Should Congress
act on a crime victims' rights initiative, the Judicial
Conference strongly urges that it consider
a statutory approach as opposed to a
constitutional amendment, a representative
of the Conference told the House
Judiciary Committee today.
"A statutory
approach would allow all participants in the federal criminal
justice system to gain experience with
the principles involved without taking the
unusual step of amending our nation's
fundamental legal charter, with its concomitant
applications to the various state systems,"
said Chief Judge George P. Kazen
(S.D.Tex.), chair of the Conference's
Committee on Criminal Law. He was
accompanied at today's hearing by Judge
Wm. Terrell Hodges (M.D. Fl.), chair of
the Conference's Executive Committee.
In March 1997,
the Judicial Conference resolved to take no position on the
enactment of a victims' rights constitutional
amendment, although it subsequently
voiced its strong preference for a statutory
approach as opposed to a constitutional
amendment. The Conference also has taken
no formal position on H.R. 1322, the
Victims' Rights Constitutional Amendment
Implementation Act of 1997. In his
testimony, Judge Kazen noted that H.R.
1322, although introduced as an
implementing statute for a constitutional
amendment, could potentially be crafted as
the basis for a statutory approach to
the issue of victims' rights.
While H.J.Res.
71, the proposed constitutional amendment, appears to have
less potential to adversely impact the
federal Judiciary than previous proposed
constitutional amendments, the Conference
does have a number of fundamental
concerns, Judge Kazen said. Among the
most important are the kinds of crimes to
which the amendment will apply, the
remedies for violations of the proposed rights,
the implications that enforcement of
the proposed rights has for our federal system,
the need for exceptions to the proposed
rights necessitated by the considerations of
the administration of justice, speedy
trial rights of victims, and the allocation of
responsibility for providing notice
to victims.
"The members
of the federal Judiciary, like all Americans, share a profound
concern for the victims of crime. Neither
judges nor their loved ones are immune
from the results of criminal activity,"
Judge Kazen said in his testimony. "However,
we believe that the interests of crime
victims are best served by a system which will
provide adequate protection for the
rights of victims while balancing the need to
ensure a fair trial for persons accused
of a crime but who are presumed to be
innocent. That is our goal. It is one
we should share together."
Should Congress
decide to act on a crime victims measure, Judge Kazen
concluded, a statutory approach offers
a number of advantages. "It would more
easily accommodate a measured approach,
and allow for fine tuning if deemed
necessary or desirable by Congress after
the various proposed concepts are
applied in actual cases across the country.
At that point, Congress would have a
much clearer picture of which concepts
are effective, which are not, and which
might actually be counterproductive,"
Judge Kazen told the House Judiciary
Committee.