Victims' Rights Amendment: Is it Necessary?

The Tenth Amendment of the United States clearly delineates that the states and the people should hold more power than the Federal government of the United States. "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people." (Amendment X, 1791) Currently there are thirty - three states with amendments to their states constitutions adding victims' rights. What should be noted is that seventeen states have not adopted this stance currently. This alone shows that a clear majority vote may not be possible. Of course, there is the other argument that anything that directly affects individuals or states should be up to those states or individuals. In this case, there is a general framework for law within this nation, however, there is not a national legal directory for many various laws, and each state has different and varying courts and legal approaches in many areas. To have any specific "Amendment" that would force adherence to a central legal standard a central legal standard would be necessary. Obviously, arguments could be made that a victims' rights amendment would not affect the law of the land but would only affect victims'.

There are several varying Victims' Rights Amendments in place currently; while some of them contain varying language generally, they do the following four things.

1. Provide for the safety of the victim.
2. Provides for the notice if a convicted offender escapes or is released.
3. Provides for the right to not be excluded from pre-trial and trial proceedings.
4. Provides for restitution

Each of the varying Victims' Rights Amendments has minor changes however, they generally all provide for those four items. There are arguments against this Amendment from many sides, however, in the opinion of the author the only argument that needs to be made is the Constitutional one, which allows the states the rights to make this decision if they choose. "To the extent that the interests of violent crime victims need protection, this goal already is being achieved and will continue to be met through carefully crafted statutes that respect the diversity of the 50 states." (Kopel, Semel, 1996) Many other arguments include things like changing the idea of innocent until proven guilty. This is a mindset this author agrees with, after all our entire way of life is based on the simple presumption that the people have the power. Not the Federal governments, which consist of, people who may not have the ability to decide the course of someone else's life and in fact are meant to represent the opinions and desires of the "people." Those who use this argument include several large well-known Battered Women's Rights organizations and others.

In conclusion, it is the opinion of the author that this is an amendment meant to garner political support and would not be a positive thing for the United States as a whole. If individual states wish to institute this, than they are within their rights and should do so after approaching the various possibilities that may exist as a result. Obviously, individual states should be careful that they do not pass legislation that could in fact deprive some of their constitutionally guaranteed individual rights (per the Bill of Rights.) Each citizen of this nation is guaranteed certain unalienable rights, and no state, individual or federal government should have the right or the ability to countermand any of those rights unless that citizen gives them up by committing and than being convicted of a crime that causes their removal from normal society to be the outcome.