[Congressional Record Volume 144, Number 46 (Thursday, April 23, 1998)]
[House]
[Pages H2300-H2301]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                   NATIONAL CRIME VICTIMS RIGHTS WEEK

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Texas (Mr. Brady) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. BRADY. Mr. Speaker, this week is a special time in our country. 
It is designated as National Crime Victims Rights Week. It is an 
opportunity to try to begin to balance the scales of justice that are 
weighted so heavily in favor of the accused and so lightly weighted in 
favor of the victims of violent crime.
  I am proud to be an original cosponsor of a constitutional amendment 
proposed by the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Hyde), Congressman and 
Chairman of the House Committee on the Judiciary, that attempts to 
restore and provide really for the first time in this country solid, 
irreversible rights for victims of violent crime.
  What this constitutional amendment does is that it provides that 
victims have the right to be given notice, to know when there are 
public hearings related to the crime in which they have been 
victimized, to be heard if they are present, and if they are not, to 
submit a written statement at all public proceedings where a sentencing 
occurs or a plea bargain is agreed to or there is a prospect that the 
criminal will be released from custody.
  It provides the right under this constitutional amendment to be 
notified if that convict is released or escapes from custody, and 
because justice needs to be sure and swift, to seek relief as victims 
from these unreasonable delays related to the crime; the right to have

[[Page H2301]]

restitution, because for many of victims of violent crime, especially 
if they lose a spouse or someone who is a source of income and revenue 
for their family, not only do they lose a loved one but they lose the 
financial support, the ability to send their children to college, the 
ability to spend time and have a house in which their children and 
those who survive the victim can live.
  This constitutional amendment ensures that the victim's safety is 
always considered when a parole board or similar organization is 
looking at releasing a criminal in custody at whatever level. Finally, 
because rights mean nothing if we do not know of them, in this 
constitutional amendment we ensure that victims are notified of these 
rights early in the process.
  As obvious as these rights are, the fact of the matter is, today in 
America very few enjoy them. With the exception of some enlightened 
States and some individual communities, for the most part the victims 
have no rights in these proceedings, are ignored in the process, are 
left behind, bewildered at a time in their life when they are stunned 
by what is occurring to them.
  Our family has had some experience in this matter. When I was 12, my 
father was murdered in a South Dakota courtroom. While I was young at 
the time, and we do not remember everything as distinctly, I recall our 
family going through the trial, through the conviction, through the 
sentencing. And like a lot of families, we were before the parole board 
trying to keep dad's killer behind bars.
  We have been through it. The fact of the matter is that no one ever 
expects it to happen to them. They are sure it only occurs in someone 
else's neighborhood, someone else's family, in someone else's 
community. But the fact of the matter is, in this America there are two 
classes of Americans: those who have been touched by violent crime and 
those who someday will be.
  This constitutional amendment is designed to protect those who have 
not yet been victimized by a crime, to make sure that at a time in 
their life that they never thought that they would be involved in, when 
justice seems so distant and remote, that they get the one thing in 
life that they most need at that time, which is justice.

                              {time}  2000

  Last year, I think in the year before, many of us watched the O.J. 
Simpson trial. We watched and read about the victims of the Oklahoma 
City bombing, and we had to pass a Federal law to ensure that the 
victims of Oklahoma City bombing could be present in the courtroom when 
that trial occurred. In most States all that a shrewd defense attorney 
has to do is identify the family or the victim's family as a possible 
witness in a courtroom case and excludes them, leaving the courtroom 
where the accused has a family behind them and full of supporters and 
where the victim is basically abandoned and empty. It is time that 
jurors see the victims of these crimes so that as they weigh the 
evidence, as they weigh the sentence, they understand that these are 
real people whose lives they affect.
  I support this constitutional amendment and urge my colleagues to do 
so as well.

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