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VICTIMS’ RIGHTS AMENDMENT 

HEARING 

BEFORE THE

SUBCOMMITTEE ON THE CONSTITUTION 

AND CIVIL JUSTICE 

OF THE

COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 

ONE HUNDRED FOURTEENTH CONGRESS 

FIRST SESSION 

ON

H.J. Res. 45 

MAY 1, 2015 

Serial No. 114–30 

Printed for the use of the Committee on the Judiciary 

( 

Available via the World Wide Web: http://judiciary.house.gov 
(II) 

COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY 

BOB GOODLATTE, Virginia, Chairman 

F. JAMES SENSENBRENNER, JR., 

Wisconsin 

LAMAR S. SMITH, Texas 

STEVE CHABOT, Ohio 

DARRELL E. ISSA, California 

J. RANDY FORBES, Virginia 

STEVE KING, Iowa 

TRENT FRANKS, Arizona 

LOUIE GOHMERT, Texas 

JIM JORDAN, Ohio 

TED POE, Texas 

JASON CHAFFETZ, Utah 

TOM MARINO, Pennsylvania 

TREY GOWDY, South Carolina 

RAU ́ L LABRADOR, Idaho 

BLAKE FARENTHOLD, Texas 

DOUG COLLINS, Georgia 

RON DeSANTIS, Florida 

MIMI WALTERS, California 

KEN BUCK, Colorado 

JOHN RATCLIFFE, Texas 

DAVE TROTT, Michigan 

MIKE BISHOP, Michigan 

JOHN CONYERS, JR., Michigan 

JERROLD NADLER, New York 

ZOE LOFGREN, California 

SHEILA JACKSON LEE, Texas 

STEVE COHEN, Tennessee 

HENRY C. ‘‘HANK’’ JOHNSON, JR., 

Georgia 

PEDRO R. PIERLUISI, Puerto Rico 

JUDY CHU, California 

TED DEUTCH, Florida 

LUIS V. GUTIERREZ, Illinois 

KAREN BASS, California 

CEDRIC RICHMOND, Louisiana 

SUZAN DelBENE, Washington 

HAKEEM JEFFRIES, New York 

DAVID N. CICILLINE, Rhode Island 

SCOTT PETERS, California 

SHELLEY HUSBAND, Chief of Staff & General Counsel 

PERRY APELBAUM, Minority Staff Director & Chief Counsel 

SUBCOMMITTEE ON THE CONSTITUTION AND CIVIL JUSTICE

TRENT FRANKS, Arizona, Chairman 

RON DeSANTIS, Florida, Vice-Chairman 

STEVE KING, Iowa 

LOUIE GOHMERT, Texas 

JIM JORDAN, Ohio 

STEVE COHEN, Tennessee 

JERROLD NADLER, New York 

TED DEUTCH, Florida 

PAUL B. TAYLOR, Chief Counsel 

JAMES J. PARK, Minority Counsel 
(III) 

C O N T E N T S 

MAY 1, 2015 

Page 

THE BILL 

H.J. Res. 45, the ‘‘Victims’ Rights Amendment’’ ................................................... 2 

OPENING STATEMENTS 

The Honorable Trent Franks, a Representative in Congress from the State 

of Arizona, and Chairman, Subcommittee on the Constitution and Civil 

Justice ................................................................................................................... 1 

The Honorable Steve Cohen, a Representative in Congress from the State 

of Tennessee, and Ranking Member, Subcommittee on the Constitution 

and Civil Justice ................................................................................................... 10 

The Honorable John Conyers, Jr., a Representative in Congress from the 

State of Michigan, and Ranking Member, Committee on the Judiciary ......... 11 

WITNESSES 

Paul G. Cassell, Ronald N. Boyce Presidential Professor of Criminal Law, 

S.J. Quinney College of Law at the University of Utah 

Oral Testimony ..................................................................................................... 16 

Prepared Statement ............................................................................................. 19 

Collene Campbell, Victims’ Rights Advocate 

Oral Testimony ..................................................................................................... 93 

Prepared Statement ............................................................................................. 95 

Amy Baron-Evans, National Sentencing Resource Counsel, Federal Public 

and Community Defenders 

Oral Testimony ..................................................................................................... 99 

Prepared Statement ............................................................................................. 101 

Steven J. Kelly, Member, Silverman, Thompson, Slutkin & White, LLC 

Oral Testimony ..................................................................................................... 123 

Prepared Statement ............................................................................................. 125 

LETTERS, STATEMENTS, ETC., SUBMITTED FOR THE HEARING 

Material submitted by the Honorable Trent Franks, a Representative in 

Congress from the State of Arizona, and Chairman, Subcommittee on the 

Constitution and Civil Justice ............................................................................ 7 

APPENDIX 

MATERIAL SUBMITTED FOR THE HEARING RECORD

Question for the Record submitted by the Honorable Steve Cohen, a Representative in Congress from the State of Tennessee, and Ranking Member, 

Subcommittee on the Constitution and Civil Justice ........................................ 138 

Letter from Stephen E. Nevas, Attorney, Nevas Law Grup LLC ........................ 140 

(1) 

VICTIMS’ RIGHTS AMENDMENT 

FRIDAY, MAY 1, 2015 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

SUBCOMMITTEE ON THE CONSTITUTION

AND CIVIL JUSTICE

COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY

Washington, DC. 

The Subcommittee met, pursuant to call, at 9:08 a.m., in room 

2141, Rayburn House Office Building, the Honorable Trent Franks 

(Chairman of the Subcommittee) presiding. 

Present: Representatives Franks, DeSantis, King, Cohen, and 

Conyers. 

Staff Present: (Majority) John Coleman, Counsel; Tricia White, 

Clerk; (Minority) James J. Park, Minority Counsel; and Veronica 

Eligan, Professional Staff Member. 

Mr. FRANKS. The Subcommittee on the Constitution and Civil 

Justice will come to order. 

Before Chairman Royce leaves the room, it’s rather unusual to 

have a full Committee Chairman attending these hearings. But in 

Chairman Royce’s circumstances, it’s a very unique situation because he was the original sponsor of the victims’ rights legislation 

in Congress many years ago and has worked very hard with Colleen Campbell to pass the victims’ rights legislation in California. 

And we’ve had some profound advances in the victims’ rights, 

getting major statutorial language in the Congress last time, and 

without Chairman Royce, none of this would have occurred. He has 

absolutely been a pioneer in this effort, and he’ll have a lot of legacy. But there will be a lot of people that will be grateful that this 

man walked the Halls of Congress because he did some things related to this issue that will really mitigate a lot of the abuses the 

victims go through. 

And it’s my hats off to you, Chairman Royce. I’m grateful that 

you’re here, sir. It’s so appropriate that you be with us, because I 

will say to you there is no greater champion for victims’ rights legislation in this the United States Congress than Chairman Ed 

Royce. 

[Applause.] 

[The resolution, H.J. Res. 45, follows:] 
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3 
4 
5 

Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Chairman, may I just make a comment about 

the gentleman from California? Because I, too, have been impressed. 

Mr. FRANKS. Absolutely. 

Mr. CONYERS. We in the Congressional Black Caucus have 

worked on this subject continually, and Brother Royce has always 

been there for us. And I join with you fully in the comments and 

commendations that you made toward him. 

Mr. FRANKS. Well, thank you, sir. And I tell you, a lot of times 

we pass along a lot of plaudits around here, but there are some 

times when someone has a seminal impact on something that gets 

the train rolling and things happen and they never really are recognized for it. 

Chairman Royce has always been just very low-key about it, but 

he is a cosponsor of this legislation and, without him, we would not 

be anywhere in the same universe where we are. 

So again thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Without objection, the Chair is authorized to declare recesses of 

this Committee at any time. 

And I’m going to go ahead and do an opening statement. We’re 

grateful you’re all here, and I’ll introduce you a little bit better in 

a few moments. 

Since 1789, there have been over 11,000 measures proposed in 

the House and Senate to amend the United States Constitution. 

Last Congress alone, 84 such amendments were introduced. These 

numbers are substantial, given the fact that the Constitution has 

only been amended 27 times in the span of our Nation’s history. 

