| --- |
| title: "House Oversight: Estate Documents (Nov 12) (HOUSE_OVERSIGHT_017606)" |
| source: "House Oversight: Estate Documents (Nov 12)" |
| sourceUrl: "https://www.justice.gov/epstein" |
| date: "2026-01-01" |
| category: "House Oversight" |
| eftaNumber: "HOUSE_OVERSIGHT_017606" |
| ocrPages: 1 |
| ocrChars: 3993 |
| ocrElapsed: 0.0 |
| parseTier: "external-legacy" |
| engine: "engine undisclosed (ep-nov-12.greg.technology mirror)" |
| externalSource: "greg-ep-nov-12" |
| externalLicense: "not granted" |
| externalCredit: "ep-nov-12.greg.technology" |
| externalUrl: "https://ep-nov-12.greg.technology" |
| --- |
| |
| Page 3 of 31 |
| 104 J. Crim. L. & Criminology 59, *62 |
| Part II reviews the CVRA's purpose, text, structure, and legislative history. This review establishes that the CVRA extends |
| rights to crime victims before formal charges are filed. |
| Part III critiques OLC's position that the CVRA extends rights to victims only after prosecutors have lodged charges in court. |
| The Department's proffered arguments do not withstand close scrutiny, particularly in light of the fact that the CVRA covers |
| federal agencies involved in the "detection" and "investigation" of crime, |
| 4 and specifically authorizes crime victims to file |
| CVRA motions in situations where "no prosecution is underway." S |
| Part IV then proposes a specific approach for determining when crime victims' CVRA rights attach. This Part explains that the |
| rights should attach when federal law enforcement or prosecuting agencies have identified a federal crime and a particular |
| victim with sufficient precision that they would send a "target" letter to a criminal defendant in similar circumstances. If |
| prosecutors have sufficient information to provide notice [*63] to a potential criminal of his rights, they can do the same for |
| his victims. This Part also notes that the Department of Justice and state prosecutors already successfully provide rights to |
| victims before charging. This successful experience strongly suggests that providing rights to victims early in the criminal |
| justice process will not be unduly burdensome. |
| I. The Issue of Rights for Crime Victims During Criminal Investigations |
| To consider the question of whether victims should have rights during criminal investigations, some understanding of the |
| underlying purposes of victims' rights enactments will be useful. These enactments are typically designed to make victims |
| participants in all phases of the criminal justice process. & Congress drafted the CVRA, for example, broadly to make crime |
| victims participants in criminal cases. The Jeffrey Epstein sex abuse case demonstrates the importance of victim participation |
| even before charges are filed. |
| A. A BRIEF HISTORY OF CRIME VICTIMS' RIGHTS |
| The crime victims' rights movement has sought to make crime victims important participants in the criminal justice process. |
| The movement began in the wake of the Warren Court revolution, which extended new rights to criminal defendants. |
| 7 With |
| the courts paying increasing attention to criminal defendants, crime victims' advocates began to argue that the victims |
| themselves had been overlooked. & The movement gained great visibility in the early 1980s when President Ronald Reagan |
| appointed the President's Task Force on Victims of Crime. |
| 9 The Task Force published a report concluding that "the criminal |
| justice system has lost an essential balance.... The victims of crime have been transformed into a group oppressively burdened |
| by a system designed to protect them. This oppression must be redressed." 10 |
| The Task Force chronicled how crime victims were treated in all stages of the criminal justice process, from the police |
| investigation through [*64] court proceedings, and ultimately to any parole or other release of the criminal. The Task Force |
| 4 18 U.S.C. § 3771(c)(1). |
| s Id. § 3771(d)(3). |
| 6 See Douglas E. Beloof, Paul G. Cassell & Steven J. Twist, Victims in Criminal Procedure 3-39 (3d ed. 2010) (describing reforms from a |
| historical perspective); see also, e.g., 18 U.S.C. § 3771(a) (2012). |
| ^ See Beloof, Cassell & Twist, supra note 6, at 3-39 (describing the history of victims' rights in American law and the early days of the |
| modern movement). |
| 8 See, e.g., William F. McDonald, Towards a Bicentennial Revolution in Criminal Justice: The Return of the Victim, 13 Am. Crim L. Rev. |
| 649, 651-55 (1976). |
| 9 Exec. Order 12,360, 47 Fed. Reg. 17,975 (Apr. 27, 1982); see also President's Task Force on Victims of Crime, Final Report, at ii (1982). |
| 10 President's Task Force on Victims of Crime, Final Report, supra note 9, at 114. |
| DAVID SCHOEN |
| HOUSE_OVERSIGHT_017606 |
| |
