Re: Who Has the Right to a Fair Trial
Taxing Matters, did I say anything about prohibiting victims from trials in this thread?
If you mean to ask, Are my questions focused on victim rights? Then the answer is obviously Yes.
I have no intention on going back to the other issue which was already discussed and locked up, so I am not sure why you're bringing that up.?
Re: Who Has the Right to a Fair Trial
Quote:
Quoting
LexNonScripta
Taxing Matters, did I say anything about prohibiting victims from trials in this thread?
If you mean to ask, Are my questions focused on victim rights? Then the answer is obviously Yes.
I have no intention on going back to the other issue which was already discussed and locked up, so I am not sure why you're bringing that up.?
Because it is not at all clear what other rights do you think a victim should have in a criminal trial that they do not have. It’s not at all clear what you are getting at in this thread. You’ve been pretty vague so far, which makes it hard to provide any meaningful comment. What specifically do you think victims ought to be given?
Re: Who Has the Right to a Fair Trial
I think they ought to retain the rights they had before they were labeled a victim/witness, unless lawfully taken/altered by due process.
Re: Who Has the Right to a Fair Trial
Quote:
Quoting
LexNonScripta
I think they ought to retain the rights they had before they were labeled a victim/witness, unless lawfully taken/altered by due process.
And what rights are those specifically? There wasn't some universal set of rights they once had, after all, so just saying you want them to have what they once had does not tell me much. For example, you mentioned earlier that at the time of the founding of this country victims themselves could prosecute the defendant. Are you saying they ought to have the right to do that now? If so, why? What other rights do you think they ought to have?
Re: Who Has the Right to a Fair Trial
Taxing Matters, since you linked the other thread on witness exclusion, I would say the rights I am talking about were covered in that... The rights mentioned there were the same rights you presumably have right now.
Like the right to exercise 1st Am freedoms of seeking and sharing information, especially for the purpose of petitioning.
Or the right to protect your other rights and fundamental liberties under the 14th Am.
So maybe "universal" isn't the right word to describe the rights being referred to, but "national" or "inalienable" would be.
The only rights I think victims should have beyond those generally given the public are A) to Victim Impact Statements; B) to notification of proceedings/defendant custody status; and C) to confer with the prosecutor (to not be ignored).
I did not mean to imply that victims should still be able to initiate private criminal prosecutions. I only mentioned that to show that the original constitution could not possibly have anticipated the need for victim-witnesses to have their own rights enumerated. (More accurately, the need for victims to have the procedures which could ultimately lead to the loss of an inalienable right or fundamental Liberty defined. For the most part, rights belonging to the public are the same as the rights that should belong to victims– it is during a due process hearing that a victim could assert interests beyond the public's, which could mitigate what the government can take away from a victim versus some random member of the public.)
I will definitely admit here that my questions are vague and I apologize, because I'm very interested in what others have to say. Victim rights are relatively new (early 1980's), and there is not a wealth of case law available as exists for defendants/other areas. The result is, as someone on this site once said, that I seize upon the seemingly-slightest nuance to secure any ground in the victim rights debate. I totally do that. I thought that was how law and argument evolved.
Before I go on to post other threads, I'd like to know... Are victim rights an unwelcome topic here? I'm trying to avoid repetitive arguments, but the only reason victim rights really came up was because I was asked for context, a reason why it would matter at all who has a right (or interest) in a fair trial. It was a good question, because... what is the tactical purpose of asserting a non-party's interest in a stranger's fair trial? Showing that the victim should be presumed to share the publc's interest in a fair trial, and not the other way around.
Re: Who Has the Right to a Fair Trial
Quote:
Quoting
LexNonScripta
Taxing Matters, since you linked the other thread on witness exclusion, I would say the rights I am talking about were covered in that... The rights mentioned there were the same rights you presumably have right now.
Like the right to exercise 1st Am freedoms of seeking and sharing information, especially for the purpose of petitioning.
Or the right to protect your other rights and fundamental liberties under the 14th Am.
The thing is, I’m at a loss to see where victims are denied the rights that the general public has with the exception of the one issue that was discussed at length before: the ability to watch the trial of the defendant in the circumstance where the victim is also a witness in the trial. Can you give me any actual examples of other circumstances where a victim was denied rights that the general public was afforded? So it doesn’t seem like there is a lot of problems in victims somehow being treated differently than the general public, is there?
Quote:
Quoting
LexNonScripta
The only rights I think victims should have beyond those generally given the public are A) to Victim Impact Statements; B) to notification of proceedings/defendant custody status; and C) to confer with the prosecutor (to not be ignored).