However, one proposed amendment called the ‘‘next amendment’’ 

by some legal scholars stands out because of its extraordinary importance to ensuring fairness in our criminal justice system. This 

amendment is H.J. Res 45, the bipartisan Victims’ Rights Amendment, or the VRA, for short. 

Last month America observed the National Crime Victims’ 

Rights Week, which lasted from April 19 to April 25. Across the 

country victims’ rights advocates challenged Americans to learn 

about and confront issues related to how victims are treated in our 

criminal justice system. Today we honor this and all the yearround efforts by examining this important Constitutional amendment before us. 

An amendment to the United States Constitution for the rights 

of victims was first proposed by President Ronald Reagan’s Task 

Force on Victims’ Rights in 1982. The task force stated, ‘‘We do not 

make this recommendation lightly. The Constitution is the foundation of national freedom, the source of national spirit. But the combined experience brought to this inquiry and everything learned 

during its program and progress affirmed that an essential change 

must be undertaken. The fundamental rights of innocent citizens 

cannot adequately be preserved by any less decisive action.’’ 

Since that time, victims’ rights legislation has enjoyed broad support at the State and Federal levels, passing by 80-percent margins 

in the States and securing influential bipartisan support at the 

highest levels of the Federal Government. Senators Kyl and Feinstein championed victims’ rights in the Senate, and multiple House 
6 

and Senate hearings have been devoted to advancing the victims’ 

rights legislation. 

Supporters for victims’ rights amendments include President 

George H.W. Bush, President Bill Clinton, President George W. 

Bush, Attorneys General Janet Reno, John Ashcroft and Alberto 

Gonzales, Professor Larry Tribe of the Harvard Law School, The 

National Governors Association, 50 State attorneys general, Mothers Against Drunk Driving, the National Association of Parents of 

Murdered Children, the National Organization for Victims Assistance, and, finally, the National District Attorneys Association, 

which is the voice of the Nation’s prosecutors. 

Despite the best efforts of the State and the Federal Governments to bring balance through statutes or State constitutional 

amendments, they have proven inadequate whenever they come 

into conflict with bureaucratic habit, traditional indifference, sheer 

inertia, or the mere mention of an accused’s rights, even when 

those rights are not genuinely threatened. 

At the U.S. Justice Department, they concluded that the, quote, 

‘‘existing haphazard patchwork of rules is not sufficiently consistent, comprehensive, or authoritative to safeguard victims’ 

rights.’’ Given these inadequate protections in our current laws, it’s 

time the U.S. Constitution was amended to guarantee them. True 

justice will only be reached when victims have the same rights anywhere in the United States, regardless of the State in which they 

live. 

These rights, which are enumerated in the VRA, include the 

right to reasonable notice of and the right not to be excluded from 

public proceedings related to the offense, the right to be heard at 

any release, plea, sentencing, or other such proceeding involving 

any right established in the amendment, the right to reasonable 

notice of the release or escape of the accused, the right to due consideration of the crime victim’s safety, dignity and privacy, and the 

right to restitution. Moreover, the amendment expressly provides 

standing for the victim to defend these enumerated rights. 

I welcome our witnesses here today, and I look forward to hearing from them on this critical issue. And I am just grateful that 

you are all here. I know you are here for sometimes personal, but 

always noble, reasons. 

And before I yield to Ranking Member Cohen, I would like to ask 

unanimous consent to put into the record support letters for H.J. 

Res. 45 submitted to my office by the National Organization for 

Victims’ Assistance, the National Organization of Parents of Murdered Children, and Mothers Against Drunk Driving. 

And so, hearing no objection, so ordered. 

[The information referred to follows:] 
7 
8 
9 
10 

Mr. FRANKS. I would now yield to the Ranking Member for his 

opening statement. 

Mr. COHEN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

All of us can agree that our criminal justice system must treat 

crime victims with dignity and provide them with some measure of 

justice for the acts perpetrated against them. It’s awful that people 

are victims of crime in our world, and unfortunately it happens. 

Most of those who are victims of crime disproportionately are 

just people from disadvantaged communities, and those are people 

in the majority of my district I represent. 

Oftentimes they are not given the justice they should have on 

several levels. According to the Bureau of Justice Statistics, between 2008 and 2012, Americans living at or below the Federal 

poverty line had more than double the rate of violent crime victimization as high-income people. 

According to the January 2014 report by the Violence Policy Center, African Americans were four times more likely to be homicide 

victims than the national average. These are frightening figures. 

It’s hard to disagree with the belief that all crime victims need 

and deserve assistance, counseling, notification, protections, and respect. We all have concern for crime victims. However, those rights 

that may be extended through statute must be balanced with the 

fundamental rights guaranteed in our Constitution, and that is 

why I have concerns about a Constitutional amendment. 

By putting these rights in a Constitutional amendment, you do 

what the majority side often is concerned about, and that leaves 

the implementation of them to judges. And much of what the majority side has been trying to do this year is take power away from 

judges, not allow them to proceed on class actions as they see fit, 

but to change the statutes that legislature and Congress might 

want, not to allow them to determine if attorneys have filed appropriate papers in court on rule 11, but take that away and make it 

mandatory. Here they want to give judges the right to interpret. 

The Bill of Rights is to protect those most vulnerable from the 

tyranny of Government and protect people from the majority that 

might be, at times, in a state that is not allowing for a fair trial, 

the powerless, the controversial, the politically unpopular, even the 

despised. 

That’s why our Constitution guarantees procedural rights for 

those accused of committing a crime, including the most heinous 

crimes, like murder. And I must say, concerning murder, the greatest victims’ right ever was DNA evidence. I’ve been a great supporter of DNA evidence, passed it in the Tennessee General Assembly. 

And one of the greatest victims in our history have been people 

who have been unjustly convicted and been freed because of DNA 

evidence and The Innocence Project. Those are also victims and 

real victims who have been put behind bars for innumerable years, 

some 30, some lesser times. But those are victims who have been 

released because of DNA evidence and science. Those are really victims’ rights bills, the DNA evidence bills and DNA restitution. 

House Joint Resolution 45 would enshrine certain rights for 

crime victims and our Constitution and they could threaten the 
11 

rights of the accused, for instance, a crime victim with the right to 

proceedings free from unreasonable delay. 

What’s that mean? Well, it could be seen that that could conflict 

with a defendant’s due process rights to fully investigate a case and 

prepare a defense. The judge would, I guess, determine at some 

level whether there was unreasonable delay and might see the 

delay as being from the perspective of the victim rather than the 

perspective of the defense preparing a Constitutional defense. 

It also provides an absolute right for crime victims, quote, ‘‘to be 

heard in a release, plea sentencing, or other proceeding involving 

any right established by the proposed amendment.’’ That could be 

interpreted, indeed, to give a Constitutional right to participate at 

a stage as early as bail. That could put statements made by the 

victim at a hearing concerning bail or early pretrial release—could 

interfere with the prosecution’s attempt to have a good defense. 

Statements could be used against that victim at trial, and that 

would be harmful. There are other rights that again need to be balanced. 

And this is an important area. And I agree victims should have 

rights. I don’t think they should be enshrined in the Constitution. 

But there is another set of victims that we have in this country, 

which are people who are being killed by police and where there 

is not a victim in a court because the police are not being indicted. 

In South Carolina, there was an indictment. In many cases, there 

aren’t. 

I would ask the Chair to consider having a hearing on these victims that are in the papers and the news and are causing urban 

conflict that threats, really, the economic prosperity of this country 

and the safety of citizens and their property. 

And I yield back the balance of my time. 

Mr. FRANKS. Well, the Chair is concerned with all victims, and 

we certainly would consider that. Let me just suggest that—I want 

to go on the record as saying that, if it weren’t for the police departments of this country, there would be an awful lot more victims. 

So I would thank the gentleman. 

Without objection, the other Members’ opening statements—well, 

let’s see. We’re going to go to the Chairman of the Committee, Mr. 

Conyers. 

How are you, sir? 

Mr. CONYERS. Thank you very much. I’m the former Chairman, 

but I appreciate the compliment. 

