'STRONG-WILLED' PROSECUTOR UNMOVED BY SPOTLIGHT

Critics say she's being too hard on the man who escaped from jail sentence
24 years ago 'Strong-willed' prosecutor unmoved by spotlight

Joan Ziglar is the first black and the first woman commonwealth's attorney
in Martinsville.

MARTINSVILLE -- When Alfred Martin walked away from his 10-year jail
sentence for selling marijuana in 1974, Commonwealth's Attorney Joan Ziglar
was an eighth-grader at Drewry Mason High School in Henry County.

Twenty-four years after Martin left his inmate work crew, he returned to
Martinsville earlier this week to face Ziglar on escape charges. Martin,
now a businessman and the father of three, unsuccessfully fought
extradition from Michigan.

The case has pushed a reticent Ziglar before countless reporters and camera
crews.

"I can't get a lot of work done because I'm always on the phone," she said.

Ziglar called a news conference Wednesday, hoping to calm the frenzy. But
she was forced to cancel an out-of-town trip anyway because of what seems
like an insatiable hunger for news on the Martin case.

The Henry County native is taking heat from critics who say she's being too
hard on a man who's led an exemplary life for more than two decades. It's
the 38-year-old's first high-profile case, and she insists that she won't
treat it differently from any other.

"You don't know me, so you don't know how strong-willed I am," she said
last week. "The amount of press this is getting doesn't change anything. We
won't make any special exceptions for Mr. Martin."

Ziglar said she refuses to send a message to Martinsville's inmates and
criminals that they can get away without receiving punishment for their
crimes.

The first black and the first woman commonwealth's attorney in
Martinsville, Ziglar defeated longtime prosecutor J. Randolph Smith last
year by 792 votes.

Smith, who was prosecutor for 17 years, said he agrees with the way Ziglar
is handling the Martin case.

"I think she's doing the right thing by bringing this guy back," he said.
"I would do exactly what she's done. Her policy is to bring back any wanted
fugitive from Martinsville. That certainly was my policy as commonwealth's
attorney."

Like Martin, Ziglar has come a long way since 1974.

Ziglar's mother raised 10 daughters and a son on her struggling Henry
County tobacco farm. It was a life guided by strong women who were focused
on their faith, their family's survival and the education of their children.

Their father left when Ziglar was only 6, and her mother worked three jobs
to support the family.

"We raised everything that we ate," Ziglar said. "The older ones took care
of the younger ones. My mom provided for me. I had food, and I had clothes.
I didn't know we were poor until someone told me."

Coincidentally, one of Ziglar's first jobs as an attorney was prosecuting
deadbeat parents in Martinsville's Division of Child Support Enforcement.
But, she said, she never felt like she was on a personal crusade.

"You don't miss what you never had," she said of her father, who lives in
North Carolina. Her mother died 13 years ago.

Simone Redd, vice president and chief financial officer of Martinsville's
Imperial Savings and Loan, has been friends with Ziglar since they met in
the seventh grade.

The two women decided to make their homes in Martinsville for similar
reasons, Redd said.

"Her family's here. And we both feel this is a good community. The best way
to make a community better is to stay here," she said.

Several of Ziglar's siblings live in the area.

Redd said she has watched her friend set and meet countless goals in her
professional life. And being a prosecutor seems a natural extension of many
of Ziglar's personal goals.

"She's always wanted to help people. She works with kids and tells them
what the laws are and that they need to obey them," Redd said.

Ziglar, who is single, said her church is a central part of her life. She's
been a member of Mayo Missionary Baptist Church for 22 years.

For Ziglar, being the first black prosecutor isn't an unfamiliar feeling.
She has often been the only black person in a crowd of whites. Most of the
time, she didn't feel like it held her back.

She was a third-grader at Ridgeway Elementary School when public schools
were integrated, but many of her friends and neighbors were white so it
wasn't a difficult transition.

"I'm not saying that I haven't been discriminated against. I have -- both
because I'm black and because I'm a woman," she said.

She remembers coming upon a Ku Klux Klan cross burning on Ferrum College's
campus when she was a 19-year-old student there. It was 2 a.m. and she was
alone, walking to her dorm from the library.

"I remember thinking, 'Is that a bonfire?' And then as I got closer, I
could see the shape of a cross. My first response was to panic. My second
was to pray," she said.

Hooded Klansman chanted, "N----- beware!" as Ziglar quickly passed in
terror. Their gathering was apparently prompted by an interracial
relationship.

"I remember crying and calling my mom. Her response was, 'Where are you?
Lock the door and stay away from the window and you'll be safe.'"

Ziglar graduated as valedictorian from Ferrum in 1982 and then went to work
in the same building she works in now in the city's Housing Rehabilitation
Department.

Soon after that, she enrolled in the graduate public administration program
at Virginia Commonwealth University. She received her master's degree in 1985.

She went on to law school at the College of William and Mary and received
her law degree in 1992. Ziglar was a law clerk in the Roanoke U.S.
Attorney's office in 1991 and then became an associate attorney for the law
firm of Williams, Luck & Williams in 1993.

>From late 1993 to 1996, Ziglar was an assistant public defender for
Martinsville and Henry County defendants.

"I've seen things from all sides," said Ziglar, who also served a two-year
stint as a probation and parole officer.

Now, prosecuting people who have been charged with buying and selling drugs
is a large part of Ziglar's job.

It was a bit more unusual in 1974 when Martin was first convicted and
Ziglar was starting high school.

"If any of my friends ever said they smoked marijuana, I would have passed
out," she said. "There was one person in our school who did drugs, and he
was scorned."

In office for less than a year, Ziglar is pleased that she has a reputation
as being a bit on the hardboiled side.

"Defendants frequently send messages through the bailiffs to me that say,
'Please tell me Joan Ziglar isn't the one trying this,'" she said.

Del. Ward Armstrong, D-Henry County, said he can describe Ziglar's style in
one word.

Tough.

Armstrong, who practices law in Martinsville, said he's called Ziglar "the
dragon lady" on more than one occasion. But he's sure she considers it a
compliment.

"The first case I had with her, I had to take a
failure-to-yield-right-of-way case to jury," Armstrong said. "I tried to
work something out with her, but she wouldn't hear anything about it.

"She's very tight with plea agreements. I don't know if I've ever entered a
plea agreement with her."

Armstrong said he won that first case, but "Joan fought it like it was
armed robbery or murder."

Ziglar is seen by most attorneys as fair, Armstrong said.

"I don't think she goes out of her way to step on people," he said.

Ziglar's presence will go a long way toward changing a perception that
lawyers are part of a "good ol' boy" network, Armstrong said.

"Let's hope that [her election] is a testament that the public is putting
qualifications above gender and race," he said.

C.S.

Checked-by: Mike Gogulski