Federal Constitutional Amendment

In 1982, for the first time in history and as a result of President Reagan’s Task Force on Victims of Crime, a recommendation was made to amend the federal constitution to include victims' rights. The Task Force in no way intended to diminish the rights afforded to the accused. However, the Task Force reported that “it must be urged with equal vigor that the system has deprived the innocent, the honest, and the helpless of its protection.” The “government must be restrained from trampling the rights of the individual citizen. The victims of crime have been transformed into a group oppressively burdened by a system designed to protect them. This oppression must be redressed.” The Task Force proposed modifications to the Sixth Amendment that included giving victims in every criminal prosecution a right to be present and heard at all critical stages of judicial proceedings.

Historically, the support for a federal constitutional amendment has been bipartisan. Former Presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush supported a federal constitutional amendment to protect victims of crime. A recent as 2015, Representative Trent Franks introduced H.J. Res. 45 to propose a comprehensive victims’ rights amendment to the federal constitution:
https://www.congress.gov/bill/114th-congress/house-joint-resolution/45/text

Resolved by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled (two-thirds of each House concurring therein), That the following article is proposed as an amendment to the Constitution of the United States, which shall be valid to all intents and purposes as part of the Constitution when ratified by the legislatures of three-fourths of the several States:

“Article  —

“ Section 1. The following rights of a crime victim, being capable of protection without denying the constitutional rights of the accused, shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or any State. The crime victim shall have the rights to reasonable notice of, and shall not be excluded from, public proceedings relating to the offense, to be heard at any release, plea, sentencing, or other proceeding involving any right established by this article, to proceedings free from unreasonable delay, to reasonable notice of the release or escape of the accused, to due consideration of the crime victim’s safety, dignity, and privacy, and to restitution. The crime victim or the crime victim's lawful representative has standing to assert and enforce these rights. Nothing in this article provides grounds for a new trial or any claim for damages. Review of the denial of any right established herein, which may include interlocutory relief, shall be subject to the standards of ordinary appellate review.

“ Section 2. For purposes of this article, a crime victim includes any person against whom the criminal offense is committed or who is directly and proximately harmed by the commission of an act, which, if committed by a competent adult, would constitute a crime.

“ Section 3. This article shall be inoperative unless it has been ratified as an amendment to the Constitution by the legislatures of three-fourths of the several States within 14 years after the date of its submission to the States by the Congress. This article shall take effect on the 180th day after the date of its ratification.”

While H.J. Res. 45 did not pass, efforts for a federal constitutional victims’ rights amendment continue. To stay up to date, you can find the National Victims’ Constitutional Amendment Passage page by clicking the following link: http://www.nvcap.org/index.html