I’d like to build on our Ranking Subcommittee—Mr. Cohen’s remarks and speak directly to House Joint Resolution 45, which 

would amend the United States Constitution to give crime victims 

various rights enforceable in court. 

While no one disputes the goal of protecting the rights of crime 

victims, this measure is, I think, flawed for several reasons that I 

want to mention as the hearings begin. 

Number one, there’s no reason to amend the Constitution of the 

United States. There already are various laws and other provisions 

that provide meaningful assistance to victims that protect their 

rights. Importantly, the Crime Victims’ Rights Act of 2004 affords 
12 

crime victims many of the very same rights and protections as H.J. 

Res. 45, and Federal courts are obligated to enforce those rights. 

In addition to providing for judicial enforcement of the rights it 

guarantees, the act requires the Justice Department to implement 

regulations requiring Federal prosecutors to enforce the rights of 

victims through training. 

Further, the act authorizes the disciplinary sanctions for employees who willfully or wantonly fail to comply with provisions of Federal law pertaining to the treatment of crime victims. 

To the extent that enforcement of the act has been uneven, enshrining victims’ rights into the Constitution, I’m sorry to say, will 

not solve that problem. Better awareness of the rights provided for 

and the obligations imposed by the act not through the cumbersome process of a Constitutional amendment is the answer. 

Secondly, H.J. Res. 45 could undermine the Constitutional rights 

of the accused. H.J. Res. 45 is silent on the question of how the 

rights of the accused are to be treated should a victim’s right conflict with the rights of the accused. The amendment only contains 

a conclusory statement that such rights are not in conflict, but simply saying this doesn’t make it so. 

H.J. Res. 45 could prejudice judges and juries against an accused 

who is entitled to a presumption of innocence until proven guilty 

by giving crime victims a constitutional right to participate in the 

earliest stages of a criminal trial. This right includes pretrial proceedings, such as a bail hearing where an accused has no opportunity to cross-examine the victim who may make prejudicial statements against the accused. 

H.J. Res. 45 could also jeopardize the accused’s right to a fair 

trial because it requires criminal proceedings to be free from unreasonable delay, a right that a crime victim could enforce in court. 

In determining what constitutes an unreasonable delay, a court 

could judge this issue from the victim’s perspective. As a result, the 

defendant’s right to properly prepare his or her defense would be 

undermined as well as deny the defendant the effective assistance 

of counsel. 

As we know, too many innocent individuals are wrongfully convicted of crimes they did not commit and they are exonerated only 

after spending years behind bars seeking justice. 

And so, finally, H.J. Res. 45 could undermine the ability of prosecutors to seek justice. The amendment would create numerous opportunities for interference by a crime victim with the exercise of 

prosecutorial discretion. 

For instance, the measure could empower victims to prevent or 

undo plea agreements. Beth Wilkinson, one of the prosecutors in 

the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing trial, testified before the Senate 

Judiciary Committee in 1999 in opposition to a substantially similar version of H.J. Res. 45 specifically for this reason. 

She explained that the prosecution’s efforts leading to Timothy 

McVeigh’s conviction could have been substantially impaired if the 

victims’ right amendment had been in place because victims would 

have opposed the acceptance of a guilty plea from a co-defendant 

whose cooperation, in exchange for a plea deal, was critical to securing the conviction against McVeigh. 
13 

For these and other reasons, H.J. Res. 45 would do little to help 

crime victims. It would undermine the constitutional rights of the 

accused, and it would hamper effective prosecutions. Surely we 

could provide more meaningful relief for crime victims than to engage in what most everyone knows is a purely symbolic gesture. 

I thank the witnesses for appearing today, and I look forward to 

hearing their testimony. 

I thank the Chairman of this Subcommittee. 

Mr. FRANKS. I thank the gentleman. 

And I would just remind the gentleman that the accused has constitutional rights outlined specifically in the Constitution whereas 

the victim heretofore does not. And we want to try to address that. 

We want to try to protect everyone’s constitutional rights. It always occurs to me sometimes that those who have been the victim 

of crime have a perspective on this that those who never have seem 

to somehow escape. 

With that, I have to announce that they’ve just called votes. It’s 

an unusual and unfortunate situation. I don’t know why they don’t 

check with me on these things. 

But we’re going to have to recess for approximately 1 hour to go 

and finish the votes. And I do hope you can all come back at that 

time, and we will continue forward. I’ll introduce all the witnesses, 

and we will move forward with the hearing. 

So, with that, the Committee stands in recess. 

[Recess.] 

Mr. FRANKS. Let me thank you all for your profound patience. 

This is a little unique today. We called votes much earlier than we 

usually do, and it was just one of those things. And I truly do 

apologize. 

And I’m especially grateful for Mr. King for coming. I know this 

is a day when all Members are heading in different directions, and 

it’s just unique situation. 

So let me now introduce our witnesses. And just for the record— 

it has been for the record. You know, there is a recording and 

things like that taking place. So this always goes far beyond just 

the people in this room. 

Our first witness is Paul Cassell. Paul is a professor of law at 

the University of Utah S.J. Quinney College of Law. Professor 

Cassell has written and lectured on the subjects of crime victims’ 

rights as well as argued cases relating to crime victims’ rights before numerous State and Federal courts, including before the 

United States Supreme Court. 

Thank you for being here, Paul. 

Our second witness is Collene Campbell. Collene and her husband, Gary Campbell—Gary—have been ardent victim advocates 

since the murder of their son, Scott, and the murder of Mrs. Campbell’s brother, Mickey Thompson, and his wife Trudy. 

Their personal experiences have led them to try to enact change 

in criminal justice reforms to benefit victims of violence and violent 

crime. Mrs. Campbell has been honored for her fight against crime 

by numerous top officials, including George H.W. Bush and including me. Thank you very much. 

Our third witness, Amy Baron-Evans, National Sentencing Resource Counsel and Assistant Federal Public Defender for the Fed-
14 

eral Public and Community Defenders in Boston, Massachusetts. 

She represents defenders’ interests in sentencing policy matters, 

provides litigation support before the Supreme Court and Courts of 

Appeals, and teaches sentencing advocacy. She’s authored numerous articles, papers, and briefs on Federal sentencing and other 

criminal law issues. 

And thank you for being here with us. 

Our fourth and final witness, Steven Kelly, a member of Silverman, Thompson, Slutkin & White, LLC, a litigation firm in the 

Baltimore, Washington area. Mr. Kelly is recognized nationally as 

an authority on crime victims’ rights, and he regularly change— 

trains—I said change prosecutors. That might work better, huh?— 

trains prosecutors, law enforcement officers, and crime victims’ 

rights on these topics. 

Mr. Kelly has achieved significant victories on behalf of crime 

victims in civil suits against criminal offenders and third parties. 

Mr. Kelly is also a crime victim. His older sister, Mary, was raped 

and murdered in 1988. 

Thank you for being here, Mr. Kelly. 

Mr. KELLY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. FRANKS. Each of the witnesses’ written statements will be 

entered into the record in its entirety. And I’d ask that each witness summarize his or her testimony in 5 minutes or less. 

To help you stay within that time, there is a timing light in front 

of you. The light will switch from green to yellow, indicating that 

you have 1 minute to conclude your testimony. When the light 

turns red, it indicates that the witness’ 5 minutes have expired. 

Now, before I recognize the witness, it is the tradition of the Subcommittee that they be sworn. So if you’ll please stand to be sworn. 

Do you solemnly swear that the testimony you’re about to give 

will be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so 

help you God? 

[Witnesses sworn.] 

Mr. FRANKS. You may be seated. Let the record reflect that the 

witnesses answered in the affirmative. 

And so I would now recognize—I would now recognize the distinguished gentleman from Iowa, Mr. King, for an opening statement. 

Mr. KING. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

I thank the witnesses for traveling and being here today to testify before this congressional hearing. 

And I wanted to just lay down a couple of things about how I 

think about this. I think it’s maybe not unique, but it might be 

unique in this Congress. 

