Opinion ID: 2359155
Heading Depth: 5
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Recognition of rights of crime victims

Text: Both the State, and the National Crime Victim Law Institute and Alaska Office of Victims' Rights in their amicus briefs, note the dramatic shift in the 40 years since Hartwell was decided to provide substantial constitutional and statutory rights to crime victims during all phases of the criminal justice process. This shift has taken place throughout the country. [30] The State and amici argue that the constitutional and statutory rights of crime victims, increasingly recognized since Hartwell, constitute a changed condition that supports reconsideration of Hartwell and abandonment of the doctrine of abatement ab initio. In Alaska, the rights of crime victims were first given legal recognition in 1984, when the Alaska legislature added a statutory provision enumerating those rights. [31] In the same act, the legislature directed judges and parole boards to consider the interests of crime victims when imposing felony sentences or considering the release of prisoners. [32] Five years later, the legislature passed a comprehensive Alaska Crime Victims' Rights Act. [33] The Act codified the rights of crime victims not only to be informed of criminal proceedings but to participate in sentencing and parole decisions. [34] The legislature has continued to promulgate and refine statutes concerning the rights of crime victims, for example defining a restitution order as a civil judgment, thus allowing a victim to use civil collection procedures to enforce a restitution order. [35] In 1994 Alaska's voters overwhelmingly approved the Rights of Victims of Crime Amendment to the Alaska Constitution. [36] The amendment added article I, section 24, providing that victims of crimes have the right to be treated with dignity, respect, and fairness during all phases of the criminal and juvenile justice process and the right to restitution from the accused, among other rights. [37] The amendment also revised article I, section 12, which enumerates the goals of the criminal justice system. Prior to the amendment, this section provided that [p]enal administration shall be based on the principle of reformation and upon the need for protecting the public, [38] a statement on which we relied in Hartwell. [39] The 1994 amendment expanded the goals of [c]riminal administration to include community condemnation of the offender, the rights of victims of crimes, [and] restitution from the offender. [40] Hartwell 's assertion that the underlying principles of penal administration in Alaska are reformation and protection of the public is thus no longer complete. Alaska's statutes and its constitution now also require the criminal justice system to accommodate the rights of crime victims. The abatement of criminal convictions has important implications for these rights. Therefore, the expansion and codification of victims' rights since Hartwell provides the changed conditions needed to satisfy the first element of the test for overruling precedent.