Essay Example on Victims of Crime: Rights and Benefits Enshrined in the Constitution

Every year, millions of Americans are victims of crime. The victims of crime have certain rights enshrined in the constitution that entitle them to exclusive benefits and help as a result of a crime. According to Zappala (2010), crime is any behaviour or act that is punishable by a jail sentence, fine, or sometimes both. The accused also have rights in a court of law, and usually, their rights are given priority over those of the victim. In this essay, the first thing to respond to is the issue of why the rights of the accused are given more priority over that of the victim. The second part will be to discuss which right should take priority since the constitution does not mention possible conflicts between the rights of the convicted offender and the rights guaranteed to victims.

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There is a solid reason why the rights of an accused person are given priority over that of the victim in a court of law. A person who is accused of a crime remains innocent until he or she is proven guilty by the jury. It is not the duty of an accused person to provide evidence that proves that he is innocent, but rather the duty of the jury to find evidence and prove that he is guilty. This is known as the presumption of innocence. In our criminal justice system, the presumption of innocence is one of the essential rights as it means many things.

First, the accused does not have to prove his innocence. It is the duty of the prosecutor, who is the government lawyer to convince the jury that indeed the accused person committed the crime (Zappala, 2010). Secondly, the prosecutor must prove that the accused person is guilty as charged beyond a reasonable doubt. The meaning of this is that there should be extremely solid evidence that shows that the accused person committed the crime. If the prosecutor does not table enough evidence at the end of the trial, or if the judge or jury is not convinced beyond a reasonable doubt that the accused committed the said crime, then the accused must remain to be accused and must be found guilty. Lastly, the jury must be fair, and there must be no prejudice against the accused during the proceedings.

It is important to protect the rights of the accused persons so that they will not be treated unfairly on the mere grounds that they have been accused (Green, 2012). The accused persons are citizens who also have their rights, and one of those rights is the right to fair trials. The statistics on wrongly convicted people are worrying, and looking at this, it is key to understanding the essence of prioritizing the rights of the accused. In the United States, there are several men on death rows whose convictions got overturned after new evidence came to light (Spalek, 2016). In most cases, the unfortunate truth is that one is always guilty until they are proven innocent. Denying the accused person their legal rights is a huge step away from what the legal systems were built on, and it would only mean authoritarianism.

The question about whose rights should take priority cannot be answered in a nutshell. There must be a balanced strike between the rights guaranteed to victims and the rights of convicted offenders. While both of them should have their rights served with equity, the best that can be done to an accused person is to go them their right to an impartial, free, and fair trial. The victim, who is the person injured or harmed by the acts of the other, also have particular rights that should be adhered to. There must, therefore, be a balance in the interests, rights, and needs of perpetrators and victims. Nevertheless, there are times when such interests and rights conflict.

The role of victims in criminal proceedings have generally been limited historically to witness status. According to analysis and sentiments by victims' rights advocates and critical legal scholars, they have argued out that the interests, rights, and needs of victims have historically come to the expense of the perpetrators' rights, needs and interests (Wilson, 2014). As a result, victims have suffered from secondary victimization in the adversarial legal proceedings since all the attention and focus have been shifted to the rights of the accused, who have also been portrayed as being vulnerable to judicial biasness.

On such accounts, tend to think that in as much as the rights of the accused are given close attention, the rights of the victim also need to be considered so as to create the stated balance, as that is the only way through the conflict between the two groups can be avoided. Criminal victimization has very severe consequences on the victims, their families, and societies at large, and the rights of such individuals should be recognized, and the government ensure that the laws, policies, and programs reflect the basic principle that every victim ought to be treated with compassion, courtesy, and respect (Wemmers, 2002).

References

Green, B. A. (2012). Gideon's Amici: Why Do Prosecutors So Rarely Defend the Rights of the Accused. Yale LJ, 122, 2336. https://heinonline.org/hol-cgi-bin/get_pdf.cgi?handle=hein.journals/ylr122&section=67

Spalek, B. (2016). Crime victims: Theory, policy and practice. Macmillan International Higher Education. https://www.macmillanihe.com/page/detail/Crime-Victims/?K=9781137505323

Wemmers, J. A. (2002). Restorative justice for victims of crime: A victim-oriented approach to restorative justice. International Review of Victimology, 9(1), 43-59. http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.1019.8823&rep=rep1&type=pdf

Wilson, L. A. (2014). The rights of victims vs the rights of the accused: Striking a balance between the rights of victims and accused persons in the international criminal justice setting. UW Austl. L. Rev., 38, 152. https://heinonline.org/HOL/LandingPage?handle=hein.journals/uwatlw38&div=22&id=&page=

Zappala, S. (2010). The Rights of Victims v. the Rights of the Accused. Journal of International Criminal Justice, 8(1), 137-164. https://academic.oup.com/jicj/article-abstract/8/1/137/821448