Text extracted via OCR from the original document. May contain errors from the scanning process.
2014] CRIME VICTIMS’ RIGHTS 79
serve as a basis for identifying a “crime victim’ as defined in the CVRA, the
class of victims with statutory rights may well be broader.””'°’
Paletz and Skinner similarly provide scant support for the
Department’s position. In Skinner, a prison inmate attempted to bring a pro
se civil suit against another inmate for allegedly attacking him during
incarceration.'°* In dismissing the suit in an unpublished decision, the
district court recognized that the Government had expressly declined to
bring charges against the other inmate and concluded that the CVRA did
not create a “mechanism to bring an action against Defendant directly.”!”
In Paletz, that same inmate brought a similar pro se claim against another
inmate, the Federal Bureau of Prisons, the FBI, and the U.S. Attorney
General.!'° In a parallel, unpublished decision, the district court dismissed
the suit, noting that the CVRA is designed to give victims certain rights
‘Within the prosecutorial process against a criminal defendant.”!"!
Because Skinner and Paletz involve (apparently frivolous) civil suits,
they say nothing about the CVRA’s reach in criminal cases, and any
language to that effect would be pure dicta. Moreover, the courts’ terse
analysis in both cases does not contain any substantive discussion of
whether CVRA rights apply in criminal cases before the filing of charges.
Instead, the courts simply cited to language from a Second Circuit decision
that stated that the CVRA does not give victims any rights against
defendants until those defendants have been convicted'!’—a holding clearly
limited to restitution, as many other CVRA rights clearly apply before
conviction.''* Reviewing these two cases in an extended, published
opinion, the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas noted that
reading these two decisions as standing for the proposition that charges
must be filed for CVRA rights to attach “appears inconsistent with the
CVRA recognition of certain subsection (a) rights that apply during
investigation, before any charging instrument is filed.”'!* As a result, OLC
°T Td. at 326.
°8 Skinner, 2006 WL 1677177, at *1-2.
Td. at *2.
10 Searcy v. Paletz, No. 6:07-1389-GRA-WMC, 2007 WL 1875802, at *1-2 (D.S.C.
June 27, 2007).
"Td. at *2.
'2 Td. (However, ‘the CVRA does not grant victims any rights against individuals who
have not been convicted of a crime.”” (quoting In re W.R. Huff Asset Mgmt. Co., 409 F.3d
555, 564 (2d Cir. 2005))).
'3 Of course, a defendant cannot be ordered to pay restitution as part of his sentence
until he has been found guilty. See 18 U.S.C. § 3664 (2012) (describing sentencing
procedures for ordering restitution).
14 United States v. BP Prods. N. Am. Inc., No. H-07-434, 2008 WL 501321, at *12 n.7
(S.D. Tex. Feb. 21, 2008).
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