The narrative starts like this. Sometime back in 1987 I had my 

heavy equipment vandalized by a couple of people that were attempting to destroy my company, and we did catch them. And I believed it was my job to cooperate in all ways with the prosecution 

of those people that have brought out hundreds of thousands of dollars of damage out of the tiny little capital base that I had accumulated over the years in that construction business. 

And I recall sitting in the courtroom in Sac County, Iowa. When 

they read the case in, they said, ‘‘This is the case of the State 

versus Jason Martin Powell.’’ And I was sitting there and I realized 

at that moment I’m not in this equation. This is the State versus 
15 

Jason Martin Powell, a now-convicted perpetrator of those hundreds of thousands of dollars’ worth of damage to my life’s work, 

and it caused me to think about crime and punishment in a different way. 

So I would just say take this back to Old English common law, 

the root of this, of our crime, our criminal law here in this country, 

how if you poached a deer, it was the king’s deer. If you damaged 

or killed one of the serfs, it was the king’s serf whose job it was 

to work and grow the economy for the king. The king owned everything. It was under his control. If you were born there, you were 

his subject. And so the crime was against the king, not against the 

individual. 

And so the crime victims really don’t have rights under the origin of the Old English common law. And for a long time in this 

country, until the last couple of decades, crime victims have had no 

rights either. 

And I recall also a study that was done by Cato back in about 

1994, and they calculated the cost to the crime victim due to crime. 

And there was a chart there on how they assigned it. I remember 

that they assigned $82,000 as the cost of a rape. I have never 

heard of anybody that wanted to submit to such a thing for 82,000, 

but that was their price. 

Also, back in the early 1990’s, the Department of Justice did a 

study that quantified in numerical terms the loss to our society as 

the price paid by—not by the taxpayers, not by the king, not by our 

criminal justice system in this country, but the price that’s paid by 

crime victims. 

And the reason that we haven’t addressed this any better is because—and you know this far better than I do—the price for crime 

is paid not by the taxpayers across the board, on average, so that 

we all share in that, but it’s paid in great, huge, whopping chunks 

from the victims of crimes themselves. And so, because their voices 

are few in proportion to the broader society, we haven’t listened as 

much as we need to about the rights of the victims of crimes. 

And so, in that Cato study, their calculation was then that it was 

costing $18,000 to incarcerate a typical criminal and that typical 

criminal, on average, though, if they were loose on the street, 

would commit 444,000 dollars’ worth of damage to society paid by 

maybe a single crime victim or a handful of crime victims. 

And it occurred to me, as I thought this through, having been 

forced into this as a crime victim myself, that we are subject to the 

criminal justice system and we are asked never to be vigilantes, to 

always accept that law enforcement will enforce the law, criminal 

prosecution will get justice, and then we are a bystander as crime 

victims. 

Well, if that’s the case and if Government gets justice, then, that 

is fine. I’m good with that. But if the taxpayers that were funding 

then at $18,000 a year to incarcerate criminals actually had to pay 

the full amount of the damage due to crime, they would then incarcerate criminals—more of them and longer because it would be a 

better return on their investment. 

But they are getting off without paying the price. The victims are 

paying the price. And I’m hopeful that some of the things we talk 

about here today helps shift that balance in the direction more of 
16 

the rights of crime victims and that we put that equation in place 

that there’s a return on investment for prosecution, incarceration, 

of criminals and for everyone that’s locked up, at least in theory, 

we’re protecting victims by incarcerating criminals. 

And there’s a little bit of a crime restitution fund that’s in a good 

number of the States. It doesn’t amount to very much. It’s a token. 

But I would like us to take a good look at that token and find a 

better way to respect and honor the rights of the crime victims in 

a more objective approach. 

So that, Mr. Chairman, was a little bit out of the ordinary this 

morning, but I appreciate you recognizing me to speak. And I appreciate this hearing. And I appreciate our witnesses. 

Thank you. And I yield back 

Mr. FRANKS. Well, thank you, Mr. King, and I certainly appreciate you being here, sir. 

I would now like to recognize our first witness, Mr. Paul Cassell. 

And, sir, if you would, turn on your microphone before you start 

and maybe pull it close to you. 

Mr. CASSELL. All right. There we go. How is that? 

Mr. FRANKS. Yes, sir. 

TESTIMONY OF PAUL G. CASSELL, RONALD N. BOYCE PRESIDENTIAL PROFESSOR OF CRIMINAL LAW, S.J. QUINNEY COLLEGE OF LAW AT THE UNIVERSITY OF UTAH 

Mr. CASSELL. Well, Chairman Franks and distinguished Members of the Committee, I appreciate you inviting me here today. 

When we talk about our Constitution, it enumerates certain 

rights for defendants, but it doesn’t say even a single word on behalf of crime victims. How shocking it would be to describe a system in which defendants didn’t have any right to notice of court 

hearings, to attend those hearings, to speak at appropriate points 

in those hearings. And, yet, that’s the exactly the situation that 

crime victims in America find themselves today, at least under our 

Constitution. 

I think Representative King put it very eloquently a moment ago 

when he said victims aren’t even in the equation, and that’s the situation of our Constitution. Every year, 2 out of 100 Americans will 

become victims of violent crimes and 13 out of 100 Americans will 

become victims of property crimes. And, yet, when they come forward to report those crimes, all too often they’ll find that the system doesn’t consider their interests at all. 

And we know who these victims are. I think Representative 

Cohen and Representative Conyers mentioned this morning that 

disproportionately victims are from the ranks of the poor, from people of color, and others who are in the worst position, in some 

ways, to protect themselves. 

In the trials, defendants will be allowed, obviously, to attend the 

hearing. And, yet, we will hear later today from the Campbells 

about how they were excluded from a trial involving a murder of 

a family member. 

We’ll hear later today from Steve Kelly, who will talk about some 

of his clients. They go into court hearings and discover that they 

can’t say anything about a plea bargain or aren’t consulted about 

important steps in the process. 
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Now, if we’re talking about responding to these kinds of injustices, I think we need to go back to 1982, when President Reagan’s 

task force on the victims of crime recommended that our Constitution be amended to provide protection for victims of crime. 

And after that recommendation, victims’ rights advocates went to 

the great laboratories of the States, and now more than 30 States 

have passed their own State amendments protecting victims’ 

rights. And those have certainly improved the treatment of victims 

in our system, but, sadly, they haven’t accomplished the job. 

Attorney General Janet Reno asked her Justice Department to 

survey the situation, and the Justice Department reported that efforts to secure victims’ rights through means other than a Federal 

constitutional amendment have proved less than fully adequate. 

These significant State efforts simply are not sufficiently consistent, comprehensive, or authoritative to safeguard victims’ 

rights. 

So the Federal amendment would draw on the experience of the 

State system, but elevate victims’ rights to the level of Federal constitutional protection. At the core of the amendment is a guarantee 

that victims of violent and other serious crimes will receive notice 

of court hearings. They’ll be able to attend those hearings, and 

they’ll be able to speak at appropriate points in the process, such 

as bail hearings, plea hearings, and sentencing hearings. They will 

also have the right to proceedings free from unreasonable delay. 

And let me just pull that out as an illustration of how the 

amendment would work. Representative Cohen said earlier this 

morning that he thought that would interfere with a defendant’s 

right to adequately investigate a case. Not at all. The provision in 

the proposed amendment is that victims would have rights to proceedings free from unreasonable delays. And, of course, giving the 

defendant an opportunity to prepare would not be unreasonable 

delay. 

And so I challenge those who are critics of the amendment to 

come forward with real-world examples of where these kinds of 

provisions have created these parade of horribles that they trot out. 

I was interested to read Ms. Baron-Evans’ testimony. There are 

five States now—or, actually, more—Arizona, California, Illinois, 

Michigan, Missouri, and Wisconsin—that all have in their State 

Constitutions provisions that protect the right to be free from unreasonable delay. And, yet, there isn’t a single illustration that 

they’ve been able to offer of a defendant being deprived of a chance 

to investigate his case. 

So the Federal amendment would establish a basic package of 

victims’ rights, a floor below which States would not be able to go. 

