NCJ Number
195126
Journal
Notre Dame Law Review Volume: 77 Issue: 1 Dated: November 2001 Pages: 39-86
Date Published
2001
Length
48 pages
Annotation
This article argues for the ability of victims of nonviolent crimes to make an in-court impact statement.
Abstract
Since 1994, victims of violent crime and sexual abuse have given in-court impact testimony as part of the sentencing process for a guilty verdict. Federal courts should also be required to entertain victim impact testimony in cases involving economic crimes such as mail fraud, wire fraud, securities fraud, telemarketing fraud, and identity theft. Victims of other Federal felonies, to the extent they can be identified as victims, should also be entitled to victim allocution. Experience in economic crime cases demonstrates that victims of these types of crimes often feel just as violated, anxious, confused, betrayed, and depressed as do victims of violent crimes. The purpose of this proposal is to permit the victim to regain a sense of dignity and respect; require defendants to confront--in person--the human consequences of their illegal conduct; and compel courts to fully account in the sentencing process for the serious societal harms that economic crimes impose. Neither the quality of a victim’s suffering nor the actions of the offender bears any relationship as to whether the crime committed was violent or nonviolent. Written victim impact evidence is not as useful as spoken, narrative victim impact evidence and judges can benefit from the presence of victims in the courtroom. Among the arguments against victim allocution is that it will consume judicial and prosecutorial resources, will tend to reward the witness’s feelings of victimhood, and may result in disparate sanctioning outcomes depending on the articulateness of the testifying victims. It is time to move beyond the initial stages of victim empowerment and include nonviolent crime victims. 232 footnotes