Former federal judge Paul Cassell, who left the bench to become a Utah lawprof and crime victims rights advocate, lost a big case, according to Sentencing Law & PoLicy.  Thank God.

Professor Cassell also criticized the broader implications of the ruling today: “Unfortunately, the Tenth Circuit today has continued the sad legacy in this country of making crime victims’ second-class citizens in the criminal justice process.  The Circuit refused to give crime victims the ordinary appellate review that other litigants receive.”

That, dear lawprof, is because they are NOT litigants.  Forgive me, as I was probably unclear in the last sentence.  Crime victims are not parties.  Crime victims have no role to play in sentencing.  Was that more clear?  I do hope so.

In this particular case, Cassell’s clients, the Antrobuses, sought to speak as victims at the sentence of a guy who sold a gun to another guy who killed their child 8 months later.  The court refused to allow them victim status under the Crime Victims Rights Act, 18 U.S.C. § 3771(d)(3), which brazenly panders to the sympathetic victim and family in order to dissolve the fundamental purpose of separating the criminal from civil legal systems.  Yes, I said it, and I mean it.

It’s that whole rational sentencing scheme that puts the brakes on taking the defendant and cutting him into little pieces and feeding it to pigeons, one of the many potential sentences favored by victims.  We all know too well what thoughts can pass through a victims head, even for petty offenses.  We understand why, and can appreciate that we would all likely have the same thoughts if we are the victims.  This is why they don’t let victims decide the sentence.  We already know they are victims, and that the criminal conduct results in victimization.  That’s why it’s a crime.  That’s why people go to prison for it. 

Without harping on this point, Judge Cassell did some great work on the bench, but this crusade for victims is nuts.  It’s wrong and it’s fundamentally destructive to the criminal justice system.  I’ve posted about this  again and again.  I am not unsympathetic to crime victims.  Not at all.  But this is not the remedy, unless what you really want to do is make pure personal, visceral revenge the sole function of the criminal justice system.  It that’s not your goal, then victims have no place whatsoever in the sentencing scheme.  No matter how politically unacceptable it seems, victims are NOT a party to the criminal justice process.