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The purpose of the criminological victim impact statement
Victim impact statements essay
The purpose of the criminological victim impact statement
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How and Why the U.S. Supreme Court developed the law governing the use of “Victim Impact Statements” (VIS)?
There is no definitive dividing line between the how and why the U.S. Supreme Court developed the VIS laws since both questions overlap. In the Capital cases of Booth v. Maryland, Gathers v. South Carolina and Payne v. Tennessee the U.S. Supreme Court were tasked to decide if the VIS were constitutional.
The Supreme Court developed the laws governing Victim Impact Statements based on what they thought was a constitutional conflict where the punishment may be enhanced when a statement made by the victim or family may have more of an impact on the sentencing authority than the severity of the crime (Stevens 2000). Or that the victim impact statement may draw the juries attention away from the evidence at hand and the case being decided through emotional not evidence based means. The Eighth Amendment requires that no excessive bail be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments be inflicted.
Weems v. United States (1910) set a judicial precedent for showing that punishment must be proportionate to the crime committed and allowed courts to decide what is “cruel and unusual”. Lower courts allowed the VIS and that use sometimes came under question. Thus the case was sent to the U.S. Supreme Court to review. In Booth v. Maryland (1987) and Gathers v. South Carolina (1989) the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that VIS could potentially lead to harsher sentences and yet upon further review reconsider their stance on VIS and overturn their decisions and concluded that the Eight Amendment was not violated by victim Impact statements on the ground that such statements did not lead to cruel and unusual punish...
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...p.findlaw.com/scripts/getcase.pl?navby=case&court=us&vol=490&page= 805
Stevens, Mark. (2000). Victim Impact Statements Considered in Sentencing. Berkeley Journal of Criminal Law, 2(1), 3. Retrieved from http://scholarship.law.berkeley.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1071&context=bjcl
Interpretation of the Eighth Amendment-Rummel, Solem and The Venerable Case of Weems v. United States. Duke Law Journal, Vol. 1984:789. Retrieved from http://scholarship.law.duke.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2886&context=dlj&sei-redir=1&referer=http%3A%2F%2Fscholar.google.com%2Fscholar_url%3Fhl%3Den%26q%3Dhttp%3A%2F%2Fscholarship.law.duke.edu%2Fcgi%2Fviewcontent.cgi%253Farticle%253D2886%2526context%253Ddlj%26sa%3DX%26scisig%3DAAGBfm0U6qTJJcBT1EoWmQVHDXIojJgBHw%26oi%3Dscholarr#search=%22http%3A%2F%2Fscholarship.law.duke.edu%2Fcgi%2Fviewcontent.cgi%3Farticle%3D2886%26context%3Ddlj%22
Opponents of the death punishment lauded the Supreme Court decision in the 1972 ruling that a jury's unregulated option to impose the death penalty led toward a "wanton and freakish pattern of its use" that was cruel and unusual. However, the anti-death penalty lobby was not the outright winners because the court failed to call the death penalty unconstitutional. Just a few years later, capital punishment was back with full force in the United States.
Attempt by Congress to strike a balance between society's need for protection from crime and accused right to adequate proce...
The act of interrogation has been around for thousands of years. From the Punic Wars to the war in Iraq, interrogating criminals, prisoners or military officers in order to receive advantageous information has been regularly used. These interrogation techniques can range from physical pain to emotional distress. Hitting an individual with a whip while they hang from a ceiling or excessively questioning them may seem like an ideal way to get them to reveal something, but in reality it is ineffective and . This is because even the most enduring individual can be made to admit anything under excruciating circumstances. In the Fifth Amendment of the Bill of Rights there is a provision (“no person shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself” ) which reflects a time-honored common principle that no person is bound to betray him or herself or can be forced to give incriminating evidence. This ideology of self-incrimination has been challenged heavily over the past s...
October 5, 2013 in Cornell Law. CRS/LII Annotated Constitution of the United States. Cornell University Law School, Inc. 2013. The. Web. The Web.
... rape or treason was committed ("8th Amendment to the Constitution – U.S. Amendment VIII Summary"). However, there are some cases where the death penalty is unacceptable regardless of the crime. In the Supreme Court case of Roper v Simmons the court decided that the execution of someone for a crime they committed when they were a minor violated the eighth amendment . The court case of Atkins v Virginia established that the death penalty is not an acceptable punishment for mentally ill felons (Lemieux, "The Supreme Court's Empty Eighth Amendment Promise"). The Supreme Court has also ruled that executing anyone under the age of 18 is an act of cruel and unusual punishment ("8th Amendment to the Constitution – U.S. Amendment VIII Summary"). The death penalty is the worst punishment a person could get, and because of that there are many restrictions on when to use it.
The 6th Amendment guarantees a person accused of a crime compulsory process, the right to present witnesses in his defense. The importance of compulsory process is illustrated in the case Washington vs. Texas, where Jackie Washington was tried for murder. A state court ruled that Washington could not have an accomplice in the crime testify in his defense. However, the Supreme Court ruled that the state’s refusal to allow the defendant a capable witness violated the 6th Amendment. Therefore, the Supreme Court overruled the court’s c...
