State of Ohio video interview with David Voth

With nearly 1,000 attendees on hand, Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost  presented three statewide awards during the second day of the 2023 Two Days in May Conference on Victim Assistance, held at the Greater Columbus Convention Center on May 9.

During his opening remarks, AG Yost talked about the underlying message of this year’s conference theme, “Empowering Survivors to Rebuild Lives.”

“This might be the most special thing that each of you do – helping victims to believe that there’s life after tragedy, that there can be recovery after devastation,” Yost told the victim advocates and others who attended. “Because everything depends ultimately on that victim’s will to survive what has happened to them, to become a survivor.”

David L. Voth of Bluffton, the former executive director of Crime Victim Services received the Robert Denton Special Achievement Award.

From 1985 until his retirement in 2022, Voth led Crime Victim Services, an independent nonprofit agency in Allen and Putnam counties dedicated to protecting the rights of crime victims, advocating for abused and neglected children and vulnerable adults, and prioritizing accessible services.

Voth’s 37 years of leadership helped to define best practices in the field and to effect important changes in state law. In 2010, he published the manual “Quality Victim Advocacy: A Field Guide,” which was initially intended for his staff only but has since become a recognized standard in the profession.

Voth also was instrumental in the passage in 2017 of Marsy’s Law. Long before he testified before the Ohio legislature in the run-up to the vote on the legislation establishing Marsy’s Law, he was recognized as a leading advocate of victims’ rights to be informed, present and heard during court proceedings.

Voth was also – unknowingly at the time – an originator of the Two Days in May Conference when he pitched the idea of a two-day gathering at the Attorney General’s Office in the early 1990s. The office, which at that time was offering grant funds to providers of victim services, decided to turn Voth’s idea into the conference, which has since been presented annually for more than three decades.