This thwarts no new violence to the important principle of Federalism. Rightly or wrongly, our Supreme Court has already 

constitutionalized many aspects of our criminal justice system. And 

all the amendment would say is, if we’re going to have a 

constitutionalized set of rights for defendants that applies through 

the country, let’s do the same for victims of crimes. 

As you mentioned earlier today, the amendment has broad bipartisan support. Earlier versions of the amendment were endorsed by 

President Bill Clinton, President George Bush, then-Senator and 

now-Vice President Joe Biden. And so Congress should follow the 
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bipartisan advice of these leaders and make this amendment the 

next amendment. 

It’s no accident that the symbol of justice is a set of scales. Justice for both a defendant and a victim is a worthy goal to pursue, 

and the proposed victims’ rights amendment would help make that 

lofty goal a reality. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Cassell follows:] 
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Mr. FRANKS. And thank you, Mr. Cassell. 

Now I would recognize our second witness, Mrs. Campbell. And, 

without objection, Mr. Campbell will assist Mrs. Campbell in reading her testimony. Mrs. Campbell will be available to answer Members’ questions. 

And, Mr. Campbell, if you will pull that microphone close to you 

and turn it on, sir, that’d be great. And so we’ll recognize you now, 

sir. 

TESTIMONY OF COLLENE CAMPBELL, 

VICTIMS’ RIGHTS ADVOCATE 

Mr. GARY CAMPBELL. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and honorable 

Subcommittee Members. 

I’m going to try to relate our family’s life as victims of crime. Our 

experience, education, on-the-job training confirm the need for victims’ rights in the Constitution. Our family has endured more than 

33 years of murders, delays, exclusions from court, death threats, 

and lack of notice from hearings and appeals. 

In 1982, our lives were turned upside down when our only son 

Scott was murdered followed only 6 years later by the unrelated assassination murders of Collene’s auto racing legend brother and my 

best man at our wedding, Mickey Thompson, and his wife, Trudy. 

Yes, sadly, we have a real life education in crime. 

We received our first lesson in 1982, the same year President 

Reagan’s task force on crime recommended the Constitution be 

amended to establish rights for victims. Our son Scott went missing. We searched for him for 11 months before we learned the horrible truth. He had been strangled and thrown out of an airplane 

into the Pacific Ocean to steal his car. 

We’re just a small example of thousands of Americans who become victims of repeat predators that should have been in prison. 

Instead, they were released early and committed murder. One of 

our son’s killers had previously been given three indeterminate life 

sentences, but was released early after only 4 years. 

The other was out on a work furlough a year after killing his 

passenger in an auto crash while he was under the influence of 

drugs and alcohol. Like so many, our son is dead because of a weak 

and forgiving justice system. Had his killers remained in prison, 

he’d be alive today. 

And in 1988, while we were still in trial from our son’s killers, 

Mickey and Trudy Thompson were also murdered. Their deaths 

were arranged to avoid paying back court-ordered money that his 

killer had stolen from Mickey. 

We’ve endured this system for 33 years. So we know it all too 

well. Please consider our family’s experience and grasp this fact. 

What happened to our family continues to occur to good people all 

across the country and will until the victims have rights in our 

Constitution. Example: In the trials of our son’s killers, we were 

excluded from the courtroom at all three trials. We were not allowed to be heard. We were not notified of the convicted killer’s appeal hearing. His family was. The guilty verdict of one of the killers 

was overturned. We were not notified. We had no rights. This killer 

was released, and again we were not notified. 
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No, we did not have the right to be notified or heard or to protect 

ourselves. We did not have the right to a speedy trial. The trials 

took nearly 8 years before 20 judges with dozens of hearings. None 

of these did we have the right to be heard. 

In the trial of the killer of Mickey and Trudy, it took 18 years 

after the murders just to get it started. That trial included 65 hearings with the defense delaying with every tactic possible. Again, we 

had no rights to a speedy trial. And this is only a small part of the 

list. It is tremendously important that you recognize what can be 

lost when justice is denied. 

If our justice system worked properly, Mickey and Trudy and 

Scott and thousands of others would be alive today. If Mickey were 

here with us today, he’d be telling you, ‘‘Stand on the gas. Get this 

job done, and get to the finish line.’’ 

Well, it’s time you do the right thing. Make certain our Nation 

has justice for all citizens, including victims of crime. Please move 

this amendment forward now. Thousands of lives depend on you. 

It’s really amazing. I don’t know if you’re aware, but in the last 

50 years, more people were murdered right here in our country 

than have been killed in all of our wars. Please, we need you to 

bring balance to our justice system. 

Thank you. 

[The prepared statement of Mrs. Collene Campbell follows:] 
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Mr. FRANKS. And thank you both for being here. 

I would now recognize Ms. Baron-Evans. 

And, Ms. Evans, if you would, turn on your microphone there, 

too. I’m sorry. 

Ms. BARON-EVANS. I’ve got it. 

Mr. FRANKS. We have people always forget that. So we say that 

just as a matter of course. 

TESTIMONY OF AMY BARON-EVANS, NATIONAL SENTENCING 

RESOURCE COUNSEL, FEDERAL PUBLIC AND COMMUNITY 

DEFENDERS 

Ms. BARON-EVANS. I thank you for the opportunity to comment 

on the Victims’ Rights Amendment on behalf of the Federal Public 

and Community Defenders. We serve 91 of 94 Federal judicial districts. Over 80 percent of Federal defendants are indigent, and we 

represent most of them. 

You know, I have read the Campbells’ and Steve’s testimony. 

And, you know, it’s heartbreaking what happened to them, and I 

in no way mean to say it isn’t. But the system that they describe 

is not the system in Federal court. It is not that system. 

There’s no way that there would ever be an 8-year or an 18-year 

delay, not today, anyway, or that victims would not be notified or 

not allowed to be heard. I can only speak for the Federal system, 

but, you know, that’s what I’m going to do. 

Federal Defenders do have lots of experience under the Crime 

Victims’ Rights Act, which is similar to, you know, the proposed 

constitutional amendment, except that it has certain procedures 

and limitations. 

And it also—you know, if there’s a conflict between the defendant’s rights and the victim’s rights, the judge can resolve the conflict in the proper way, which is in favor of the defendant’s rights. 

Because, you know, if you’ve got both of them with constitutional 

rights, it’s going to be impossible for judges to resolve things fairly 

or, you know—we don’t even have a way of knowing what the correct way would be. This is a whole new sort of—you know, this 

would be a whole new animal that has never been used in the 

United States. 

So we have experience with victim rights under the CVRA, the 

act, in fraud cases, child pornography possession cases, Indian reservation cases, and a few other kinds of cases, and it is being implemented in Federal court. 

When judges—you know, not in every case, but when judges hear 

from a victim at sentencing, if they want to speak, they are allowed 

to speak, and it is increase—you know, it can increase the sentence. It can result in a higher sentence if the defendant is truly 

a bad actor. It has an impact on judges. 

Professor Cassell has said that there really is no conflict between 

defendants’ and victims’ rights or there wouldn’t be if they both 

had constitutional rights. There have been numerous conflicts 

under the—you know, right now under the existing structure 

where defendants have constitutional rights and victims have statutory rights. And judges are able to resolve them, you know. If it’s 

one or the other, they have to go with the constitutional right of 

the defendant. 
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There are many examples. I’ll just give a couple right here. But 

a defendant has a due process right to be sentenced on the basis 

of accurate information. And to that end, the defendant also has a 

right to notice if a witness is going to testify against him at his 

sentencing hearing and to be able to—to challenge anything that 

that—that the witness says through cross-examination or contrary 

information. 

So there is a case—in the Endsley case in my written testimony, 

this is a case where the Government and the prosecutor—Government and the probation officer told the—argued to—well, the victim had a victim impact statement in the PSR, and he said that 

his behavioral problems were caused by the 19-year-old defendant’s 

assault on him. 

And when the defendant tried to put in evidence that the behavioral problems of the victim started long before he ever met the defendant, the Government and the probation officer said, ‘‘No. No. 

You can’t—defendant has no right to challenge this under the new 

statute because it would violate his dignity and privacy.’’ 

