    [Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: William J. Clinton (1996, Book I)]
    [June 25, 1996]
    [Pages 976-978]
    [From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]

    Remarks Announcing Support for a Constitutional Amendment on
    Victims' Rights
    June 25, 1996

        Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and let me thank you all for
    being here. Thank you, Senator Kyl and Senator Feinstein, for your
    ground-breaking work here. Thank you, Senator Exon; my longtime friend
    Senator Heflin. Thank you, Congressman Frost, Congressman Stupak,
    Congressman Orton.
        I thank all the representatives here of the victims community, the
    law enforcement community. I thank the Attorney General and John Schmidt
    and Aileen Adams and Bonnie Campbell for doing such a fine job at the
    Justice Department on all criminal justice issues. I thank the Vice
    President and, especially, I want to thank Roberta Roper and the other
    members of the National Movement for Victims' Advocacy. Mr. Roper, thank
    you for coming. Thank you, John and Pat Byron; thank you, Marc Klaas;
    and thank you, Pam McClain. And especially, John Walsh, thank you for
    spending all of these years to bring these issues to America's
    attention. Thank you, sir.
        I'd also like to say a special word of thanks to the person who did
    more than any other person in the United States to talk me through all
    the legal and practical matters that have to be resolved in order for
    the President to advocate amending our Constitution: former prosecutor
    and a former colleague of mine, Governor Bob Miller of Nevada. Thank
    you, sir, for your work here.
        For years, we have worked to make our criminal justice system more
    effective, more fair, more even-handed, more vigilant in the protection
    of the innocent. Today, the system bends over backwards to protect those
    who may be innocent, and that is as it should be. But it too often
    ignores the millions and millions of people who are completely innocent
    because they're victims, and that is wrong. That is what we are trying
    to correct today.
        When someone is a victim, he or she should be at the center of the
    criminal justice process, not on the outside looking in. Participation
    in all forms of government is the essence of democracy. Victims should
    be guaranteed the right to participate in proceedings related to crimes
    committed against them. People accused of crimes have explicit
    constitutional rights. Ordinary citizens have a constitutional right to
    participate in criminal trials by serving on a jury. The press has a
    constitutional right to attend trials. All of this is as it should be.
    It is only the victims of crime who have no constitutional

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    right to participate, and that is not the way it should be.
        Having carefully studied all the alternatives, I am now convinced
    that the only way to fully safeguard the rights of victims in America is
    to amend our Constitution and guarantee these basic rights: to be told
    about public court proceedings and to attend them; to make a statement
    to the court about bail, about sentencing, about accepting a plea if the
    victim is present; to be told about parole hearings to attend and to
    speak; notice when the defendant or convict escapes or is released;
    restitution from the defendant; reasonable protection from the
    defendant; and notice of these rights.
        If you have ever been a victim of a violent crime--it probably
    wouldn't even occur to you that these rights could be denied if you've
    never been a victim. But actually, it happens time and time again. It
    happens in spite of the fact that the victims' rights movement in
    America has been an active force for about 20 years now.
        The wife of a murdered State trooper in Maryland is left crying
    outside the courtroom for the entire trial of her husband's killers,
    because the defense subpoenaed her as a witness just to keep her out and
    never even called her. A rape victim in Florida isn't notified when her
    rapist is released on parole. He finds her and kills her.
        Last year in New Jersey, 8-year-old Jakiyah McClain was sexually
    assaulted and brutally murdered. She had gone to visit a friend and
    never came home. Police found her in the closet of an abandoned
    apartment; now, her mother wants to use a New Jersey law that gives the
    murder victims' survivors the right to address a jury deciding on the
    death penalty. She wants the jury to know more about this fine young
    girl than the crime scene reports. She wants them to know that Jakiyah
    was accepted into a school for gifted children the day before she died.
    But a New Jersey judge decided she can't testify even though the State
    law gave her the right to do so. He ruled that the defendant's
    constitutional right to a fair trial required him to strike the law
    down.
        Well, Jakiyah's mother had the courage to overcome her pain to be
    with us today. We have to change this for her and for other victims in
    America. Thank you, and God bless you.
        The only way to give victims equal and due consideration is to amend
    the Constitution. For nearly 20 years I have been involved in the fight
    for victims' rights, since I was attorney general in my home State. We
    passed laws then to guarantee victims' rights to attend trials and to
    get restitutions and later to get notice and to participate in parole
    hearings. Over all those years, I learned what every victim of crime
    knows too well: As long as the rights of the accused are protected but
    the rights of victims are not, time and again, the victims will lose.
        When a judge balances defendants' rights in the Federal Constitution
    against victims' rights in a statute or a State constitution, the
    defendants' rights almost always prevail. That's just how the law works
    today. We want to level the playing field. This is not about depriving
    people accused of crimes of their legitimate rights, including the
    presumption of innocence; this is about simple fairness. When a judge
    balances the rights of the accused and the rights of the victim, we want
    the rights of the victim to get equal weight. When a plea bargain is
    entered in public, a criminal is sentenced, a defendant is let out on
    bail, the victim ought to know about it and ought to have a say.
        I want to work with the congressional leadership, the House and
    Senate Judiciary Committees, including Senators Kyl and Feinstein and
    Chairman Hyde and law enforcement officials, to craft the best possible
    amendment. It should guarantee victims' rights in every court in the
    land, Federal, State, juvenile, and military. It should be self-
    executing so that it takes effect as soon as it's ratified without
    additional legislation. Congress will take responsibility to enforce
    victims' rights in Federal courts, and the States will keep
    responsibility to enforce them in State courts, but we need the
    amendment.
        I also want to say, just before I go forward, again I want to thank
    Senators Kyl and Feinstein and the others who have approached this in a
    totally bipartisan manner. This is a cause for all Americans. When
    people are victimized, the criminal almost never asks before you're
    robbed or beaten or raped or murdered: Are you a Republican or a
    Democrat? This is a matter of national security just as much as the
    national security issues beyond our borders on which we try to achieve a
    bipartisan consensus. And I applaud the nonpolitical and patriotic way
    in which this matter has been approached in the Congress, just like it's
    approached every day in the country, and we ought to do our best to keep
    it that way.

