibited questioning a rape victim about her past, and four times she had sentenced defendants convicted of murder to death. Marion County prosecutor Greg Garrison and criminal defense attorney Jim Voyles, who represented Tyson, praised Gifford for how she kept control over the proceedings, which was complicated by the influx of media from around the country.

Gifford was a strong supporter of the Indianapolis Legal Aid Society, serving on that organization’s board of directors from 1978 to 2003. She was honored by the society with the Lifetime Achievement Award. She also received the Sagamore of the Wabash and the Indianapolis Bar Association’s Silver Gavel Award.  

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