Proposed resolution would give crime victims new rights

By the time Ginger Lewis came to terms with the sexual abuse she endured from her father, a well-known Tulsa attorney, when she was a child, she felt a sense of betrayal not only from her family but the criminal justice system, as well.

“Just my experience dealing with the criminal justice system, from the very beginning, has been a battle,” said Lewis, 46. “It’s really set up to protect the perpetrators of crime, rather than the victim.”

Lewis joined representatives from Oklahoma’s criminal justice system and state Legislature this week to support House Joint Resolution 1002, also known as Marsy’s Law. The measure is named after a California student who was killed by her exboyfriend in 1983. If passed by lawmakers this session, it would allow voters to decide whether or not to add an amendment to the state constitution ensuring victims of violent crime are given the

same level of constitutional rights as the accused.

HJR 1002 would make it a constitutional requirement to immediately notify crime victims of their rights, all court proceedings involving the crime, and any release of the accused or convicted. It would also require victims be allowed to “be heard in any proceeding involving release, plea, sentencing, disposition, parole and any proceeding during which a right of the victim is at issue.”

Said Lewis, “Crime victims are all too often unintentionally victimized by a lack of the justice system. In most states you’ll get more notice that your utilities are going to be cut off than you will if your rapist is about to be released.”

Lewis' father received a deferred sentence for molesting his daughter from the time she was 11 to the age of 16, and he was able to retain his license to practice law. While a measure like Marsy’s Law likely would not have affected that outcome, Lewis said it would have given her both the knowledge of what her rights are and the legal status of her father.

“If I had run into him at the store I would have felt as blindsided and betrayed as when I was victimized by him,” she said.

The resolution’s author, Rep. Scott Biggs, R-Chickasha, said if passed Marsy’s Law would set a process in motion before charges are filed that currently does not exist. He described it as a kind of Miranda rights for victims, to be given to them as soon as possible so that they are aware of their rights. Biggs said similar laws are in place in five other states.

District Attorney Mike Fields, who represents Canadian, Garfield and Kingfisher counties, sat with Lewis and Biggs on Tuesday at the state Capitol to voice his support for the bill. Fields said in his many years as a prosecutor he too often felt there was more emphasis on the rights of the accused, at the cost of the victim.

“One of the common things that I’ve heard from victims time and time again, and I’m no different from other career prosecutors in this regard, is something to the effect of ‘it doesn’t feel like the criminal justice system is listening to me or cares how I feel,’” Fields said.

While Fields and his colleagues on the District Attorneys Council have victim’s advocates in their respective offices, giving crime victims a clear set of options would not only help them prepare for the harsh realities of the justice system, it would also let them know that their voice is an important one in the process.

“Effectively, at any point in the process they’ll have the right to be heard,” Fields said.

Fields said the proposed measure would also give the victim of a crime an opportunity to bring a civil action against a prosecutor who they feel did not meet their constitutional rights.

“It would give the victim the right to intervene in that case and go before the court and say ‘here is where I feel the district attorney’s office or the prosecutor has failed his or her needs,’ absolutely,” Fields said.

HJR1002 is headed to the House Rules Committee. The 2017 legislative session begins Monday.