The judge knew exactly what to do. ‘‘No. The defendant’s constitutional right trumps. So he will be able to put in that evidence, 

and he will be able to cross-examine.’’ Doesn’t always go this way, 

but that’s the proper way. 

And what would happen in that same case if the victim had a 

constitutional right to dignity and privacy against—you know, 

versus the defendant’s right to basically offer information that offends his dignity and privacy? Very difficult for judges. 

I think I am already way over time, but there are other examples 

in my written testimony. I want to point out a few other things. 

The burden of us having to defend against two adversaries would 

be astoundingly heavy. We would have to hire more people. The 

courts would have to hire more people. We are already shorthanded. You may know our position or not. I don’t know. It would 

be chaotic. I think Judge Posner is correct that there would be sort 

of this three-pronged thing going on in the courtroom and, you 

know, it would be confusing, at best. 

I want to make clear that the way this—where this is going is 

also to a constitutional right to counsel for victims. You can’t really 

give somebody constitutional rights and then say, ‘‘But you can’t 

have a lawyer to enforce them.’’ That’s the way it goes. 

So if Congress—or if this amendment were adopted, you know, 

Congress, of course, can choose to, you know, pay that cost or—but, 

you know, to, you know, impose that cost on the States would be 

an entirely different thing. 

As I said, we don’t—we don’t believe there is a need for this. The 

Rules Committee just added eight rules to buttress the Crime Victims’ Rights Act. The attorney general issued now guidelines to his 

employees in 2011. 

And I’ll leave it at that. Thanks. 

[The prepared statement of Ms. Baron-Evans follows:] 
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Mr. FRANKS. Thank you. 

And I would now recognize Mr. Kelly. 

Mr. Kelly, you’ve got that microphone. Yes, sir. 

TESTIMONY OF STEVEN J. KELLY, MEMBER, SILVERMAN, 

THOMPSON, SLUTKIN & WHITE, LLC 

Mr. KELLY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. Chairman, Members of the Committee, on April 22, 1988, my 

older sister, Mary, walked out of her home after putting her 4- and 

5-year-old daughters to bed, went to the convenience store a mile 

from her home and not far from the place where my family has 

been for generations, and she never came back. She was missing 

for over 6 months. Her skeletal remains were recovered in a woods 

not far from the farm our family has owned for generations. 

We later learned that the monster—and I call him that intentionally—who took her life pushed aside my nieces’ car seats to 

rape and later kill my sister in the backseat of her family’s car. 

Police and prosecutors treated my family as outsiders. There 

were no victim services in 1988. We had no meaningful rights, no 

recourse. Another survivor, an angel, really—many people here 

know her—Roberta Roper, whose daughter was killed in the early 

1980’s in Prince George’s County, Maryland, was a godsend to my 

family. 

And, eventually, Roberta Roper convinced me to get involved in 

the movement for crime victim rights. And under Roberta’s leadership in 1994, the Maryland legislature and then the Maryland people later passed overwhelmingly a constitutional amendment to the 

Maryland Constitution, very similar to the Constitution amendment that’s being considered here. 

I went to law school at the behest of Ms. Roper and inspired by 

Professor Cassell and others to fight for the rights that were guaranteed under that Constitution, and I’m sad to say I’ve been sadly 

disappointed. 

Even though I’ve dedicated my practice to enforcing crime victim 

rights under the Maryland Constitution, what I found is that a constitutional amendment in the State is no match for the defendant’s 

constitutional rights or even the whisper of the defendant’s constitutional rights and for the bureaucratic ineptitude. 

If any Member of this Committee walked into the circuit court 

of Baltimore City this morning, as I do on many mornings, and 

went into the criminal docket, you would see what I’m talking 

about. Prosecutors and defense attorneys in Baltimore City routinely reach plea deals at the arraignment stage where the victim 

is rarely present and where the—if the victim knows about it, the 

victim is told don’t worry about it, don’t come there. 

These deals are made with no consent of the victim, no opportunity to contact the victim. The victim’s critical interests are traded away without as much as a phone call on a regular basis. Maryland victims are routinely excluded from the life-or-death determination of pretrial release. 

So you’re talking about people who have gone to the trouble and 

put their life on the line to accuse somebody of a crime and they 

are not notified of the fact that that person is going to be released 

on bond. That puts their life in danger. 
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Prosecutors routinely in Maryland agree to release private victim 

information to defendants who may use that information to either 

humiliate them or, much worse, to harm or kill them. 

Particularly infuriating to me is that victims are routinely shut 

out of the sentencing and offered no opportunity to address the 

court or ask for restitution. The contest there is between convicted 

criminals and innocent victims. And even in that context, victims 

mostly lose. 

In my experience, the people who are treated the worst in the 

system are the ones who need the help the most. There’s a saying 

in Baltimore City that the color of justice is green. 

The same kind of classism, racism, sexism, homophobia that affects defendants applies more so to victims. Victims are more likely 

to be shut out of the process if they’re marginalized. In one Maryland jurisdiction, prosecutors have a saying. They call cases NHBI, 

no human being involved, to refer to individuals that they don’t 

want to fight for. Prosecutors shouldn’t have that kind of discretion. 

Treating victims this way helps foster the kind of distrust that 

produced the civil unrest in my City of Baltimore this week. Shutting victims out reinforces the wall between communities and 

criminal justice system and breeds the kind of frustration and cynicism that boiled over in Baltimore this week. 

Including victims in the process leads to better outcomes. I’ve 

seen it. It’s Trial Advocacy 101. When you have, as Mr. King said, 

on the one side a cold dead State and on the other side a real live 

human being, appropriately injecting that human being makes a 

difference for trial outcomes. Juries and judges respond better to 

flesh-and-blood human beings who actually bleed and who lose 

money and who suffer and who experience emotional distress. It’s 

a matter of trial advocacy. 

Treating victims with dignity also inspires confidence in the system and helps victims at the margins get back on their feet again 

and thereby prevents crime. We crime victims are an unusual constituency. We didn’t ask to be in the situation that we’re in, and 

most of us—I know I probably speak for the Campbells here— 

would trade the world not to be in this situation. Every day in 

every court throughout this country victims are pushed aside, 

marginalized and treated much worse than the criminals who 

made the choice to harm us. 

This Congress cannot prevent criminals from harming their fellow citizens, nor can you erase the unbearable pain that has already been wrought on families like mine, but what you can certainly do is help us honor loved ones like my sister, Mary, by enshrining victims’ rights in the U.S. Constitution. 

As a lawyer, as a victim advocate for more than almost 30 years 

now, I can tell you to my core that this is never going to change. 

Victims are never going to be recognized absent what you’re trying 

to do here today. 

It’s for these reasons, Mr. Chairman and Members of the Committee, I would urge you to vote to pass the victims’ right constitutional amendment. Thank you so much. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Kelly follows:] 
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Mr. FRANKS. Thank you, Mr. Kelly. 

Thank all of you very much for your very compelling testimony. 

And I will begin now under the 5-minute rule with questions and 

comments. And I’ll begin by recognizing myself for 5 minutes. Indeed, I was touched by much of the testimony from all of you. 

Mr. Cassell, I guess I’ll start with you. You know, judges are oftentimes put in the position of having to weigh between constitutional rights. That’s a reality all the time. Sometimes we have to 

subordinate one constitutional right to the more fundamental constitutional right. The right to freedom sometimes has to give way 

to the right to live. The right to property has to give way to the 

right to live in many cases. It’s a balancing act. 

So I was indeed struck by Ms. Baron-Evans’ testimony where she 

said, you know, the defendant has constitutional rights whereas 

the victim has only statutorial rights. And, of course, that’s—you 

know, the victim indeed has constitutional rights, and judges are 

all the time having to choose between those. 

What we’re discussing today is to make sure that those items 

that, again, Ms. Baron-Evans suggested are a matter of course for 

Federal courts, which there is some question about that. But, I 

mean, if it’s true, then, why do they not have the ability to enshrine those as constitutional rights as well? 

I think that the notion that you have both of those, you know, 

two people, an accused and a victim, with constitutional rights, 

both of them certainly should have constitutional rights and certainly do as a matter of course. 