That’s a lot more helpful to discussion as it gets more specific about things. As you know, some states do provide for at least some or all of those things. And to the extent it is useful to you, I support giving victims those rights so that the prosecutor and the court knows of the victim’s feelings about what is going on and so the victim feels included. All the jurisdictions in which I practice do at least those three things and some go a bit farther and there have been few complaints that it significantly interferes with prosecution and no complaints that they somehow impair the rights of the defendant to a fair trial. So to the extent you believe that all states ought to provide the three rights you listed, I have no opposition to that at all.
Quote:
Quoting
LexNonScripta
Before I go on to post other threads, I'd like to know... Are victim rights an unwelcome topic here?
It is not an unwelcome topic. What is frustrating is the approach you have taken of asking vague questions as your method to explore these issues. Let me explain why, using this thread as an example. You asked a vague question at the outset. When people responded, you said that wasn’t what you were looking for and rephrased in a way that was only a little less vague than before and the pattern repeated itself: people responded and you then come back and say that wasn’t what you were trying to get at either. The effect of that for the people responding is to feel like their time has been wasted because the responses provided were simply tossed aside by you as not what you wanted/not helpful. I hope you can understand why that would frustrate people and result in responses that start to seem annoyed. Nobody likes to have to guess at what the post is really about. Nobody likes to feel their time has been wasted. Vagueness is rarely a good thing in communication. Judges don’t like vague arguments in briefs and oral statements anymore than anyone else does, and you do not get the law advanced that way. So to the extent you are trying out approaches you think might work for a court, I’d say you’ve been hitting far from the mark. I’m not trying to be mean here; I’m trying to give you some constructive feedback to help you get more robust response from the issues you raise. I think you’ll find the more specific you can be the more robust the responses will be. Give people something concrete to work with. :D
Re: Who Has the Right to a Fair Trial
Another right of victims is the right to restitution for the harm caused to them by a criminal act.
Re: Who Has the Right to a Fair Trial
Mahalo Taxing Matters for the thorough response. I understand the importance of specificity in posing questions, and I don't want to waste anyone's time. But I don't have the same understanding of law as many of you do, so please know that it's not done to be evasive or abstract.
If possible, I wanted to stage some of my questions without linking them to victim rights to get the most organic answers possible. Constantly writing "victim rights" and "victim-witness" is annoying even for the writer... and it tends to conjure dismissive attitudes, so I attempt (and sometimes fail) to tread lightly.
But in this instance, I think my vague Q did get good answers– the consensus seems to be that Yes, public has legitimate interest in fair trials but no right to assert.... Well wait, if the trial is public and the court tries to close it off without a hearing on the closure issue, a member of the public/media can petition for a hearing... all on the premise that the trial be public, which is by constitutional definition a defendant's right.... But here we have a non-party asserting a fair trial right.? In any case, I am satisfied it's of public interest.
Finally, I cannot give a general or impersonal answer to the Q about "actual examples of other circumstances where a victim was denied rights that the general public was afforded." One reason being, the only real public right in regards to a trial is basically a "right to know," the basis for which is observing that the defendant's right to a fair trial be fulfilled.
Second reason being, I think what I'm experiencing is atypical because of Hawaii's weak laws and a dysfunctional prosecutor's office. All I can say is that the rights and liberties a victim loses (at least here) can generally find their roots in the 1st Am and the subsequent lack of 14th Am protection.
Thank you again for the advice and Yes it is useful to me to know that you support some of these basic rights ☺️
Re: Who Has the Right to a Fair Trial
I think - I'm not sure because of the vagueness but I think - that one of the things you are upset about is the victim being told not to discuss what happened or to discuss the case. Do you understand that this restriction is to protect law enforcement's ability to investigate and the prosecutor's ability to prosecute the case? That the victim or witness or whatever you choose to call him or her, discussing the case could result in memories being affected, accusations of witness tampering, defense attorney's getting statements suppressed, and so on? Is being able to discuss the case openly worth getting the case thrown out?
Re: Who Has the Right to a Fair Trial
I am also going to add that if you are much more specific about your situation...ie
-Here is exactly what is going on.
-Here is what I am unhappy about.
-Here are my questions regarding the law.
When you outline an issue that way, you give the responders context, which makes it much easier to answer questions. I realize that you wanted to get the most "organic" answers possible but we are all volunteers here. Nobody gets paid for their time, and therefore nobody really has the time for "organic" discussions of the law.
I have now gone back and reviewed your other thread, and I am going to summarize my assumptions.
-You have been the victim of a crime.
-You are also a witness to that crime.
-Witnesses have been excluded from the proceedings until after they have testified.
-You are unhappy about that because you want to be there for the entire trial.
Please understand that your two rolls as witness and victim are totally separate. Your roll as a witness is far more significant in the trial than your role as a victim. The integrity of your testimony is critical, as is the testimony of all other witnesses if justice is to be served.