66 CASSELL ET AL. [Vol. 104
system.” It extended broad rights to crime victims, including “[t]he right to be treated with faimess and with respect for the victim’s dignity and privacy”” and “[t]he reasonable right to confer with the attorney for the Government in the case.”*° It also commanded that these rights must be afforded by the Justice Department “and other departments and agencies of the United States engaged in the detection, investigation, or prosecution of crime.”?’. The CVRA also contained specific enforcement mechanisms. The Act provided that rights can be “assert[ed]” by “[t]he crime victim or the crime victim’s lawful representative, and the attommey for the Government ... .””® The courts were also required under the Act to “ensure that the crime victim is afforded the rights” given by the law.”
Congress appeared to have at least two goals in mind in passing the CVRA. The first was simply to ensure that crime victims understood what was happening in the criminal justice process. This goal is apparent from the fact that the CVRA gives crime victims rights to notification about various court hearings, as well as more general nghts to confer with prosecutors and to be treated with fairness.*° The CVRA’s Senate sponsors explained:
In case after case we found victims, and their families, were ignored, cast aside, and treated as non-participants in a critical event in their lives. They were kept in the dark by prosecutors to[o] busy to care enough, by judges focused on [defendants’] rights, and by a court system that simply did not have a place for them.*!
In passing the CVRA, Congress sought to change the system’s obliviousness to crime victims that often “left crime victims and their families victimized yet again.”*
A second overarching purpose of the CVRA was to allow crime victims to play a role in the criminal justice process. Through the CVRA, Congress intended to make victims “independent participant[s]” in the criminal justice process.** The CVRA extends to crime victims a series of “rights” in the criminal justice process—rights that the victims have
*4 150 Conc. REC. 7297; see 18 U.S.C. § 3771 (2012). For a description of victim participation, see BELOOF, CASSELL & TWIST, supra note 6, at 728-33.
°5 18 US.C. § 3771 (a)(8).
°6 Td. § 3771(a)(5).
7 Td. § 3771 (c)(1).
8 Td. § 3771 (d\(1).
°° Td. § 3771 (b)(1).
30 See id. § 3771 (a).
31 150 Cone. REC. 7296 (2004) (statement of Sen. Dianne Feinstein).
32 Td.
33 Td. at 7302 (statement of Sen. Jon Kyl).
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