In fact, I can’t think of a circumstance where they wouldn’t both 

have some constitutional rights in a circumstance like that. And, 

again, it’s the judge’s responsibility in justice and fairness and balance to find the right and just center point—or not center point— 

but the right and just place there. 

So my question to you, sir. In your testimony, you provide a description about a Federal case in New York in which you suggest 

the U.S. Attorney’s Office, under the direction of Loretta Lynch, 

violated Federal statutes protecting victims’ rights. 

Now, can you provide your assessment of what the U.S. Attorney’s Office did wrong in that case and elaborate and help us understand it. 

Mr. CASSELL. Yes. Thank you. 

Mr. FRANKS. And would you turn that microphone on, sir. 

Mr. CASSELL. All right. Yeah. We heard from Ms. Baron-Evans 

a few moments ago, ‘‘Well, these violations, that’s just happening 

in the State system. It’s not happening in the Federal system.’’ 

Well, here’s a very concrete illustration. This is a case, United 

States v. John Doe. The case number is 98-CR-1101. And the victims weren’t notified. They weren’t given restitution. It’s a very disturbing case that I hope the Committee will look into more. 

In 2009, Felix Sater was sentenced for racketeering, for stealing 

more than $40 million from a number of victims, along with his 

criminal associates. And, remarkably, the U.S. Attorney’s Office 

there ignored two Federal statutes. The first is the mandatory Victim Restitution Act, which made restitution mandatory in these 

kinds of cases. 
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Well, the U.S. Attorney’s Office figured a way around that. They 

didn’t give the list of victims to the probation officer. So there was 

no way for the probation office to provide restitution. So this man 

who had stolen millions of dollars from victims was allowed to just 

keep the victims’ money. 

And on top of that, there was another violation of a Federal statute. Representative Conyers earlier this morning mentioned the 

2004 Crime Victims’ Rights Act. Well, that act requires notice to 

victims and a chance to confer with prosecutors, but the prosecutors kept this whole case secret. So the victims were never notified 

and were never told what was going on. 

And the U.S. Attorney’s Office has since contrived to keep this 

whole thing under wraps. And in my testimony I show you some 

questions I sent to the Justice Department that they have refused 

to answer about this case. So maybe you’ll have more luck in getting answers and figuring out what’s going on, and I certainly hope 

you’ll look into it. 

Mr. FRANKS. Well, I hope we do. 

Mrs. Campbell, I have to tell you, you know, you have such a 

profoundly powerful story. In full disclosure, you’ve been in my office, and I’ve heard your story on a regular basis or several times, 

and I’m just always moved by it. 

And you have used that story to reach out to untold numbers of 

people across the Nation who are struggling or have struggled with 

the criminal justice system as victims of crime, and I just wish you 

could share a little bit more about your experience as an advocate 

and any of the stories that you’ve come across personally. 

And I know that you can deal with these directly. Mr. Campbell’s 

helped with the testimony, but I’ll direct the question to you personally. 

Mrs. COLLENE CAMPBELL. I work with actually thousands of victims out of my home, and the story that we tell is not different. 

Sadly, it’s hard to tell our story. And we’re not here to tell our 

story. We’re here to save lives. We pay our own way to be here because we don’t want others to deal with what we’ve had to deal 

with. 

Our family would be alive if there was constitutional rights and 

we had a system that worked. But all across the Nation there are 

so many people that are going through the same thing we are, and 

it’s very hard to get up and fight and try to do something after 

you’ve had somebody murdered. And we need to fix the justice system to put the good people up front and stop putting the bad people in a good position. 

And I thank you so much for giving us the opportunity to be 

here. My family in heaven I know really appreciates it because 

they’re looking down and saying, ‘‘Go get them.’’ 

And my dad was a chief of detectives on the Alhambra Police Department, and I came up in a law enforcement family. And he always said, ‘‘Just get a bigger stick, but always do what’s right. 

Never settle for what’s wrong.’’ And that’s what we’re trying to do. 

Mr. FRANKS. Well, I appreciate that. 

And I’m going to yield to my friend Mr. King here just momentarily. I wanted to let him know and the others know that we’re 

going to do a second round of questions here. So I’ll have a chance 
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to follow up with you more. So hang in here with us. I don’t want 

to take advantage of you, but your testimony is so compelling. 

Mr. King from Iowa. 

Mr. KING. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Again, I thank the witnesses for your testimony. 

I want to explore something here. And, you know, we have a 

criminal justice system that I referenced in my opening statement 

that’s rooted at least back to Old English common law, perhaps to 

Roman law, perhaps to Mosaic law, and as this all flows through, 

cultures evolve in a way and we get settled into habits and practices and often don’t stop and examine how did we get where we 

are. 

I was listening to Mr. Kelly’s testimony and your remarks about 

how the victim is routinely cut out of the process, and I would expect that the prosecutors and the defenders that are standing there 

doing plea bargaining and are lining up to do plea bargaining in 

Baltimore often will go through case after case or maybe even 

hours or days without consideration of the victim because there’s 

not an advocate there for the victim. 

And so let’s take a look at this system that we have today that’s 

been described here and just erase that out of our minds for a 

minute and say, ‘‘What if we were just put here on earth without 

prior experience, but had all the wisdom that we share? Would we 

create a criminal justice system like this? Would you start from 

scratch and decide that the victims aren’t going to have a say and 

that they’re not going to be heard and they’re not going to have 

specific rights and that we’re going to incarcerate people up to the 

limits of the room we have in our prisons and the budget we have 

to incarcerate them and the resources we have, as Ms. BaronEvans said, to prosecute them and adjudicate and go through this 

process or would we look at this and say, ‘‘What would fix this 

problem? Could we design a system that would better fix the problem that we have and that we’ve heard about here this morning?’’ 

And I’d suggest that, if we erased all the things that are out 

there now and started from a blank sheet of paper, that we would 

put victims into that equation and we would try to bring about an 

equation that was as fiscally responsible as possible, that would 

provide as much a deterrent as possible, that would protect victims 

as much as possible. 

And so I would just pose this, that the equation that I used was 

old data, 20 years old or a little more, $18,000 a year to incarcerate 

a typical criminal and 444,000 dollars’ worth of damage committed 

to individual crime—against individual crime victims if you turn 

that same typical criminal loose. That’s about a 25 multiplier a return on investment. One incarceration dollar saves 25 dollars’ 

worth of damage to a criminal victim. 

So you haven’t said a lot. None of the witnesses have said very 

much about restitution of this. But I’d just ask, in theory—and I’m 

going to go first, I think, to Mr. Kelly because I suspect you may 

have thought about it in this fashion—that if we gave the crime 

victim or the family of the crime victim standing to go back and 

bring suit against the State if the State had turned loose a criminal 

that should have been incarcerated, that this exuberance of mercy, 

which has brought about so much crime in this country, I believe 
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referenced by Mr. Campbell, as a weak and forgiven criminal justice system. 

What if we had it the other way? What if the crime victim had 

standing to go to court to recover their loss, their damage from the 

State for the State failing to protect the individual? How much 

would this change the system that we have today? And do you believe there’s any merit to starting down that path perhaps incrementally? 

Mr. KELLY. Mr. King, I think that’s a brilliant suggestion, and 

I think that—you know, going back to your point about the way the 

criminal justice system has evolved, you know, from the ancient 

times, restitution is a critical building block. 

But I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been in court where a defendant has a privately retained lawyer that charges $100,000 

retainer and the judge makes a finding that the defendant lacks 

the ability to pay restitution. So what the courts are doing there 

is they are imposing the cost of crime on the innocent victim as opposed to the person who made the choice. 

So I think it’s, you know, absolutely critical that restitution, you 

know, be a cornerstone. And I think that giving crime victims recourse, you know, would wake a lot of people up because restitution—I call it, you know, the bastard stepchild of the criminal justice system. It’s the most hated right. Prosecutors hate it. Defenders hate it. Judges hate it. 

The only person that doesn’t hate it is the victim because, you 

know, it may be onerous and it may be difficult to get money out 

of a defendant, but it’s fundamentally fair. It’s only fair that that 

victim should be repaid for their basic financial out-of-pocket 

losses. And it never ceases to amaze me, but it happens on a regular basis, once a week at least, where we make a reasonable request for restitution and it’s denied. 

