Re: [rant] Re: Any info on the "Victim's Rights" Constitutional amendment?

[Toto <toto@sk.sympatico.ca>]

Greg Broiles, whose rants seem to be more informative and
entertaining than his legal opinions, and who could be the
Johnny Cochrane of the McVeigh trial, wrote:
 
> At 09:22 PM 4/17/97 -0700, Alan Olsen wrote:
> >Yesterday i saw a report on one of the news websites about Clinton pushing
> >for some sort of Victim's Rights Constitutional amendment.
> >
> >Does anyone have any additional details on this?
> 
> Sens. Feinstein and Kyl are co-sponsoring this amendment. To become part of
> the Constitution, it must be approved by a 2/3 majority in both the House and
> the Senate, then be ratified by 38 state legislatures. According to Kyl's web
> page, this is the text of the proposed amendment:
> 
> Section 1. To ensure that the victim is treated with fairness, dignity, and
> respect, from the occurrence of a crime of violence and other crimes as may
> be defined by law pursuant to section two of this article, and throughout the
> criminal, military, and juvenile justice processes, as a matter of
> fundamental rights to liberty, justice, and due process, the victim shall
> have the following rights: to be informed of and given the opportunity to be
> present at every proceeding in which those rights are extended to the accused
> or convicted offender; to be heard at any proceeding involving sentencing,
> including the right to object to a previously negotiated plea, or a release
> from custody; to be informed of any release or escape; and to a speedy trial,
> a final conclusion free from unreasonable delay, full restitution from the
> convicted offender, reasonable measures to protect the victim from violence
> or intimidation by the accused or convicted offender, and notice of the
> victim's rights.

  We've already got this in Canada. Now the focus has shifted even 
further against the accused, with great outcry about the fact that
the accused are causing great emotional grief to the victims and
their families by being so bold as to try to defend themselves 
from the often irrational assaults on the accused and/or convicted.
  There is talk of further legislation which would effectively make
all perceived victims angelic creatures and all perceived criminals
violent, drug-dealing, commie-pinko perverts with no right to defend
themselves. (And this is just on the jaywalking charges. Any more
serious offences will increase the imbalance of judical powers to
suppress the defence.)


> (The rights of defendants
> pretrial aren't what you'd expect if you've been to a public high school and
> have heard the nice stories about "innocent until proven guilty".  Accused
> persons in criminal cases face serious restrictions on their liberty before
> they're even formally charged; these changes are not new.
> 
> The amendment will also likely result in less accurate trials and less
> preparation on the part of defense counsel, because it gives the "victim" a
> right to a speedy trial. This is bad for defendants, because it denies them
> meaningful due process, and it's bad for victims who want "closure" because
> it's likely to result in retrials when the due process was so crappy that the
> trial didn't meet even the relatively lax standards of the Rehnquist court.
> But, hey, it sounds good on TV.

  It shouldn't be long before "True Stories of the Highway Patrol" is 
immediately followed by C-Span legislative sessions enacting new 
legislation to deal with the perpetrators just apprehended, with 
"Night Court" immediately following, wherein the defendants are
judged and sentenced.
 
> We (as a society) need to decide if we want criminal trials to be about
> trying to decide (beyond a reasonable doubt) whether or not someone's guilty
> of a crime, or if we want them to be satisfying emotional soap-opera-style
> theatrical pieces. This victims' rights crap (and the recent legislation
> passed, *specifically intended to overrule the decisions of the judge
> presiding over the Oklahoma City bombing trial*, as well as recent changes to
> the California Evidence Code making it easier to admit evidence about prior
> bad acts by defendants and otherwise inadmissible hearsay by "victims") does
> a good job of moving us closer to the latter, but if that's what we want I
> don't see why we don't just abandon trials entirely and simply torture people
> who look like they're probably criminals until they die or confess. (and then
> we kill them; after all, they confessed.)

  You mean like they do in Texas?

> I think it's very, very bad to get so excited about punishing someone in an
> emotionally or symbolically attractive fashion that we screw up trials, which
> are intended to ensure that innocent people don't get punished. If we make it
> difficult or impossible to get a fair trial, the only thing standing between
> any of us and prison (or worse) is dumb luck and our ability/willingness to
> remain in the good graces of the current powers that be.

  A good point, but your putting it in a future tense indicates that
you don't get out enough. (Which is not a criticism, since I'm staying
in a lot more, myself, these days. I'm afraid of getting shot by a
cop while running from a criminal, or vice-versa.)

-- 
Toto
"The Xenix Chainsaw Massacre"
http://bureau42.base.org/public/xenix/xenbody.html