Victims' Rights Amendment Efforts and Legislative History

Page 4 of 31 104 J. Crim. L. & Criminology 59, *64 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. !* 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 15 crime victims. '4 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. !7 The proposed amendment contained a list of rights for crime victims, largely paralleling the rights contained in state victims' rights [*65] amendments. '® Congress considered the amendment several times, but it never obtained the requisite two-thirds support in both houses to secure the Amendment's approval. |° Critics quarreled not so much with the goals of the amendment but rather with the necessity of constitutionalizing such rights. 7° B. THE CRIME VICTIMS! RIGHTS ACT Unable to obtain the necessary supermajority to pass a federal constitutional amendment, in April 2004, crime victims’ rights advocates decided to focus on federal legislation protecting crime victims. In exchange for backing off from their efforts to pass a constitutional amendment, crime victims' advocates received near-universal congressional support for a "broad and 'l See id. at 56-82. 2 Td. at 114. 3 Td. at 114-15. 4 For a map depicting the states with (and without) such amendments, see State Victim Rights Amendments, Nat'l Victims' Constitutional Amendment Passage, http://goo.gl/znI4YW (last visited Nov. 26, 2013); for discussion, see infra Part [V.D (discussing legislative reforms in a number of states). 5 See, e.g., Cal. Const. art. I, § 28; Mich. 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 E.g., Ariz. Const. art. IL, § 2.1(A)(1); Mich. 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"). '7 John M. Broder, Clinton Calls for Victims' Rights in Constitution, L.A. Times, 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. 18 See Cassell, supra note 17, at 848-49. For the pros and cons of the amendment as originally introduced, compare Paul G. Cassell, Barbarians at the Gates? A Reply to the Critics of the Victims' Rights Amendment, 1999 Utah L. Rev. 479 [hereinafter Cassell, Barbarians at the Gates?], and Steven J. Twist, The Crime Victims' Rights Amendment and Two Good and Perfect Things, /999 Utah L. Rev. 369, with Robert P. Mosteller, The Unnecessary Victims' Rights Amendment, 1999 Utah L. Rev. 443. For a more recent discussion of a newer version of the amendment, see Paul G. Cassell, The Victims' Rights Amendment: A Sympathetic, Clause-by-Clause Analysis, 5 Phoenix L. Rev. 301] (2012). DAVID SCHOEN HOUSE_OVERSIGHT_017607