Epstein Secrets

cccccccccesceessseesseesseesseeeseeessees 73 III. THE JUSTICE DEPARTMENT’S UNPERSUASIVE POSITION .........0....00000- 75 A.

CVRA rights attach when an officer or employee of the Department of Justice or any other department or agency of the United S

ns 71 C. Courts Recognize That Crime Victims Have CVRA Rights Before Charging .........ccccccccccccccccccccccesceessseesseesseesseeeseeessees 73 III. THE JUSTICE DEPARTMENT’S UNPERSUASIVE POSITION .........0....00000- 75 A. OLC’s Misreading of the CVRA’s Definition of “Victim” ........ 76 B. OLC’s Distortion of the CVRA’s

hat potential charges will never be filed. The issue of pre-charging rights has most prominently surfaced in connection with federal cases. In 2010, the Department of Justice’s Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) weighed in on the issue and released a legal opinion arguing that victims of federal crimes have no CVRA rights during

of 31 104 J. Crim. L. & Criminology 59, *75 II. The Justice Department's Unpersuasive Position Despite the CVRA's broad r

cifically directs that "officers and employees of the Department of Justice and other departments and agencies of the United

hat potential charges will never be filed. The issue of pre-charging rights has most prominently surfaced in connection with federal cases. In 2010, the Department of Justice's Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) weighed in on the issue and released a legal opinion arguing that victims of federal crimes have no CVRA rights during

under the Act even before charges are filed. [*73] C. COURTS RECOGNIZE THAT CRIME VICTIMS HAVE CVRA RIGHTS BEFORE CHARGING 4 See Antonin Scalia & Bryan A. Garner, Reading Law: The Interpretation of Legal Texts 56 (2012). % 18 U.S.C. § 3771(a) (2012) (enumerating eight rights); id. § 3771(c)(1) (requiring gove

notice of their rights before charges are filed. The Justice Department's own guidelines provide that a victim must receive

59 F.2d 624, 629-30 (Sth Cir. 1981). 417 Accord United States v. Heaton, 458 F. Supp. 2d 1271, 1272 (D. Utah 2006). 478 Black's Law Dictionary 633 (Bryan A. Garner ed., 8th ed. 2004) (defining the adjective "fair"). 479 See Fed. R. Crim. P. 48 advisory committee's note recounting the history of the 1944 adoptio

Sen. Kyl) ("We authorized an appropriation of to assure ... that moneys would be made available to enhance the victim notification system, managed by the Department of Justice's Office for Victims of Crime, and the resources additionally to develop state-of-the-art systems for notifying crime victims of important states of de