1. The VRA would needlessly tamper with our country’s foundational document
The Constitution should only be amended as a last resort -- in the words of James Madison, “for great and extraordinary occasions” – and meaningful assistance to crime victims can be and is provided without federal constitutional intervention.

Every state has a constitutional amendment or statutory scheme protecting crime victims’ rights, including many of those contained in the VRA, and VRA proponents have not made the case that state measures are deficient. As U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice Rehnquist has explained, victims’ rights statutes are preferable to a constitutional amendment because they have the advantage of being easily revised or repealed should procedures later prove unworkable or undesirable. Unlike other groups protected by constitutional amendments, crime victims are not a “discreet and insular minority” requiring constitutional protection against overreaching majorities.

2. The VRA would undermine the administration of justice and jeopardize public safety. As the U.S. Judicial Conference has noted, “Providing the rights enumerated in the proposed amendment to large numbers of victims could overwhelm the criminal system’s ability to perform its primary function of adjudicating guilt or innocence and punishing the guilty.” Allowing victims to protest against what they perceive to be lenient plea bargains, to force cases to trial before either side is prepared, and to interfere in other prosecutorial and judicial decisions would tie up the courts, derail important investigations, and jeopardize the truth-seeking function of our adversarial system. In the words of William Murphy, District Attorney for Richmond County, New York, and former President of the National District Attorneys Association, "Prosecutors work to protect the rights of the public. In doing so, prosecutors should consider the interests of the victim. Although the public interests and the interest of the victim are frequently identical, sometimes they are not. In the end, prosecutors must remain free to do their job in order to obtain justice for victims and society."

3. The VRA would flood our overburdened justice system with litigation. As the U.S. Judicial Conference has indicated, the proposed amendment is vague and confusing and will result in protracted and unnecessary litigation that will take years and great expense to resolve. The amendment will cause immense uncertainties and confusion in criminal law, beginning with the questions of who is a victim (e.g., is the "victim" in a murder case the deceased or the family?) and what is a “violent crime” (i.e., should courts rely on the statutory definition or the facts of the case?). The right to "adjudicatory decisions" appears to guarantee victims the right to hearings as well as judicial orders and decisions on issues like restitution (even when the defendant is penniless), which will waste scarce resources. As victims obstruct proposed plea deals, the number of cases going to trial will increase, clogging court dockets and delaying resolution of criminal and civil cases. The VRA leaves open the possibility of declaratory or injunctive relief against the prosecutor, the judge or the police when they fail to follow through with every requirement under the amendment; such claims, almost invariably filed in federal court, could cause significant federal court supervision of the day-to-day functioning of state criminal justice systems and actors.

4. The VRA would impose significant financial burdens on state and federal systems. While victims seeking declaratory or injunctive relief against officials are not entitled to damages, the remedy for a violation of an injunction is a fine for contempt. In addition to hiring new prosecutors to handle the increased litigation workload, the VRA would require prosecutors’ offices to hire new staff to mail victims information about the status of their cases and their rights to participate, even in misdemeanor cases. In order to effectuate the rights guaranteed by the VRA, victims may be entitled to their own attorneys, and the state may have to subsidize the cost for those who cannot afford to hire their own.

5. The VRA is controversial within the victim advocacy community. Wrongdoer “victims,” such as abusive husbands who provoke attacks by their battered wives, will have license to manipulate the system, whereas innocent victims of nonviolent crimes will be deemed second class victims with no rights.
Many victims’ organizations oppose the amendment, including: Wisconsin Coalition Against Domestic Violence, Safe Horizons (the largest victims service provider in New York State and the organization responsible for administering funds to the victims of the September 11th attack), the Louisiana Foundation Against Sexual Assault; the Iowa Coalition Against Domestic Violence, the Pennsylvania Coalition Against Domestic Violence, the North Dakota Council on Abused Women’s Services, the Arizona Coalition Against Domestic Violence, the National Clearinghouse for the Defense of Battered Women, the National Network to End Domestic Violence, and Survivors Advocating for an Effective System.

6. The VRA would undermine the constitutional rights of accused persons. The language of the VRA does not explicitly protect the rights of accused persons and suggests a case-by-case balancing of the rights of the accused and the rights of the victim; this would upset the Constitution’s adversarial balance in criminal cases and diminish the longstanding constitutional rights of persons accused of crime. Conferring victim status before any determination of guilt contravenes the presumption of innocence. The attention of all actors in the system will be distracted from the fundamental business of adjudicating criminal responsibility and determining sanctions.

To read more about the Victims' Rights Amendment, go here.