A victory for victims of crime
Imagine the unimaginable the grief that comes to victims of violent crime and their families when a loved one is murdered or raped. Then try to comprehend the pain they are subjected to as they turn to the criminal justice system for help only to find that it puts the rights and interests of accused criminals above their own.
As a founding member of the Arizona Crime Victim Foundation, I have heard countless, heart-wrenching stories of this nature - they occur every year.
Earlene Eason, for example, lost a 16-year-old son to murder while he visited friends in Minneapolis one summer. Earlene was never notified of the plea bargain offered to her sonÕs murderer, nor was she given an opportunity to attend the proceeding where it was offered - and accepted.
In July 2000, a 79-year-old man in Arizona was beaten to death with a baseball bat while walking his dog. The victimÕs family was never notified of a bail hearing, and the suspect was set free, pending trial.
Such unjust treatment of crime victims has been widely recognized for more than 20 years, and yet victims continue to be largely ignored and marginalized by our court system.
In too many cases, victims are left uninformed about critical proceedings, including bail hearings, plea bargains, and trials. They are denied the ability to speak at key points in the process, and are denied the right to have their safety taken into account before an offender is released.
Last week, the U.S. Senate approved legislation that will begin to balance the rights of crime victims with the rights of defendants. Legislation that I authored with CaliforniaÕs Democratic Senator, Dianne Feinstein, would finally guarantee critical, basic rights to victims, among them:
* the right to be notified of and heard in public proceedings, such as plea, sentencing, reprieve, and pardon hearings;
* the right to be notified of the release or escape of an accused perpetrator.
* the right to participate in adjudicative decisions that take into account victimsÕ safety.
Giving victims the right to be informed, present, and heard in criminal cases - to give them standing to assert these rights - does not seem like too much to ask. Thirty-three states, including Arizona, have passed victimsÕ rights legislation by lopsided popular margins averaging 80 percent. The bill passed in the Senate will extend similar protections to the victims of federal crimes and their families. And it provides incentives to states to be more rigorous in enforcing their laws, since in many states protection of victims has been lax.
The House of Representatives is expected to pass the Kyl-Feinstein bill and send it to President Bush before the end of the year. He supports it, as do a wide range of organizations, including Parents of Murdered Children, Mothers Against Drunk Driving, the National Organization of Victim Assistance, the International Association of Chiefs of Police, and the National TroopersÕ Coalition.
These same groups had strongly backed a federal constitutional amendment to guarantee victimsÕ rights in both state and federal proceedings. Senator Feinstein and I tried for several years, but were unable to win the 67 votes needed to pass a constitutional amendment in the Senate. The statutory alternative we passed will not as certainly protect victimsÕ rights as would federal constitutional provisions. But it will extend those rights to federal court proceedings; and, as I said, it should help states be more effective in enforcing their own provisions. If, after a few years, there continues to be lax enforcement, the constitutional approach can be revisited.
In the meantime, when President Bush signs the bill into law, victims will no longer be relegated to observer status in federal cases against their attackers - those who have deprived them of so much. Victims will be active participants in the pursuit of justice, as they should be. And the federal example should be important to state protection of victims in state court proceedings.
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