    [[Page 978]]

        We know that there can be, with any good effort, unforeseen
    consequences. We think we know what they would likely be, and we believe
    we know how to guard against them. We certainly don't want to make it
    harder for prosecutors to convict violent criminals. We sure don't want
    to give criminals like gang members, who may be victims of their
    associates, any way to take advantage of these rights just to slow the
    criminal justice process down.
        We want to protect victims, not accidentally help criminals. But we
    can solve these problems. The problems are not an excuse for inaction.
    We still have to go forward.
        Of course, amending the Constitution can take a long time. It may
    take years. And while we work to amend it, we must do everything in our
    power to enhance the protection of victims' rights now. Today I'm
    directing the Attorney General to hold the Federal system to a higher
    standard than ever before, to guarantee maximum participation by victims
    under existing law and to review existing legislation to see what
    further changes we ought to make.
        I'll give you an example. There ought to be, I believe, in every
    law, Federal and State, a protection for victims who participate in the
    criminal justice process not to be discriminated against on the job
    because they have to take time off. That protection today is accorded to
    jury members; it certainly ought to extend to people who are victims who
    need to be in the criminal justice process. And we shouldn't wait for
    that kind of thing to be done.
        I want investigators and prosecutors to take the strongest steps to
    include victims. I want work to begin immediately to launch a
    computerized system so victims get information about new developments in
    a case, in changes in the status or the location of a defendant or a
    convict.
        I do not support amending the Constitution lightly. It is sacred. It
    should be changed only with great caution and after much consideration.
    But I reject the idea that it should never be changed. Change it
    lightly, and you risk its distinction. But never change it, and you risk
    its vitality.
        I have supported the goals of many constitutional amendments since I
    took office, but in each amendment that has been proposed during my
    tenure as President, I have opposed the amendment either because it was
    not appropriate or not necessary. But this is different. I want to
    balance the budget, for example, but the Constitution already gives us
    the power to do that. What we need is the will and to work together to
    do that. I want young people to be able to express their religious
    convictions in an appropriate manner wherever they are, even in a
    school, but the Constitution protects people's rights to express their
    faith.
        But this is different. This is not an attempt to put legislative
    responsibilities in the Constitution or to guarantee a right that is
    already guaranteed. Amending the Constitution here is simply the only
    way to guarantee that victims' rights are weighted equally with
    defendants' rights in every courtroom in America.
        Two hundred twenty years ago, our Founding Fathers were concerned,
    justifiably, that Government never, never trample on the rights of
    people just because they are accused of a crime. Today, it's time for us
    to make sure that while we continue to protect the rights of the
    accused, Government does not trample on the rights of the victims.
        Until these rights are also enshrined in our Constitution, the
    people who have been hurt most by crime will continue to be denied equal
    justice under law. That's what this country is really all about, equal
    justice under law. And crime victims deserve that as much as any group
    of citizens in the United States ever will.
        Thank you, God bless you, and God bless America.

    Note: The President spoke at 12:11 p.m. in the Rose Garden at the White
    House. In his remarks, he referred to the following parents who lost
    children in violent attacks: Roberta and Vincent Roper; John and Pat
    Byron; Marc Klaas; Pam McClain; and John Walsh. The President signed a
    related memorandum on crime victims' rights on June 27.