Victims and the Prosecutor

Corrections/Police

Victims and the Prosecutor

The popular debate about the proper place of victims in criminal justice decision-making tends to be embedded in terms of balance. One side of the debate says that victims of crime should take an active role in plea bargain negotiations while the other side feels that victims should not be able to influence a prosecutor's decision making. Victim participation is currently incorporated at sentencing due to the fact that sentencing is a discrete, public proceeding in which the judge makes a decision that is based on preset criteria and characteristically justified with some specificity. Victim participation is not so readily included into plea negotiations since such negotiations are typically private, unplanned interactions in which the prosecutor makes decisions with no public explanation based on criteria that are frequently unarticulated (O'Hear, 2007).

Proponents of victims being involved in plea negotiations feel that such a practice is not favorable to participation that victims perceive to be effective and prosecutors perceive to be efficient (O'Hear, 2007). Those against the practice also feel that if victims are allowed to participate in the please negotiations that this would give them the right to prohibit a decision to plea bargain. They also feel that mandatory consultation would weaken the prosecutorial discretion that the state has (Inviting Victim Participation in Plea Agreements, 2005).

Supporters of victims having more of a role in plea negotiations feel that these arguments are simple not true. To date no state has given or construed a victim's right to confer to be a victim's right to direct the prosecution of the case. Laws granting victims a right to confer merely provide them with a chance to be heard, giving them a say, not a veto. Courts in several states have also ruled that a victim does not have the independent right to start or stop a criminal pros-ecution. The victim's desires regarding prosecution, even though im-portant, are not determinative (Inviting Victim Participation in Plea Agreements, 2005).

Guilty pleas account for over ninety percent of felony convictions in state courts. In order to supply crime victims with a chance for mean-ingful contribution in the criminal justice process, they must be given the opportunity to be involved during plea negotiations and related procedures. With the enactment of victims' rights legislation, crime victims have been able to take a more active role in criminal proceedings. By sharing their experiences about how a crime has affected their lives and presenting their views about suitable sentencing for offenders, vic-tims have come to play a progressively more essential role in the administra-tion of justice. Victims in a lot of states, though, have not been able to completely exercise the rights provided them by law. In states where victims have been asked to provide input into plea agreements, that input characteristically takes place during two stages of the crimi-nal justice process:

when conferring with the prosecutor during plea bargaining, and when addressing the court, either orally or in writing, before the entry of the plea.

Depending on the law of a particular state, a victim may be given the occasion to comment on the planned plea at either or both of these stages (Inviting Victim Participation in Plea Agreements, 2005).