Victims' Rights Amendment Proposal Presented to President Clinton in 1996

64 CASSELL ET AL. [Vol. 104 court proceedings, and ultimately to any parole or other release of the criminal. The Task Force then made a series of recommendations for all criminal justice agencies, including the police, prosecutors, and the courts.'! The recommendations were designed to allow crime victims to receive information about, and to participate in, criminal cases. In its most far-reaching recommendation, the Task Force proposed amending the U.S. Constitution to protect victims’ rights.'7 The proposed amendment would have built on existing constitutional rights for criminal defendants by extending similar rights to crime victims.'* After the publication of the report, crime victims’ advocates secured the passage of a series of state constitutional and legislative reforms. These measures guaranteed victims’ rights in the criminal process, such as the right to be notified of court proceedings, to attend those proceedings, and to speak at appropriate points in the process, such as plea bargaining and sentencing. The measures were embodied in state statutes and, in more than thirty states, state constitutional “bills of rights” for crime victims.'* While many of the measures had narrow participatory rights,'* some of the amendments also contained more open-ended language, promising victims a right to fair treatment “throughout the criminal justice process.”"° After successfully passing many state constitutional amendments, crime victims’ rights advocates sought to achieve the Task Force’s broadest recommendation: to secure protection for victims’ rights in the U.S. Constitution. In 1996, victims’ advocates proposed a Victims’ Rights Amendment in a Rose Garden ceremony attended by President Bill Clinton.'’ The proposed amendment contained a list of rights for crime victims, largely paralleling the nghts contained in state victims’ nights " See id. at 56-82. 12 Td. at 114. 13 Id. at 114-15. '4 For a map depicting the states with (and without) such amendments, see State Victim Rights Amendments, NATL VICTIMS’ CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT PASSAGE, http://goo.gl/znI4YW (last visited Nov. 26, 2013), for discussion, see infra Part IV.D (discussing legislative reforms in a number of states). 15 See, e.g., CAL. Const. art. I, § 28; Micu. Const. art. I, § 24; N.C. Const. art. I, § 37. For a detailed discussion of how one state constitutional amendment is intended to operate, see generally Paul G. Cassell, Balancing the Scales of Justice: The Case for and the Effects of Utah’s Victims’ Rights Amendment, 1994 UTAH L. REv. 1373. 16 Bg. Ariz. Const. art. II, §2.1(A)(1); Mice. Const. art. I, § 24(1); Tex. Const. art. I, § 30(a\(1); see CAL. Const. art. I, § 28(b)(1) (“throughout the criminal or juvenile justice process”). 17 John M. Broder, Clinton Calls for Victims’ Rights in Constitution, L.A. Ties, June 26, 1996, at Al. For detailed discussions of the legislative efforts, see Paul G. Cassell, Recognizing Victims in the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure: Proposed Amendments in Light of the Crime Victims’ Rights Act, 2005 BYU L. REV. 835, 847-50. HOUSE_OVERSIGHT_014043