So I think it’s a great suggestion. I would be all for it. 

Mr. KING. I would like to quickly go to Mr. Cassell for his response to that question. And I’m going to be out of time at the 

point. 

Mr. CASSELL. Right. I think the real problem here is that the system—— 

Mr. KING. Mr. Cassell. 

Mr. CASSELL. I’m sorry. 

When you talk about the system historically, it’s really interesting. In this country, originally, we had a system of private prosecution where a victim of crime, as you were describing about yourself, might have initially filed the criminal case to begin with and 

the real focus, as Mr. Kelly was suggesting, was on restitution, getting the victim back where they should be. 

Over time, like many things in this country, we’ve moved to a 

more bureaucratic system where big government has kind of 

bumped out, I think, some of the other interests that really ought 

to be considered. 

So, in some ways, this might take us back a little more to our 

roots and put private citizens involved in the process and get them 

the opportunity to overcome these financial effects of crime that 

can be so devastating. 

Mr. KING. Thank you, Mr. Cassell. 
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I am out of time, but I want to encourage the Chairman to continue this dialogue. I think there’s much to be gained from these 

types of hearings, and I appreciate it. 

And I yield back. 

Mr. FRANKS. And I thank the gentleman and invite him to stay 

5 more minutes, if he’d like to, for a second round. I mean, if he 

has to go, I’ll certainly understand. Thank you, Mr. King. 

All right. Mr. Kelly, I’d like to direct a question to you. You 

know, the claim is often made that the VRA would create such burdensome duties for the prosecutors and, of course, it would be untenable, even though it’s done on a State level, many times Federal. 

Can you express how jurisdictions that apply strong victims’ 

rights processes deal with the administrative burdens the law imposes on prosecutors in courts. I mean, what’s been your experience? 

Mr. KELLY. Well, the short answer is they use the money that 

you give them, as Congress, for what it’s supposed to be used for. 

And this Congress is already giving out millions of dollars both 

Federally and for States under the Victims of Crime Act for, you 

know, the purpose of creating robust systems of victim notification, 

for providing for victim witness coordinators within the prosecutors’ 

offices. 

Almost every prosecutors’ office, I think, in the country has them. 

The Federal Government certainly has them. And the problem is 

that the money doesn’t always get used for that purpose, and I 

think using the money for what it’s meant to do would allow prosecutors to beef up these systems. 

The systems already exist at the Federal level and the State 

level. The difference between a robust application and a non-robust 

application is priorities and how the policymakers in a given jurisdiction are going to prioritize victims’ rights and victim notification 

and the like or not. And so the answer is just use the money that 

you are providing with for the right purpose. 

Mr. FRANKS. Well, thank you, sir. 

Mrs. Campbell, I would like to return to you, then, for a moment. 

You know, I’ve heard on a number of occasions you say that, if victims’ rights legislation had been in place prior to the loss that your 

family incurred, that your family might still be alive. 

Can you elaborate a little bit and tell me the rationale. 

Mrs. COLLENE CAMPBELL. Sure. I can go on both of them. 

Scotty, our son, was murdered by somebody that just 1 year before had killed somebody in a drunk driving accident. He was out 

on bail. He has a long history of crime. And I might add he came 

from a very good family. This was not somebody that was destitute 

or anything. If he would have been in prison where he should have 

been, our son would be alive. 

And with Mickey’s and Trudy’s case, the fellow that killed Mickey and Trudy, if he would have been in Federal prison for bank 

fraud like he should have been, Mickey and Trudy would be alive. 

By giving the criminals, the bad people, too many rights, many 

of us are losing good family members. And I hear this all the time, 

all the people I talk to, all the victims. 
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You know, a good person doesn’t go out and just commit a murder. A person works up to it, it seems to me, and—— 

Mr. FRANKS. And you’re suggesting that, if their victims had had 

the right to be heard in some of these circumstances, that they 

might not have been let out as early as they were? 

Mrs. COLLENE CAMPBELL. Well, in our particular cases, the people were let out from being victims of other people’s crimes, yes. 

And if you will give me just one moment to tell you how being 

excluded from the courtroom—we were excluded from the courtroom during three trials of our son’s murder. We happen to know 

more about our son than anybody else. You know, they used the 

excuse we were going to be used as a witness. We were not being 

used as a witness. 

When the defendant was going to come up on the witness stand, 

I went to a telephone and called the widow of another person he 

had killed and asked if she would come and sit in the courtroom 

so she could see what lies were being told. And she said, ‘‘You’re 

doggone right I will be there. He should be in prison.’’ 

She came and sat in the courtroom, and when he got up on the 

witness stand, she immediately caught him lying. She went to the 

prosecutor and said, ‘‘I’ve got the paperwork at home. He’s lying on 

the witness stand.’’ So the next day the prosecutor went up and 

said, ‘‘Well, Mr. Cowell, were you lying the last time you were before a jury or were you lying yesterday before this jury?’’ 

Long story short, the jury said, had they not caught all that information, they would have not been able to convict him. So the 

small things like taking somebody out of the courtroom doesn’t 

sound huge to somebody else, but it could be huge in a trial and 

a conviction, and people would be alive if victims had rights. 

And for crying out loud, we go back to a great President that 

said, ‘‘Let’s give victims rights in our Constitution,’’ and we’ve done 

nothing. And, yet, here we sit with all of us having people killed. 

And with the thousands of people I work with, it’s just sad that it’s 

not moving forward. 

I just wish so much that people could really get into the real 

truth of what’s going on and not having somebody come and, you 

know, make it strange. It is so important that we have rights so 

we can save lives. 

I can’t bring my family back. But, by God, I sure hope that the 

Lord is looking down and saying, ‘‘Let’s save other people. Let’s not 

let this continue on. Let’s let this Administration move forward and 

start saving lives.’’ It needs to be done. 

Mr. FRANKS. Well, thank you. And I appreciate so much, again, 

your testimony. And certainly that is one of the deepest commitments of this Committee and certainly myself, that we want to try 

to do everything that we can to give everyone a chance to live and 

be free and pursue their dreams. 

And, to that end, Mr. Cassell, I would offer my last question. If 

a Federal constitutional amendment were enacted, can you give us 

some sense of the protection of crime victims’ rights and how that 

would improve. Give us some idea of what would actually change 

if we were able to do that. 

Mr. CASSELL. Well, I think what would happen if this amendment passed is immediately all over the country, in State court-
135 

rooms, Federal courtrooms, city courtrooms, wherever it is, judges 

would know that victims have rights. 

And let’s be clear. This isn’t about taking away rights from defendants. The amendment itself says right in its first sentence that 

both victims and defendants can have rights together. 

And so now judges, judges that are confirmed by the Congress, 

by the Senate, in the Federal system, judges that come through the 

State system, are going to find those solutions that protect both defendants’ rights and victims’ rights. 

And some of the terrible situations that your Committee has 

heard described today would no longer occur. Victims would be notified of court hearings. They would have the right to attend those 

hearings. They would have the right to speak at appropriate points 

in the process. That’s the difference that this amendment would 

make. 

Mr. FRANKS. Yeah. Well, this concludes today’s hearing. 

And I want to thank all of the witnesses here. Mr. Cassell, Mr. 

and Mrs. Campbell, Ms. Baron-Evans, and Mr. Kelly, thank you all 

very, very much. I am grateful to you for taking the time to be 

here. 

And we continue down this path. As you know, we’ve actually 

had some pretty profound success in the last year and a half in the 

area of victims’ rights, and we are going to continue to go forward 

there. 

So, without objection, all Members will have 5 legislative days to 

submit additional written questions for the witnesses or additional 

materials for the record. 

And, again, I want to thank the witnesses again, thank the 

Members, and, of course, anyone in the audience. 

And this hearing is adjourned. 

[Whereupon, at 12:17 p.m., the Subcommittee was adjourned.] 

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A P P E N D I X 

MATERIAL SUBMITTED FOR THE HEARING RECORD
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Note: The Subcommittee did not receive a response from this witness at the time this hearing 

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