Many call capital punishment unconstitutional and point to the Eighth Amendment of the Constitution for support. The amendment states that, "Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines be imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishment be inflicted." Those who oppose the death penalty target the 'cruel and unusual' phrase as an explanation of why it is unconstitutional. Since the Framers of the Constitution are no longer with us and we base our nation on the words in which that document contains, the legality of the death penalty is subject to interpretation. Since there is some ambiguity or lack of preciseness in the Constitution, heated debate surrounding this issue has risen in the last ten years.
The Eighth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States asserts,” Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted,” (source Cornell). This amendment is being violated in the military today. These victims are being punished for being victims. Many victims are forced to leave the military after their attacks and do not receive proper medical attention. Victims are being cruelly treated for crimes committed against them.
Therefore, with the Furman decision, the Supreme Court set the standard that a punishment would be "cruel and unusual" if it was too extreme and did not fit the crime, offended the community of people’s sense of justice, or it if was not more effective than a less risky penalty.
Although evidence is one of the main important factors in court and during trials, victim impact statements are just as important. The key points of court hearings and a trials taking place is to punish the offender and to grant the victim justice. Victim impact statements are used in the criminal justice system to help the jury and mainly the judge understand how the crime has affected the victim (Department of Justice & Regulation: Victim Impact Statements, 2015). At some phase of the sentencing process, all 50 states allow impact statements (Victim Impact Statements, 2015). Victim impact statements has both advantages and disadvantages. Despite the disadvantages, victim statements are powerful aspects of victim’s rights.
The introduction of the victim’s family members feelings since the murder, characterization of the crime, and recommended sentence is, while respected and unfortunate, wholly irrelevant to the matter at hand. This court has held that juries must reach their decision through careful consideration of the circumstances of the crime and the reputation and character of the defendant. Any other information is irrelevant and may divert the jury from its intended purpose. In addition, victim impact statements may lead to arbitrary and capricious sentencing because not all victims have family members willing or able to provide testimony in a clear manner and not all victims have the same level of social standing. We should not be determining if a defendant should live or die on these factors because it devalues the lives of some victims. These standards would lead to an inevitable trial on the character and reputation of the victim, an outcome that no party wants to see. Finally, defendants do not receive a fair chance for rebuttal, when victim impact states are presented, because it is not to the strategic advantage of the defendant. Any attempt to besmirch the reputation of the victim or question the emotions of surviving family members would be inconsiderate and hurt the defendant in the eyes of any jury. Victim impact statements serve no other purpose
Miranda rights are one example of how the courts have impacted public policy within the criminal justice system when it comes to a person accused of a crime. Chief Justice Earl Warren decided the case of Miranda v. Arizona. The case was expanded to the rights of the accused individuals accused of committing a crime. The decision required law enforcement officers to inform suspects of their right to remain silent, that anything could be used against them in a court of law, and the right to have a lawyer representing them. Also included was any evidence in the case, if the accused did not clearly understand their rights, is not legally admissible in a court proceeding. Prior to the Miranda right, it was not uncommon for law enforcement officers to obtain confessions by physical or psychological abuse or even misrepresenting them or lying about the
The excessive bail provision of the eight amendment to the united States constitution is based on an old English common law right of Englishmen and the English Bill of RIghts. In pre independence america, bail law was based on English law. Some of the colonies simply guaranteed their subjects the protections that they would have in Britain. However in 1776, after the declaration of Independence, colonies abandoned that of British law and enacted their own versions of bail law. In the Virginia 1776 constitution it stated excessive bail ought not be required, but in 1785 they added that those shall be let to bail who are apprehended for any crime not punishable in life or limb, but if a crime be punishable by life or limb, or if it be manslaughter and there be good cause to believe the party guilty thereof, he shall not be admitted to bail. The eight amendment is directly derived form this and the cases that are available for bail have changed over the years. In 178p the Judiciary Act was passed. This act stated that all non capital crimes are bailable and that in capital cases the decisions to detain a suspect, prior to trial was to be left up to the judge. Then in 1966, Congress put into affect th Bail Reform Act which stated that a non capital defendant is to be released, pending trial, on their personal bond, unless the judicial officer determines that such incentives will not adequately assure his appearance at trail.
The Eighth Amendment interpretation has changed over time because of a criminal’s mental health, non-homicidal crimes, and the execution of minors. To emphasize, Justice John Paul Stevens proclaimed that “in a 6 - 3 opinion, the Court held that executions of mentally retarded criminals are ‘cruel and unusual punishments’ prohibited by the Eighth Amendment” (Atkins v. Virginia.). As a result, the United States of America doesn’t execute mentally ill criminals, anymore, because people found out that there is something wrong with their brain and that they do not have a self conscious. Furthermore, majority of the Supreme Court agreed with Justice Anthony M. Kennedy [in a 6 - 3 decision] and concluded that “the Eighth Amendment's Cruel and Unusual
Many victims suffer from trauma after they have been harmed resulting to their judgment for sentencing will be based on their own personal trauma and emotions and will not show justice for the offender