| --- |
| title: "House Oversight: Estate Documents (Nov 12) (HOUSE_OVERSIGHT_016537)" |
| source: "House Oversight: Estate Documents (Nov 12)" |
| sourceUrl: "https://www.justice.gov/epstein" |
| date: "2026-01-01" |
| category: "House Oversight" |
| eftaNumber: "HOUSE_OVERSIGHT_016537" |
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| parseTier: "external-legacy" |
| engine: "engine undisclosed (ep-nov-12.greg.technology mirror)" |
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| externalUrl: "https://ep-nov-12.greg.technology" |
| --- |
| |
| Page 28 of 42 |
| 103 Minn. L. Rev. 844, *899 |
| This basic overview - drawn from a substantial scholarly literature - paints a somewhat contradictory picture. On the one hand, |
| the primary story is one of longstanding underenforcement - a combination of explicit legal policies, practical evidence- |
| gathering and proof challenges, and cultural biases resulted in a notoriously weak response to sexual assaults by state criminal |
| justice systems. On the other hand, there is a story, over the last forty years or so, of wide-ranging success in achieving reforms |
| on several fronts - substantive and procedural law, institutional design, and resource allocation - designed to improve |
| enforcement capacity. In other words, U.S. jurisdictions made substantial progress against an ingrained tradition of |
| underenforcement without turning to any model of enforcement redundancy - federalization, private prosecution, or judicial |
| review. That is more than state justice systems were ever able to do with regard to local government corruption, where the |
| remedy instead was the rise of federal criminal law enforcement. |
| And yet, few seem to consider this reform story a success. 188 The data on underreporting by victims, low arrest rates by |
| police, and charging rates by prosecutors (along with the rape kit [*900] testing backlog) make it easy to view state criminal |
| justice systems as failing to achieve adequate enforcement responses to sexual assaults despite the scope and gravity of the |
| problem - 124,000 offenses reported to police in 2015, and 431,000 assault reports estimated by the National Crime Victim |
| Survey. 189 |
| This story of reform, its decidedly limited success, and the responses to that record all reveal insights about the prospects for |
| redressing underenforcement through redundancy in this context. Intersecting feminist, victim rights, and rape-law-reform |
| movements have achieved some remarkable reforms through the political process over the last four decades. U.S. criminal |
| justice, like U.S. public law generally, is responsive to popular sentiment, well-organized reform movements, and interest |
| 190 But these movements never sought any mechanism of enforcement redundancy, and federal and state lawmakers |
| never seriously considered one. Even now, when offense definitions, victim rights, evidentiary rules, and organizational |
| changes in law enforcement agencies offer few plausible options for further improvement, there is effectively no sign of |
| interest in private prosecution and judicial or administrative oversight. Instead, the sole focus of further innovation to address |
| endemic underenforcement of sexual assault offenses is the federal government. And most federal policy - and policy proposals |
| - stop short of expanding federal law to cover sexual assaults now within the jurisdiction solely of state courts. 191 A notable |
| 124 Linda R.S. v. Richard D., 410 U.S. 614, 619 (1973) (rejecting private plaintiff's challenge on federal equal protection grounds to state |
| policy of prosecuting only married men for failures to pay child support, concluding "in American jurisprudence at least, a private citizen |
| lacks a judicially cognizable interest in the prosecution or nonprosecution of another"); Leeke v. Timmerman, 454 U.S. 83, 84 (1981) |
| (extending Linda R.S. to hold that private citizens have "no cognizable interest" in process by which magistrates decide whether to issue |
| warrants on criminal complaints); cf. Inmates of Attica Corr. Facility v. Rockefeller, 477 F. 2d 375, 382-83 (2d Cir. 1973) (rejecting purported |
| crime victims' request that court order prosecutors to charge). |
| 125 See, e.g., Colo. Rev. Stat. § 16-5-209 (2017) ("The judge of a court having jurisdiction of the alleged offense, upon affidavit filed with the |
| judge alleging the commission of a crime and the unjustified refusal of the prosecuting attorney to prosecute any person for the crime, may |
| require the prosecuting attorney to appear before the judge and explain the refusal. If ….. the judge finds that the refusal of the prosecuting |
| attorney to prosecute was arbitrary or capricious and without reasonable excuse, the judge may order the prosecuting attorney to file an |
| cuing along to are bore the te an e |
| information and prosecute the case or may appoint a special prosecutor to do so."); Mich. Comp. Laws § 767.41 (2017) ("If, upon |
| examination, the court is not satisfied with the [prosecution's] statement, the prosecuting attorney shall be directed by the court to file the |
| proper information and bring the case to trial."); Neb. Rev. Stat. § 29-1606 (2017) ("If, upon such examination, the court shall not be satisfied |
| with the [prosecution's] statement, the county attorney shall be directed by the court to file the proper information and bring the case to |
| trial."); Pa. R. Crim. P. 506(B)(2) (requiring prosecutors to give reasons for declining to prosecute a criminal complaint filed by a private |
| party, and permitting "the affiant [to] petition the court of common pleas for review of the decision"); In re Hickson, 2000 PA Super 402, PP |
| 12-19 (describing victim standing to seek judicial review of decisions not to prosecute based on private complaints); see also State ex rel. |
| 1999) (citing Lauder, 90 N.W. 564, with approval). |
| 126 See Cal. Penal Code § 1385 (West 2016) ("The judge or magistrate may, either of his or her own motion or upon the application of the |
| prosecuting attorney, and in the furtherance of justice, order an action to be dismissed."); Darryl K. Brown, Free Market Criminal Justice 35- |
| 37(2016); Valena E. Beety, Judicial Dismissals in the Interest of Justice, 80 Mo. L. Rev. 629, 640-43 (2015) (advocating for a shift in court- |
| reviewed dismissals). |
| DAVID SCHOEN |
| HOUSE_OVERSIGHT_016537 |
|
|
