Victims’ Rights and Vengeance Personal Reflection

Victims’ Rights and Vengeance Personal Reflection

Calvin Young

CJA 324

March 29, 2016

Julia Clark-Hayes

Victims’ Rights and Vengeance Personal Reflection

The nature of the rights of the victim and vengeance share some common space. While the victim’s rights are what protect the victim within the legal system, vengeance is seeking the extreme of some of those rights outside of the legal system. This paper is a personal reflection on the current state of victim’s rights in the United States of America, and on vengeance by the victims of crime. I will first reflect on victim’s rights, and examine whether the Crime Victim’s Rights Act was successful in its mission. Secondly, I will be discussing if vengeance is every justified, and why. Afterward, I will be reviewing the actions taken by the Survivor’s Network of those Abused by Priests as detailed in Mark Sargent’s article Vengeance Time (2007).

Victim’s Rights

The current state of victim’s right in America is disturbing. While statute and constitutional amendments grant victims certain rights during court proceedings, these right have been found to lack most, if not all, standing when in opposition to the right of the defendant, the strategy and will of the prosecutor, the opinion of the judge and in some cases the time schedule of the court (Boland & Butler, 2009). While many crimes also victimize society, the legal system places the entire right of justice with the government and society, rather than the direct victim. In the event of intensely personal and violent crimes, such as abuse, rape, murder, robbery, and assault, the courts continue to assume that the government and society are the greater victims, or rather the greater seekers of justice, than the victims themselves. Victims’ rights should be written and enforced as strongly as the rights of the accused. The victim’s right to be heard at trial should be as solid as the accused’s right to a fair trial, and to participate in their defense.

Crime Victim’s Rights Act

    I do not believe that the Crime Victims’ Rights Act has been at all successful. I believe that the actions of the courts have shown that, when the victim’s stated rights interfere with how the court believes the proceedings should be, the victim’s rights are only given that barest of recognition, sometimes only a brief mention of respecting them, before completely ignoring any of the victim’s rights (Boland & Butler, 2009). For the Crime Victims’ Rights Act to be effective, it must be established to have the equal force and position as the rights of the accused and the interests of the prosecution. While many see that victim’s involvement in court proceedings as unfair to the accused, the victim should not be dehumanized behind the prosecution, left to the mercy of the government, when seeking justice for the wrongs committed against them, and restitution to be made whole.