Victims Rights Constitutional Amendment Proposal

Working with victims of domestic violence can be an extremely rewarding and fulfilling endeavor. One of the most crucial aspects for a paralegal working with victim of domestic violence is adequately engaging in the task of educating oneself to understand the commonalities of such victims and the ordeals that they have been through. Such clients are drastically different from other individuals who have suffered other physical and violent crimes. Understanding the background of someone who has lived through domestic violence is absolutely central to being able to provide adequate and sensitive legal care. Most victims of domestic violence are women (95%) though domestic violence can have an impact on ever age, class, race, ethnic, cultural or religious group (purplerainfoundation, 2012). "In the United States, nearly one in three adult women experience at least one physical assault by a partner during adulthood (American Psychological Association, Presidential Task Force on Violence and the Family 1996 Report)" (purplerainfoundation, 2012). These women are often terrified of their partner's temper, apologize when they are abused and often in the most extremely controlling and isolated environment where the abusive partner will control who the partner sees and where the partner goes outside of the home, jealous of outside relationships (purplerainfoundation, 2012). In these abusive relationships the women are hit,

To discuss the role of the battered women’s syndrome in relation to how characteristics of a victim affect legal decision-making it is important to define what battered women’s syndrome is. Battered women’s syndrome is the array of physical and

A crime against the state is seen as a violation of the rule of law, while crime against people is seen as a violation of human rights, and both conditions lead to the punishment of the offender befitting the crime. In this process of achieving justice, those highly impacted by these wrong actions are often ignored; the battle between the offender and the Crown often makes the victim, a mere spectator. The Canadian Criminal Justice System is continuing to do its best in addressing the dissatisfaction victims feel towards the authorities. However, study of literature shows that although victim rights have come a long way and are continuing to develop further, they are not successful in addressing the concerns of the victim. The article, “Crime

The victim impact statements is voluntary; thus it is hard to debate the cons of this option given by the courts to those victimized. If agreed upon it is their opportunity to convey the ramification of the crime. They may elaborate on the effect of the crime; which can include the impact of physical, emotional or financial harm.

Domestic violence calls to the police became popular in the 1970’s and 1980’s. History indicates that these calls were considered “family matters” that should be handled by its family. Following the landmark case of “Thurman vs. The city of Torrington”, that garnered a severe financial penalty for the police for failure to respond, changes occurred. In this case, Tracy Thurman was awarded $2.3 million when she sued the city of Torrington, CT police department for their failure to arrest her abusive husband.

Throughout every state and county across the United States there are various means for offering assistance to victims of crime. Each municipality has its own victim advocacy program. For smaller areas such as rural counties they use the next organizational level up as their victim advocates. For the purpose of this paper I sat down with Ms. Mari Dennis of the Colorado Springs Police Department (CSPD). Ms. Dennis is employed as the Victim Advocacy Unit Coordinator and is embedded within the Investigations division of the department. CSPD employs four staff victim advocates and around 35 volunteer advocates.

Of the 121 participants, three primary areas were measured, whether or not the participant found the defendant guilty or not, to what degree the participant found the defendant guilty on a 1 to 7 scale, and the severity of punishment the participant thought the defendant should receive with 5 choices. This was done by the use of four different surveys, a black discredited witness, a white discredited witness, a black witness, and a white witness. Descriptives were done on guilt rating (M = 4.55, SD = 1.539) and punishment rating (M = 2.43, SD = 1.255). Then the descriptives were broken down even more into four categories for each dependent variable in regards to the independent variables, credible witness guilt rating (M = 4.88) and

The Victims Rights Movement started in 1973 in the United States supreme court decision in the case of Linda R.S v. Richard D.. The Linda R.S. began as a claim for unpaid child support by a mother, witch was born out of wedlock.The case became a question of whether prosecutorial authority could be challenged by a person who “is neither prosecuted nor threatened with prosecution.” The mother could not show a nexus

Honor implies a high public esteem of a person The Arizona State Constitution’s Victim’s bill of rights is an open access document. An Officer of the Court who has taken an oath has committed to the social and public value ascribed to crime victims. The Officer has duties and opportunities to display honorable behavior.

Amicus argues that the use of victim impact statements in the Petitioner’s sentencing phase is a violation of the Eighth Amendment. Victim impact statements are inappropriate for sentencing consideration in a capital case. The introduction of irrelevant factors to blameworthiness in the present case may distract the jury, as it provides no purpose than to inflame the jury, which should be focusing on evidence related to the crime and the victim. In addition Oklahoma’s laws regarding victim impact statements is inconsistent with the Court’s holdings in Booth and Payne.

The 2004 Crime Victim’s Rights Act covers the same area but in a different way. The act provided rights in the areas of the federal constitution amendment to the victims. The act also examined state compensation programs across the 50 states and provided recommendations for improving the programs (Quinn and Brightman, 2015, p. 208).

Ford and Regoli (1993) had been the first case concerned with the negative effect mandatory prosecution policies could have on a victims’ empowerment and the reoccurrence of violence in the future. Among the cases entering the court via victim-initiated complaints, Ford and Regoli (1993) found that women who

Within the past couples of decades much scrutiny has been the topic of domestic violence. The role of police discretion has been emphasized by researchers and the effects that arrest have on recidivism rates. Arrest rates are high and prosecution rates are low due to the arrest policies that have been put into place. An uncooperative witness can result in low rates of prosecution due to a victim deciding not to go through with pressing charges against the offender. When it comes down to domestic violence cases they mainly rely on the victim’s testimony. Prosecutors are forced to dismiss charges against the offender if the victim does not cooperate. The sole purpose of

The effects of crime on victim can have a mixed feeling about making a victim impact statement. They may want to tell the judge or parole hearing officer how the crime affected their life and yet they may be anxious because you don't know how to prepare an impact statement or you don't want to bring back bad memories by describing how the crime has hurt you. The victim impact statements may include descriptions of:

The study of victimology dates back to the early 1940’s. Marvin Wolfgang was one of the first victimologists. To fully understand victimology is to understand what a victim is. A victim is a person that has suffered physical or emotional harm