The Twentieth Anniversary of the Crime Victims' Rights Act

In 2004, the United States Congress passed, and the President signed into law, the Scott Campbell, Stephanie Roper, Wendy Preston, Louarna Gillis, and Nila Lynn Crime Victims’ Rights Act (the “CVRA”), codified at 18 U.S.C. § 3771—effective October 30, 2004.  Today, twenty years later, it is interesting to read Senator Kyl’s law review article about the CVRA, written shortly after the Act went into effect.  Along with Steven Twist and Stephen Higgins, Senator Kyl described the law as part of a “civil rights movement” designed to reform criminal justice culture:

The CVRA is the latest enactment in a forty-year civil rights movement. The victims’ rights movement seeks to end the unjust treatment of crime victims by reforming the culture of the criminal justice system in the federal government and the states. Before the victims’ movement gained momentum in the 1970s and 1980s, this country’s criminal justice system had come to treat all crimes as acts committed only against the community, and consequently gave the direct victims of crime little, if any, recognition. Believing that crimes are committed against individuals just as much as they are against the community, the crime victims’ rights movement has sought to guarantee rights to crime victims through the state and federal legislative process. The movement has secured federal and state statutory reforms and even state constitutional amendments to ensure that innocent victims of crime are respected by the justice system. These efforts have had only mixed success in securing enforceable rights for crime victims.

Sen. Jon Kyl et al., On the Wings of Their Angels: The Scott Campbell, Stephanie Roper, Wendy Preston, Louarna Gillis, and Nila Lynn Crime Victims’ Rights Act,  9 Lewis & Clark L. Rev. 581 (2005).

Senator Kyl went on to ask: “Whether the CVRA has the power to change the legal culture in the United States will soon be known as the case law develops. A watchful Congress, indeed a watchful nation, will monitor the law as it unfolds.”

Now, twenty years later, has the legal culture changed? As somone who has litigated CVRA cases all over the country, I believe in the federal system the legal culture has changed for the better. While problems still exist, crime victims are now able to assert rights in federal cases—and have asserted rights frequently.  For example, shortly after the Act’s passage, in 2006, the Ninth Circuit observed that the CVRA sought to make crime victims “independent participants in the criminal justice process.” Kenna v. U.S. District Court, 435 F.3d 1011(9th Cir. 2006). And in that case, the Ninth Circuit ordered a re-sentencing to allow a victim to make a victim impact statement at sentencing.

My recent efforts in the U.S. v. Boeing case illustrate how victims of federal crimes can use the CVRA, as I’ve blogged about earlier. While the final chapter in the Boeing case has yet to be written, it is notable that the victims’ families have been able to file motions in that criminal case–successfully challenging the Justice Department’s position that only the FAA was the “victim” of Boeing’s false statements and gaining a ruling from the Fifth Circuit that their rights must enforced throughout the process.

Earlier today, the National Crime Victim Law Institute held a virtual symposium on the CVRA and its legacy.  The symposium will be posted shortly on NCVLI’s website here. I was one of the participants.

The panelists were all asked what is the biggest challenge for victims’ rights today. And we all answered that legal services for crime victims’ remains the top goal for protecting victims’ rights going forward. Hopefully access to crime victims’ legal services will expand in the future, making crime victims’ rights under the CVRA available to more victims in more cases as time marches on.

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